From: baveja@acsu.buffalo.edu (Alok Baveja)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,alt.activism
Subject: A Gift of Love ---- A Gurukul Article
Date: 6 Oct 92 20:15:05 GMT
Organization: UB


Hello,

We are Gurukul, a student family that works with the aim
of promoting non-formal education among rural children and low-cost housing
schemes in India.  Gurukul was started at SUNY, Buffalo in 1989, and many
Indian students are actively involved in its projects. Recently, a new
chapter of Gurukul has been established at Carnegie-Mellon University.

The object of this posting is to get more people interested in our
activities and to broaden our base. We are forming a mailing list of people
interested in this work, so that we will be able to reach like-minded people
more effectively. This mailing list will also facilitate the input of ideas
for the organisation to work with. So we ask you to read through the following
article, and if it strikes a chord in you, do write back to us via e-mail.


                          * * * * * * * * * * * *
                          *  A  Gift  of  Love  *
                          * * * * * * * * * * * *

       |    All of us face countless problems in our lives:         |
       |    stress, lack of time, lack of sufficient challenge      |
       |    or recognition, inflation, high taxes, vagaries of      |
       |    the stock market, wayward children.  Some of us even    |
       |    wrestle with religion and philosophy trying to          |
       |    understand the purpose of our lives.                    |


       |    How about the bigger picture? There are about five      |
       |    billion (5,000,000,000) people in the world.  If we     |
       |    stood on top of each other, we would form sixteen       |
       |    human columns reaching from the earth to the moon.      |
       |    About 16% of these, (ie, 2.5 `moon columns') live       |
       |    in India.                                               |


       |    Many people there, as in other countries all over       |
       |    the world, also face countless problems:                |
       |    starvation, slavery, lack of shelter, clothing,         |
       |    health care, and basic human dignity.  They can hardly  |
       |    afford to philosophize, but they sometimes wonder why   |
       |    they are alive.                                         |


       |    Two sets of humans, each with their own problems.       |
       |    Of course, if we could really experience what they go   |
       |    through, it would boggle our minds.                     |


       |    Is it possible for us to help ourselves by helping      |
       |    them?  Are we capable of complete empathy -- spending   |
       |    one real moment for others, with our heart, mind and    |
       |    body, with our total being?                             |
       |    Can we do this without the slightest desire for reward  |
       |    or recognition?                                         |
       |    In short, is it possible for us humans to love?         |


       |    Perhaps the solution to our own miseries lies there.    |


       |    Gurukul is just one of the several organizations        |
       |    available to you as a channel (you probably know of     |
       |    many others as well).                                   |


       |    We are not asking for your money.                       |
       |    We are asking for your hearts!                          |

             
                                                 Gurukul
					     The Buffalo and
					     Pittsburg Groups
                                                   
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian