Navda Bhakti

Next week in Bal/Balika one there is a presentation on The Importance of Bhakti. There are some great ideas in the presentation to get group 1 kids to work through how to define and categorize the nine different types of bhakti. There is an activity where the kids match the different satsang related activities they do throughout the week with a different type of bhakti. In order to preface that and to create a bit of excitement we are planning on doing the following.

Start with a concentrated focus on the number 9. We really want to drive home the point of navda bhakti - meaning that there are nine types of bhakti. Our Bal 1 currently has many shishu graduates who have not been introduced to this idea, so we really want to drive home this simple fact: There are nine types fo bhakti. To that end we are going to start by showing one of these videos related to the number 9 and then immediately tie that back to the our simple take away: There are nine types of bhakti. We are going to request the sanchalaks to choose an appropriate  video from the list. Here is one example.

List of videos

Now that everyone is focused on the number 9. We will write 1-9 on the whiteboard and to appeal to some of the older Bal 1 kids we will do a demo on the number nine finger multiplication trick. This we will do as an interactive demo but here is a video describing it.

As the balalks/baliaks would say the entire sabha should now be vibing on the number 9. We will then proceed to spell out each of the nine types of bhakti, using the repetition on the total being nine types, using the multiplication trick to enumerate each type, then defining each type.  If time permits we may also try and make a mnemonic to try and remember each type.

We will then go over the prasangs in the presentation and ask which type of bhakti was being illustrated. Finally we will end with the bhakti matching game described in the beginning.

Melissa Marshall: Talk Nerdy to Me

Several months ago, we had the privilege of attending a workshop ran by Melissa Marshall. She was previously involved in technical communication research at Penn State University but now works as a consultant to help scientists better deliver presentations.

While we may not be traditional scientists, her insights can readily be applied to the science of sabha. She mirrored many of the insights we have expressed since this blog's inception. Here's two concepts she addressed worth considering before the next karyakar meeting.

Problem: We start preparing presentations using Powerpoint.

She compared giving a presentation to guiding individuals up a mountain. As a trail guide, it's our job to identify the salient landmarks en route to the peak. Stopping at every grass, shrub, and rock drains our audience before they reach the peak. Similarly, we waste the audience's attention when we start with slides and lose sight of what's important by cramming details, slide after slide. 

Solution: Start with idea mapping.

• Start with identifying the peak (main idea). (Unsurprisingly, Made to Stick was listed on her references list.)
• Identify 2-4 points that can help you build up to the main idea. 

• Determine the details that should fit underneath each point.
• Review your outline with someone else to make sure your ideas flow. 
• Now, proceed to Powerpoint.

Problem: Bulleted lists pervade slides.

She points out in her TED Talk, "Have you ever wondered why they're called bullet points? What do bullets do? Bullets kill, and they will kill your presentation."

In an average talk with text-heavy slides, most individuals filter information in one of three ways.

• Read slides but ignore speaker 
• Listen to speaker but ignore slides 
• Tennis between speaker and slides 

Solution:  People learn much more deeply from words and relevant images than from words alone. 

• Complement bullet points with graphics. (Here's an example).
• The Noun Project offers many free icons to use for presentations.

Agree or disagree, please let us know how insightful you found these points.

Prasangs of Mahant Swami Maharaj

In this week's kishore-kishori sabha, we will be highlighting the life of our guru, Mahant Swami Maharaj, with prasangs. With 35 minutes allotted, it may appear difficult to connect his 85-year lifetime with ours, so we need to emphasize relevance. At NC18, delegates took the time to put together a life map highlighting milestones in their life.  

One way to kick off sabha is by asking the audience, "Imagine we had the seva of drafting Mahant Swami Maharaj's life map. From birth, what 9 events would he want to feature from his life through the age of 30?" 

Allow them time to brainstorm independently before putting together the events.

To explain why we picked this age, Chip and Dan Heath cite a study in their latest book, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, which clarifies why we picked this age range. 

In a study by Dorthe Berntsen and David Rubin, respondents were prompted to think about the life of a baby who had just been born and to predict what would be “the most important events that are likely to take place in this infant’s life."

1. Begin school 
2. College 
3. Marriage 
4. Parents' death 
5. Others' death 
6. Retirement 
7. Leave home
8. First job

It’s striking that 4 out of the 8 most important events all happen during a relatively narrow window of time: roughly age 15 to 30. 

