In the beautiful mountains of Idaho, USA, is a remote town of just 500 people. This is where I live. The opportunity to physically be with a sangha is very rare for me, and while I deeply appreciate that I can connect in other ways with our Himalayan Tradition, at times I long for a more personal interaction.

Last year, I was delighted to attend my first structured Himalayan Tradition seven-day silence retreat with The Meditation Center in Minnesota. If you have experienced a retreat like this, you may relate when I say that I came away with an unbound feeling of connection: the mind in silence closing the gaps around separateness, and creating a ball of cohesive awareness around us all. The energetic vibrations that we as a group produced was palpable, and I knew at the retreat’s end, I would be signing up to come to this year’s silence retreat, without question.

When I received the announcement for AHYMSIN’s Sangha of the Americas, offering ten days of various activities, including presentations from our Himalayan Tradition senior leaders as well as five days of silence, I signed up immediately, knowing that this year, too, I could receive that same feeling of connection.

I started reading about the event and listening to our Himalayan yoga meditation leaders and teachers, and I became curious about why this was being called “Sangha of the Americas.” What is a sangha? How do I offer my sense of spiritual connection to others? I read what Swami Veda said about sangha being a spiritually oriented community: a group working toward stabilizing the spiritual mind field. I hear him asking us the question, “How can we, as a group, help the ‘greater family’ in a spiritual sense?” He says this will evolve if we can succeed in developing a “sentiment of sangha.” It was then I changed my focus–not about coming to the retreat, no, but about how I wanted to experience this time at Sangha of the Americas with our AHYMSIN family.

And so, to embrace the sentiment of sangha, as Swamiji suggests, I will attend this event, not asking what I can receive from this event, (though with the remarkable presenters, musical performances, workshops, and the experience of silence, one can’t help but receive numerous riches!), but this time, in the light of sangha, I am asking, “How can I serve? How can I offer the sentiment of sangha to our AHYMSIN family, and even greater than that, to our world?”

I offer my support to those who plan the event, who speak at the event, to those who attend, to those who can’t attend. I offer my prayers of connectedness. I offer the movement of vibration to envelop us all in love and compassion, in grace and knowing. I offer my meditations to all, that we might not forget who we truly are and how strong we are when we come together as one, as a sangha.

I offer my physical presence at the Sangha of the Americas, to honor our spiritual community. May we all draw strength and connection from each other to lift our troubled world. If my attendance at this inspired event can create some good, then I am all in, not for what I can receive, but for what I can give. My time, my presence, my donations… I offer it all, with sincere service and gratitude for the gift that meditation has given me.

May we all come together at the Sangha of the Americas, in whatever capacity we can, to uplift and support each other in our like-mindedness, making the positive energetic wave of love that is the Himalayan Tradition felt where it is needed in our world. Let us serve that bounty to others. Many hands make light work.

May all beings awaken further. May our hearts soften. I offer this in service to the Guru. Om.

Editor’s Note:

Location: St. Olaf College, 1520 St Olaf Ave, Northfield, MN 55057 & Virtual

Date and time: Thu, Jul 25, 2024 5:00 PM – Sat, Aug 3, 2024 5:00 PM CT

Registration Link: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/dukr9ym

Contact: info@himalayanyogatradition.com

For more information about the event: https://www.ahymsin.org/event/ahymsin-sangha-of-the-americas/