Prosperity and Expansion in the Mexico Sangat
S.S. Gurudev Singh Khalsa
Mexico City, Mexico
As I write these words the question comes to mind: What is prosperity in the world of chaos? Our country has followed a path similar to a falling burning comet. Imagine waking up one day and as you sit to drink your first cup of Yogi Tea and turn on Good Morning America, you are informed that your estate is a third of what it was before you went to bed. Twenty seven seconds later your adrenaline starts warming up. The next news flash takes your adrenaline close to the boiling point when you find out that in addition to your net loss, all prices and taxes have gone the way of the space shuttle, launched up into the unknown universe. When you sit down in the sofa to grasp for what you certainly believe is your last breath, you have a vision with your third eye of the giant collision between the up going shuttle and the down coming comet; this explosion can ruin your day. This has been our economic history, but fortunately our 3HO organizational history has not followed this cosmic boom cycle of death and redeath. We have managed to survive, and, better still, to prosper.
How can we prosper? I can assure you that Guru Ram Das has a hand in it, and it has manifested through developing a strong organized networked sangat. It took us about 14 years to take our kundalini from our first three chakras and open our fourth chakra. This happened when we got together through the insistence of the Siri Singh Sahib, and figured that either we all worked in an organized and disciplined way or our history would resemble the journey into the nether regions of the Mexican peso.
The people committed to the mission started by developing a democratic process through a board of directors. The process went beyond the ego that dominated the meetings of the past and we began to focus and stick to a goal. We met every month, regardless of personal excuses. This meant traveling 500 miles for some of us, but we kept the discipline and the focus. It took years to start the team work approach as opposed to ego controlled groups. We learned to trust the democratic process. Growing up takes time and it happens if you keep trying, never forgetting that quitting or getting mad is just a step in the wrong direction. What we discovered was that there is a space for everyone and that the amount of work to be done can take us several generations into the future. Clarifying and perceiving the magnitude of our mission helped us to center our attention in serving our community.
Committees sprung up and the process started expanding when we included in the meetings every member of the sangat that was interested in serving the mission. People interested in leading were put in charge of specific events or projects and everybody else had to serve that project. The creativity and eagerness of people manifested and soon we had a bundle of new projects. We recognized that the source of our growth would be by having more teachers, so some or our people developed our Kundalini Yoga Teachers Training Program that started as a one year program. For the first three years the teacher training course only had one location in Mexico City. This year we are expanding the program to four Mexican cities all over the country. After three years of work we have certified more than 100 yoga teachers.
When you are sitting in a foreign country with English as your second language, you discover that language can be a tremendous barrier. So the decision was made to translate and publish 3HO material based on the Siri Singh Sahib's teachings. To this date we have translated into Spanish and published 15 books and more are on the way. This paved the way for our organization to participate in the International Book Fair of Guadalajara and has opened dozens of doors to us. We organized the Peace Prayer Day at the fair and managed to invite and unite all the major religions in one beautiful ecumenical ceremony with 6,000 people attending and, best of all, with the Siri Singh Sahib as our guest of honor. For this to happen, we formed (and still have) a special committee dedicated only to inter religious public relations.
Dharma was also high in our priority list and we started the tradition of Guru Ram Das’ Birthday. Every October for the past three years we have had a small solstice like event in an old Hacienda near Mexico City. We've had 150 people staying for three days and celebrating the greatness of Guru Ram Das, with the highlight of having the blessing of classic Kirtan played by Indian Ragis. This year we organized a full fledged concert in a Mexico City Symphony Concert Hall to get funds for the building of our Gurdwara. Last Baisakhi we started the Baisakhi Celebration festival in Mexico City that has also proven to be a very inspirational event.
This teamwork approach has permitted us to multiply our capacity. This point is made clear by the amount of people that now participate with us by attending courses and helping us out in the organization, too. Our last Tantric Yoga course in Mexico City had an attendance of 250 people. The Tantric course in Guadalajara had close to 200. Last year we were able to inspire 100 Mexicans to attend summer solstice.
And last but not least, I must tell this story: Last December we invited the Siri Singh Sahib to come and rest in Mexico, planning his visit for April. However, he decided to come in the middle of January. Suddenly, with a two week notice, we had to organize a full course, several high political appointments, an inter religious event, an especially large Gurdwara and a four day vacation for him in Acapulco, complete with a detailed entertainment schedule. (All this in the middle of the worst economic depression this country has seen.) We voted for the head coordinator in each different area or event and had a sub coordinator with past experience in that area with a corp of volunteers under his command. Each coordinator was totally responsible in organizing his/her area and no one overlapped the responsibilities of another area. There were constant meetings with the other leaders and the head coordinator so that everybody was in touch with everything. Anybody who wanted to volunteer was invited to the meetings so they could choose the seva that most interested them. We probably had more than 150 people helping out in big and small jobs, from getting the ambassador's appointment to lining up the shoes at the Gurdwara door!
All this resulted in a total success for the Siri Singh Sahib's visit. Not only did each event flow smoothly into the next one, but we had 400 people at the course, we got appointments with high Mexican officials and the American ambassador, we organized a dinner with the Mexican Intereligious council, had a Gurdwara with almost 400 people and, finally, we managed to have the Siri Singh Sahib rest in Acapulco, not only for 4 days, but for 6 !
All these goals have been reached by the Grace of the Guru manifested though the inspiration of dozens of organized people committed to serving the teachings of the Siri Singh Sahib and Guru Ram Das. We are looking forward to the future as we start expanding our community into all of Latin America. The economy might explode, but we have decided that not even this obstacle is an excuse for not reaching the stars: Prosperity is found in the Guru's Path! SAT NAM.