Similarly, if you ask older people about their most vivid memories, research shows, they tend to be drawn disproportionately from this same period, roughly ages 15 to 30. Psychologists call this phenomenon the “reminiscence bump.” Why does a 15-year period in our lives—which is not even 20% of a typical life span—dominate our memories? “The key to the reminiscence bump is novelty,” said Claudia Hammond in her book Time Warped. “The reason we remember our youth so well is that it is a . . . time for first... first jobs, first travel without parents, first experience of living away from home, the first time we get much real choice over the way we spend our days.”

For Swamishri, let's look at his firsts. We highly recommend this book in preparation for this weekend, particularly the first section on his life as a balak, a kishore, and a yuvak. Here is our sample of 10 major events from birth to age 30.

1. 9/13/1933: birthday
2. 1934: first encountered Shastriji Maharaj who named him 'Keshav' [0.5] 
3. 1946: placed first in the annual exam and received a book as a prize [12]
4. 1951: encountered Yogiji Maharaj & Pramukh Swami Maharaj [17]
5. 1951: received first kanthi at the hands of Yogiji Maharaj [17]
6. 1952: spent time in Gondal with Yogiji Maharaj and acknowledged his guru's wish for him to become a sadhu after graduating college [18]
7. 1952-1954: pursued Bachelor's in Agriculture as it allowed him availability to spend time with his guru [18-20]
8. 1957: received parshadi diksha [24]
9. 1960: received diksha again [27]
10. 5/11/1961: received bhagwati diksha [27]

See what ideas the audience comes up with, and let's share with them the experiences our guru had in his life.

Yogiji Maharaj’s Love for Devotees

This week, we look at Yogiji Maharaj's love for his devotees. On first glance, it might be harder to create excitement for this topic, it is definitely possible through maximizing our storytelling skills.

Step 1: Synthesize the simple statement. Feel free to brainstorm or use some of the ones taken from the syllabus.

• Yogiji Maharaj loved his devotees.
• Yogiji Maharaj's was a servant of servants (das na das).
• Yogiji Maharaj's love inspired others.

Step 2: Start with the shakeup. 

• Start off sabha by asking the audience to identify this kishore who we already know. Framing this prasang pre-emptively encourages the audience to pay attention in hopes of identifying the individual. If the majority of your audience may have already read this book, feel free to substitute this prasang with Pujya Viveksagar Swami & Pujya Doctor Swami from below.
• Mahant Swami Maharaj: An Epitome of Saintliness: In 1951, Yogiji Maharaj visited the home of one family. Their 18-year old son didn't find religion or sadhus appealing - to the point where he would run out of the house the moment he knew Yogiji Maharaj entered their home. Once as he was leaving the home, he encountered Yogiji Maharaj who lovingly held out his hand and asked affectionately, “Guru, where are you going? Come back upstairs.” He loving places a kanthi around his neck, but he immediately tears it off with the beads flying everywhere. We can only wonder what future this kishore will have in Satsang! A couple of days later, Yogiji Maharaj was departing. En route to the the railway station, he saw this kishore sitting on the parapet of the village pond with his friends. Yogiji Maharaj hailed him affectionately, so the kishore reluctantly came to Yogiji Maharaj, wondering what would he say now! However, to his surprise, Yogiji Maharaj humbly joined his palms and smilingly said, “Now I am going. Forgive me for my mistakes.” And so saying, Yogiji Maharaj blessed him with his signature pat and walked away hurriedly. 
• See if anyone can identify this kishore. We all know this kishore. He is our guru, Mahant Swami Maharaj.
• Through prasangs like these, we will learn about the power of Yogiji Maharaj's love.

Step 3: Support the simple statement with stories filled with details (concrete) and validity (concrete). Here, we took prasangs to support the simple statement, "Yogiji Maharaj loved his devotees."

