Incubator of compassionate action.

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ChatGPT buzz mirrors the end of a maddening race for content. By 2030, experts predict that 99.9% of Internet content will be AI-generated; articles, poetry, graphics, audio, video, everything. That raises a pressing question that is uniquely human: how will we circulate context?  This winter, for the first time post-pandemic, we engaged in dozens of in-person circles across India. And at the very first one, a 19-year-old volunteer's reflection cut to the need of the hour: "We are taught to be the gift, but I am called to be the wrapping."

To be the wrapping is to sow seeds under which we may never sit. It is to give without becoming the content of that story -- to remember that gifts have always been more collective grace than individual grit. With that aspiration in mind, the weeks ahead hold some opportunities to dive deeper:

  • FEB 12th, 11-Day Kindness Challenge: This Valentine's day, you are invited to expand your spheres of love, flex your kindness muscles, and join a global community in doing a unique act of kindness every day!  Learn More/Apply Here

  • MARCH 5th, Laddership Pod:  Who do we have to be to lead as a "wrapper"? How can we hold a container, personally or collectively, such that its individual acts harmonize with a grander murmuration? Join us for our deepest immersion into the nuances of these rich inquiries: Learn More/Apply Here

A few weeks ago, a wide range of luminaries gathered for our Gandhi 3.0 retreat, around a simple organizing principle: We are not merely what we do, but who we become by what we do. Altogether, these leaders directly influence hundreds of millions of people; yet, the invitation was to experiment with emptying. That perhaps in being less, we can hold more, come together in deeper ways, and unlock a collective intelligence that can guide our unique gifts to serve the world.

What made the content come alive was that rich context -- as seen in these videos and visuals. As Nipun wrote, "A hockey assist is when a basketball player assists the passer who enables the score. When continued kindness arrives as a hockey assist, we don’t know who to thank. Being confused with gratitude has only one impulse – pay it forward. As everyone starts doing that, there is an exponential escalation of love."

To end our epic time together, all that was left to do was chant:

“May the love we share here spread its wings, Fly across the earth, And sing a song to every soul, That is alive. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. May all the beings of all the worlds be happy.”

Thank you for chanting, and wrapping, together.

 

 

 

P.S. RECENT RIPPLES ...

The ripples from Gandhi Ashram reached Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium at UPenn:

"Heartivism invites us to act from that deeper channel within us, where we are first united by our universality before we are differentiated by our particularlities. A heartivist is someone who responds to the suffering of the world without needing an enemy, who unlocks the genius of nonviolence to uncover a "third way" between two "right" positions, who pushes the limits of compassion to design more infinite games beyond money, power and fame. As we haromnize with that 'inescapable network of mutuality', we shake the world -- in a gentle way."




 

 

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