Today, some volunteers and staff members at Seva Cafe got together to talk about the Cafe and how it has been running recently, after the renovation and subsequent reopening. Seva Cafe is not a free restaurant, but rather a home. It's a place where guests are served by a loving set of staff and volunteers, all of whom use and create this space to inspire a sense of service, love, and global community within each other and within our guests. (http://www.sevacafe.org/ahmedabad.html)
Those of us that had worked together there before the renovation have all recently been feeling a cumulative sense of tension and impatience in the air that was not there before. Some things have gotten unnecessarily rigid and others have been ignored, just slipping through the cracks, causing stress, and causing us to not be able to create the environment that we want to create for each other and for our guests every night. We want to be able to communicate with each other, to step into Seva Cafe and feel the relief we feel when we step into our own homes after a long day, and to spread the love that we feel for each other with everyone who enters the space without expecting anything in return. We want tranquility, compassion, and love, mixed in with jokes and lightness of mind and heart. So, we got together, and though our training/discussion session was only supposed to last 2 hours, it lasted 4 and we were all able to talk through everything we were feeling and hoping to do.
In this spirit, we started the session with an assignment: to go outside and perform some small act of kindness for someone else. Stepping out of the elevator, we all soon saw that since it was a Sunday and it was the middle of the day (the hottest part of the day), not many people were out doing any kind of work that we could help them with in 10-15 minutes. When I stepped out, I saw trash, so the first thing I thought of doing was walking around the block and collecting trash and maybe seeing if there was someone else along the way that looked like they needed anything I could give them. Instead, I walked by one of the other Seva Cafe volunteers, Nimesh, who had just gotten into a conversation with a street juice cart-walla. The man immediately saw that I had the same Seva Cafe flower inspirational garland on and trash in my hands and invited me over, immediately offering juice to both Nimesh and I (and anyone who has experienced the Gujarati summer sun will know just how much of a blessing one cup of fresh-squeezed juice can be). Since we had left everything in Seva Cafe, we both said we were very sorry that we couldn't accept because we didn't have any money on us. Not even blinking, he ushered us over to his cart, quickly saying no problem, don't even worry about it, it's free, and to please, drink some juice! He immediately showed me where the nearest dustbin was so I could throw away the trash I had gathered. As we sipped our blissfully cold fresh-squeezed orange juice in the heat of the 1:00pm Ahmedabad sun, we asked Dineshbhai about how long he had been working off of the juice cart there, and he said 28 years. We asked about his family, and he told us about his son, Haresh, who he had named his juice cart after, and his wife; he asked us where we were from, and we told him. We thanked him and went back upstairs with big smiles on our faces. Ever since then, I've been thinking about how meaningful a small interaction like this can be--I had set out to try to do something good for someone else, and instead got to be on the receiving end of another's pure, open heart. One simple cup of juice had the power to brighten my entire day, inspired me to smile at everyone I saw on the street, and gave me a memory I'm sure to think of the next time I get juice from any juice cart-walla.
After our session was over a few hours later, Nimesh and I went across the street and got some ice cream to give to Dineshbhai, who was so surprised and pleased that he grinned from ear to ear, repeating "you shouldn't have!" We told him to make sure he or his son or both come to visit us at Seva Cafe tomorrow night at 7pm, and he promised to do so.
Today was just another day that I saw the true power that those who believe in "love all, serve all" have to change others' lives. What could be stronger than a relationship formed through love and without any expectation of reciprocation? And what could be better, bring me more happiness, than being able to put the same smile that was put on my face by Dineshbhai on someone else's face?
Tomorrow will be the first day that we put into action everything we discussed today about the environment we want Seva Cafe to have. I'm so looking forward to being able to share the kindness and compassion that Dineshbhai shared with me and Nimesh with him and all of the rest of our guests.