• Kiritbhai: Yogiji Maharaj's love reminded Kiritbhai of his parents given the care and attention he took the smallest things.
• Natvarbhai Shukla of Jhadeshwar: Yogiji Maharaj loved his devotees enough to acknowledge the time they spent. 
• Theplas for Third Class [Nilkanth, March 2012]: One kishore in college in Mumbai decided to spend five days with Yogiji Maharaj in Atladra. Adhering to Yogiji Maharaj’s wishes, on his way to Atladra, he traveled in the 3rd class compartment on the train. However, his return ticket was booked for the 1st class compartment – in which there was air conditioning, food, & comfort. After the five days were complete, he went to Yogiji Maharaj and told him he was leaving. Yogiji Maharaj asked in which train he was going, but he tried to avoid the question. Yogiji Maharaj said that he couldn’t let him buy the ticket and that the Sanstha would pay for the ticket. Yogiji Maharaj told a haribhakt to buy a 3rd class ticket for him, as he was a student and probably didn’t have the money. Yogiji Maharaj also instructed that haribhakt to ensure he got dropped right onto the train to avoid getting lost. In private, this kishore told the haribhakt that there was no point buying the ticket because he had money and would buy it himself. The haribhakt then told him that it was Yogiji Maharaj’s agna, so he could not disregard it. The next morning, Yogiji Maharaj woke up at 4:00 am, made fresh theplas, and a package for him. He initially became embarrassed because he would have to carry the package onto the 1st class compartment of the train, where there would already be food. With this in mind, he decided that, on his way to the train station, he would give the package to some homeless person. Additionally, he decided that after getting into the cart and leaving the mandir, he would tell the haribhakt to step out. As the cart left the mandir, Yogiji Maharaj made sure the kishore got on to the cart. When the cart was about to make a final turn, the kishore looked back to get one last darshan of the gate of Atladra mandir, and his heart skipped a beat. He saw Yogiji Maharaj standing at the gate and watching the cart make its last turn. That moment changed everything. He decided that he would sit in the 3rd class compartment and eat the theplas that Yogiji Maharaj made. We all know this kishore as Pujya Viveksagar Swami, and the haribhakt as Pujya Doctor Swami. Both can personally recall how Yogiji Maharaj loved his devotees.

Yogiji Maharaj's love for all inspired the start of Sunday sabha, so let's make the most of our time in sabha this week.

Go To Move: Follow the Crowd

Dev, a Bal Sabha Sanchalak and Sabhaologist shares a go to move that did not go as planned either in Kishore Mandal or Bal Mandal, but still worked to drive home his overall message. He writes the following:

This week in Bal 1, our theme for the Sabha was simplicity. We played a game of Follow the Crowd in the beginning to show simplicity among our lives. This activity was played in Kishore sabha (K1) and did not go as expected (it was still unexpected but the presenter had to maneuver on his feet to make it fit the simple). We thought it would be a great activity for Bal Sabha (B1) and decided to try it out there as well. Here is what we sent in our sabha preview and review (combined into one post).

Simple: Simplicity is key in happiness.

Unexpected/Go To Move: Follow the Crowd.

Follow the Crowd is a game which will show who follows the crowd or who can stay away from the influence of fellow balaks/balikas.

Objective:  Sway a few balaks away from the right answer to show that we can all get influenced by others.

Supplies/Equipment:

­   Whiteboard

­   Markers

How to Play:

• Before sabha, when MC is talking or as soon as sabha starts, take one balak/balika in the hallway or away from the other balaks where he/she can’t hear what the presenter has to say.
• Talk to the balak and distract him from what’s going on inside of the sabha, making sure that he/she can’t hear the presenter.
• While the balak/balika is outside, tell the rest of the sabha to say the wrong answer, and not tell the balak/balika that was outside what is going on. 
• For example, draw a big box and a small box on the board. Tell the balaks/balikas to say the wrong answer. If the presenter asks which box is bigger, everyone must point to the box that is smaller.
• The balak/balika will not know what is going on and will say that everyone else is wrong. This will show that he is not influenced by the crowd and strongly believes in his answer.
• What is expected is for the balak/balika to go along with everyone and say the wrong answer.

Outcome:

• When we played the game in Kishore Sabha, the game did not work as the Kishore that was picked went against everyone’s saying. He was a fellow Bal Karyakar and, so we decided to try the same game in Bal Sabha.
• When the MC was talking, a balak was taken out and “talked to”.  The other Bal Karyakar explained to the rest of the sabha to say the wrong answer.
• As soon as they were ready, the balak was brought inside. Even though everyone was told not to tell the balak, one of the balaks told him to say the wrong answer. 
• This game did work in a way but did not go as planned since the balak already knew what was going on and said the wrong answer like everyone else.

Relation to Simple:

• The simple of the sabha was that simplicity is key in happiness.
• In life, we tend to go with everyone else and fall into the trap of wanting to get everything that everyone else has.
• In this game the balak/balika had a choice of going with everyone or keeping firm in his belief of the right answer.
• In our game, the balak went along with everyone because he knew about what was told to the rest of the balaks.
• In Kishore Sabha, the other Bal Karyakar went against what the rest were saying.
• While everyone else is getting new toys, games, etc. we must be the one who stays simple in our lives. We must stay away from the influence of other balaks/ balikas.
• We must live a simple life by staying away from what everyone else wants. Only keeping what we truly need will lead us to happiness.

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In general this is a great unexpected activity that makes the point of that we all can be influenced by our peers (follow the crowd).  It may not go exactly as planned, but it will still bring home the point, just be prepared to think on your feet.  When we tried it in Kishore Sabha the kishore simply refused to be influenced. Kudos to him. We then used this as a counter example - he was like fire and not water as Yogi Bapa used to say. He stayed true to being simple. In Bal 1 our execution was off. We took one balak out of the room but when he came back in the rest of the balaks told him what we were about to do so the activity turned out to be a bit pointless. We salvaged it by asking the balaks to image if it had gone as planned - what would have happened? This game might work better in groups 2 and 3 since the older balaks (hopefully) won’t tell the one balak. Let us know how it works out for you.

Beyond SUS

Many sabha-ologist have asked what comes after SUS. This is an excellent question since it implies a truth that many sabha-ologist have not really contemplated. SUS is just the starting point. (Gasp!) One of the next step in crafting a great talk is to refine what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. This will require deliberate practice which is a fancy way of saying giving lots of talks and getting lots of feedback (a sabha-ologists version of a good time). There are many excellent speakers who after their SUS write down each word they are going to say line by line to hone their presentation. Evan Puschak (the Nerdwriter) has an excellent example of crafting a message (hat tip Jarvikbhai) by deconstructing a Louis C K joke.

You know, more than anything else I think I’m obsessed with articulation, with the magic of putting things just the right way. There are 207 words in this joke and not a single one is wasted. They’re used either in meaning or in rhythm to contribute to the overall effect, an effect that lets us see the world from a different angle, and more importantly, makes us laugh.

It is this idea of articulation that SUS attempts quantify. SUS is just one of many methods to do this. We don't need SUS to make a great talk, but we need something. Using SUS is infinitely better than using nothing at all. After SUS we need to sharpen the saw. One method is to wordsmith in the manner that Louis CK does with his material - looking at every word we are about to say and evaluating if there is a more concise and impactful way of articulating our thoughts. Put another way: is there a better way to say our story to convey our simple message. We may not be able to script every word, but let's start next week by looking at one story.

Make the Kids Write - a new kind of unexpected.

Sahilbhai a first time presenter in Bal 1 and a very ardent Sabha-ologist came up with a unique unexpected (spoiler alert: it was not a video) to engage the Balaks. He wrote the following thoughtful analysis of his talk and how in the future he would improve. A great many good idea here for all of us to implement.

In preparing for my Bal 1 talk centered on the prasang of Shukanand Swami I came up with the following Simple / Unexpected / Story paradigm.

Simple

When we do seva our main goal should be to make Maharaj and Swami happy.I would have the kids repeat this several times to make sure they remembered it. This really worked as some of the kids were said this in their own words while they were eating dinner.

Unexpected

I had the balaks undergo a writing exercise in order to help them understand the difficulty of Shukanand Swami’s seva as Maharaj’s Secretary. Each balak had a blank piece of paper and a pencil. I would say five sentences and have them write it down word for word to the best of their ability. Then I would ask the balaks for feedback on they performed. There was only one balak who was able to get around 90% of what I said which was 40% higher than the second highest. I asked him why he did so well and he told me that he has a teacher who teaches at a fast pace. I related this to Shukanand Swami’s proficiency in his seva because before Shukanand Swami became a sadhu he was a merchant who handled the accounts of land and he was highly educated. Similar to the balak who performed well due to his experience with his teacher in school, Shukanand Swami was highly adept at writing long accounts due to his knowledge of linguistics he was able to handle the rigors of being Maharaj’s Secretary.

After receiving the feedback from the balaks, I immediately told them to flip over their paper and be ready for the second part of the exercise. Similar to the first part, I would say five sentences (different sentences) and have write them down word for word. After completing the exercise, I initiated another feedback interval to ask how they felt now compared to the first part. Many of the balaks improved from their performance on the first part because they kept a positive attitude even though they might have gotten less than 10% accuracy (accuracy is evaluated by how many words a balak was able write down which correlated with what I had spoken in the five sentences) on the first part. The balaks that had done worse than before or did not improve had a negative attitude which affected their performance. Because of the fact they were unable to get a 100% accuracy on the first try, they felt miserable. 

I used this data to inform the balaks on how this exercise resembles seva. When we do seva our main goal should be to make Maharaj and Swami happy. However, sometimes events happen that are out of our control. Those events must be seen as Maharaj’s ichchha (His doing) to test us. If we become depressed and quit we will never achieve the goal we set out which was to earn Maharaj and Swami’s happiness (rajipo). Therefore, if we remain sthitpragya (stable minded) we are able to analyze what happened (antardrishti) to help us persevere through the unsuccessful attempt in order to continue our goal to achieve Maharaj and Swami’s happiness.

Stories

I told the balaks about Shukanand Swami’s seva and the magnitude of difficulty he had to go through. I began with an overview of what it meant being Maharaj’s secretary. As the secretary, Shukanand Swami would create and maintain accounts of Maharaj’s discourses which were later compiled into major religious texts (Vachanamrut). Maharaj always tested his devotees in order for them to become ekantik (perfect devotee). The same was applied to Shukanand Swami by how he was pressured to write 14 page long accounts and end up having to revise them late into the night (this displayed the amount of meticulous perfection Shukanand Swami emphasized in doing seva). When he would submit his seva to Maharaj as a form of bhakti, Maharaj would test him being tearing up the papers and throwing them on the ground. Nityanand Swami asked Shukanand Swami if he experience a feeling of frustration and Shukanand Swami replied by saying “I had written it just to please Maharaj and Maharaj pleased himself by tearing up the pages”. This quote best illustrated how we should perform our seva which is to earn Maharaj and Swami’s happiness and remain stable minded like Shukanand Swami. As a result, Maharaj appreciated Shukanand Swami so much that he would refer to him during discourses on seva.

In order to continue my emphasis on when we do seva our main goal should be to make Maharaj and Swami happy as well as the mahima of Maharaj's ichchha in our seva, I used the London Mandir prasang. It was Yogi Bapa's agna to have a Mandir in every continent. So to fulfill this agna, there was an area of land originally permitted by the urban planners in the city to be used in the construction of the Mandir in London.  Unfortunately, some problems occurred and the land was no longer permitted for construction. The devotees did their best to win a case for permission to construct the Mandir but there was no success in obtaining the land. Due the lost efforts, the devotees lost hope in the cause and quit. However, Pramukh Swami Maharaj had the sthitaprajna to remain focused on fulfilling Yogi Bapa’s agna and inspired the devotees to remain focused on the cause as well. As a result, a new area of land was found to construct the Mandir. Today there is a beautiful Mandir in London which can be seen as a symbol of seva that was done to earn the happiness of Maharaj and Swami. 

What went well:

• The exercise was something challenging and forced the balaks to think better than they would've if I showed them a video.

• I made them say my simple in order for it to stick in their head. I would say “what should we think when we do seva” and then they would reply “to make Maharaj and Swami happy”. I did the same thing with how being stable minded is important.

• When I talked I didn't use any advanced Satsang vocabulary rather I utilized the words happiness, stable minded, and desire. This helped them remain interested because they knew what I was saying.

• I used a lot of gestures (shout out to Aksharbhai) when I spoke to make them interested.
• Because it was my first time, I made them feel comfortable talking to me by joking around before sabha (I did the “lawn mower” backwards and deliberately fell to make them laugh and a bunch of other goofy stuff). I believe this is a great thing to do if someone is presenting for the first time in front of balaks (especially if your height is intimidating to them).



What I could improve:

• Don’t forget to do Jai Naad (shaking my head in disappointment as I type this).

• I should have paced myself because there were other things that I planned to do during my presentation but failed to do so because mentally I was going too fast. As a result, there were some flaws in conveying the exercise's relationship to Shukanand Swami’s seva (I should’ve talked to a balak privately telling them I’ll tear up his paper as part of the exercise).

• I wasn’t able to successfully transition into my story which made some of the balaks bored listening to it. As a result, some of them might forget the name Shukanand Swami. This is a major problem for me which is storytelling. I should’ve told them to imagine the scenario by describing what it was like during Maharaj's time (no microphone, cramped fingers from writing, no pencils so no eraser, revisions that could keep Shukanand Swami awake late into the night without anything but a candle, end up having the papers torn up, going straight into another long discourse while being sleep deprived, and much more to help the balaks see the story more clearly). Shout out to Tusharbhai for the storytelling advice.

• Next time no pencils so they cannot erase (Shukanand Swami did not have an eraser).

• Tell the balaks before the exercise to try their best and not stop to ask questions (which ended up consuming time).

•  Have more than enough materials to prevent wasting time in search of spare pencils, paper, etc. 


How NOT to ruin your SUS

A fellow sabha-ologist and Bal Presenter - Jarvikbhai sent us the following observation.

How many of us have started our presentations with a question? I certainly have and this blog post is an instant example. Questions are a tempting tool to make things interactive. A quick and easy unexpected - maybe a way to gather consensus on a specific topic we want to talk about.  I recently utilized asking a question to start my Bal Mandal presentation trying to make things interactive. While it may work for a blog post (since the question is rhetorical) I found it isn’t as effective when doing a presentation, especially for Bal Mandal. I lost all command presence after asking the question since the sabha devolved quickly into a free for all. I did not want to crush enthusiasm or shout at the kids to pay attention (because they were paying attention they just were not behaving). So I weathered the storm, but it took a great deal of momentum out of my talk. As a presenter, we want our audience to pay attention from the beginning.

Following our Simple-Unexpected-Stories paradigm, we usually start our presentations with an unexpected to grab attention. It does not have to be a video and in fact if we start every talk that way it would not be very unexpected. I spoke to the sanchalaks and they confirmed that the kids had not seen a video in a few weeks. My simple take home message was “We should follow Yogi Bapa's example and fill our free time with devotion.” So I found the following video to grab attention.

The video is fast paced and just under about a minute long - perfect to entice the audience (balaks for my case) and prove the point that we spend a considerable amount of time doing unnecessary things which wouldn’t help us in the long run. Thus, we should use that free time to do different bhakti/seva for Bhagwan. I felt really good about starting in this manner and then integrating this idea to all the prasangs of Yogi Bapa.

However I started with a question asking the Balaks what they do during their summer time. I was expecting answers that weren’t  bhakti/seva related so that I can have balaks realize the amount of time we spend doing unnecessary things by showing the video next. In theory the plan would work but reality disagreed. As soon as I asked the question, all the balaks started yelling different things which is opposite of what I expected. I lost all command presence. I did not want to yell to get them to quiet down. I wanted to feed their enthusiasm.  If I had started with the video, it would have grabbed their attention much sooner and would actually care to listen to the following things I had to say.

So are there no real ways of using questions in your presentations, absolutely not! Virenbhai’s blog post is great example of how to incorporate a question at the beginning of a talk. Afterwards I thought of the following ideas that I may try in the future. Bring a ball or a throwable object. We could set conditions that whoever has a throwable object can speak. We could ask the same balak who has that object to pass it to another balak for them to speak. That way the commotion is reduced drastically.  

Satyakam's Test

Back in April, we kicked off the Small Hands, Big Hearts Project with Shaluk and the tussle his mind faced with the melon, and tomorrow, we will revisit Satyakam's test and how he earned brahmvidya.

With tomorrow's sabha ghosti, let's use the 15 minutes in a targeted way to reinvigorate others to this elusive seva. Here are some ways to focus the discussion and keep the momentum going.

Know your audience: Survey your audience to see exactly what individuals are doing and frame questions accordingly.

• If commitment is an issue, the discussion should focus on identifying opportunities using the example prasang as a guide.
• Chaturmas just concluded, and if an individual gave up something for four months, there's a good chance s/he can solidify it as their sacrifice to this project
• If commitment has been made, the discussion should focus on how to keep motivation afloat.
• If Satyakam could give you 1 piece of advice, what would he say?
• Imagine Satyakam participating in this project alongside us. From the prasang, how would he go about staying consistent with his sacrifice?

Do sampark: Let's not forget about those who may not be attending sabha tomorrow. Identifying ways they can sacrifice can serve as an opportunity to spark a conversation and do sampark.

Leverage your karyakars: Ask parents coordinators to communicate with parents of kishores/kishoris who cannot identify a niyam or may feel shy approaching their parents. 

Create a rally point: Graphically display your mandal's contribution in an area where they can see, like the sabha hall.

Data Science in Bal 1!

Viren - a bal karyakar and experienced Sabhaologist shares a great way to modify the un-unexpected of asking every kid a question.

During my preview for my Bal 1 talk, I said that I would get everyone’s attention by asking them who they loved the most and then comparing that to Bapa and using that to start my talk. The idea I wanted to convey was that Swamishri’s love for us is unconditional. I know from past experience that just asking Bal 1 an open ended question can lead to lots of talking. So what better way to captivate kids’ attention than doing data science? The best way is to see who everyone loves the most was to create a bar graph. Each balak was given the question “Who do you love the most?”. When every balak answered, we tallied for either mom, dad, brother, sister or grandparents. After tallying up each balak’s response, we saw that most balaks love their dads the most because they spend more time with them. However, then it was easy to connect this to how Swamishri loves us unconditionally though the balaks said they love their dads. If we graph Swamishri’s love for us, it would be impossible to graph. This idea of graphing easily caught all the balak’s attention and it was an awesome way to see Swamishri’s love is unconditional.

Connecting with Shaluk

With this upcoming weekend, we kick off a momentous project that will help fulfill one of Swamishri's very own sankalps, Akshardham North America.

To aid in our efforts of pitching this project, several karyakars went through the presentation and have created a video highlighting the important manan points. This video is not meant to replace the presentation but just as a guide to aid us in our preparation, especially since most of us are coming off Swaminarayan Jayanti.

As noted in the video, the idea behind a powerful prasang rests in how we connect the details with the concept at hand, and this Sunday's topic proves no different as we hope to generate energy and excitement.

Link:  https://vimeo.com/163498447
Password:  Akshardham2020

15 Things to do before a Presentation

"The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public." —George Jessel

It is uncanny how public speaking can make almost anyone feel uncomfortable. In the past we have explored how preparation (Simple, Unexpected, Story) can make a world of difference. However even the most confident of speakers can feel butterflies before a talk - even a talk they have given hundreds of times. The key is to harness these feelings and make the butterflies work for us. The following Business Insider article looks at 15 things we can do to make that happen. The entire article is worth a read. We wanted to touch on a few of the points. 

Remember and live up to the 3 Audience Truths

• "This audience believes I am the expert."  This is especially true in Balika and Bal Mandal. However even in Kishori/Kishore/Yuva Mandal this can apply. You have read the syllabus, done your home work (SUS). So at the very least, the material is fresh for you. You are also the expert in your opinion and point of view.
• "They want me to succeed." Nobody wants a boring sabha. Everybody wants you to do well because that means they are engaging in something of value. Samp is not relegated to basketball and team building activities. Samp is also rooting for you to give an amazing talk. Even the apathetic of audiences will be happy if your talk goes well.
• "They don't know what I'm going to say." If you forget a prasang or don't say everything exactly as you planned - nobody will know. (Yes the karyakars that previewed your talk will know, but they REALLY want you to do a great talk - it's their seva - so they will be the ones who are most forgiving).

Take several deep belly breathe
Pranayam - it works.

Practice the first (few) minutes of your talk
Nerves tend to dissipate as our talk goes on. If we are going to choke it is going to be right at the beginning (I once messed up the Jai Naad when giving a talk). If we nail the first five minutes - the rest of the talk should follow with flow.

Smile

We never believed this one until we tried it. Smiling relaxes us when we are most stressed. Guy Kawasaki has written a whole book about it, which expounded the idea that true (duchenne) smile is indicated by crows feet at the side of the eyes. More recently Kraft and Pressman replicated an earlier study showing that forces smiling reduces stress. (They made subjects bite chopsticks whereas the previous study had them bite pencils).