Chinmaya Mission® Washington Regional Center

The Power of Desire, Finding Our Niche Through Community Service

Sandesh Sreenivas

(Chinmayam Tabla Teacher, Youth Member)

With school’s extreme academic pressures, we are also directly or indirectly part of volunteering community service as a token of our life experience, responsibly serving the community with honesty, love, respect and concurrently fighting against false values.  As we are growing up bridging the cultural difference between the east and the west, we tend to preserve our culture through partaking in our festivals and several traditional activities coming closer to our heritage.  It is obvious; the key is the power of desire, which sets one in motion.  If I had to choose between the opportunity of taking a wide variety of courses across a range of multiple types of discipline or the opportunity to focus on a course of study in one type of discipline, which is interesting, I would choose the latter. While sustaining our vision and passion of public service, this choice will ultimately support our desire to accomplish our goals.  Then a meaningful Niche will be reached through a desire which sets one in motion and a sense of passion to serve a vast customer population that does not limit on the basis of age, religion, race, sex, national or ethnic origin.  Either way, I would consider the best possible means to attaining a sense of fulfillment, if I had a college degree from a character building university, a decent profession, and steady job serving the public, a nice house in a friendly community, a reliable car, and a family and continue to volunteer in community service bridging East and West. 

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say, “I would really like to be successful, but I don’t have a great idea.” If they are willing to listen, I enjoy telling them the story of how one need not have a great idea or a brilliant strategy, but with the simple desire to serve the community-most importantly-serve it to last.  I started learning Tabla, at the age of 8, and received immaculate training in a wide range of traditional classical music styles. At the age of 12, I gave my first public performance in the Washington-Baltimore area in the presence of a packed audience.  At the age of 13, I was invited by the multi-national spiritual science organization to establish a traditional tabla program for youths and teach at the Chinmaya Mission Washington Regional Center. As the first youth teacher, I was very nervous to sit among the traditional teachers and in front of my own peers.  Students’ enrollment soared, which demonstrated that the youth qualities, patience and strength are motivational for all the youths as well as their parents.  Youths can use their teenage energy to teach the youths best. During my last four years of teaching, some of my students were already studying in colleges and helping me join them.  For the last four years, an average $3000 per year per student was generated.  The community used this money for many new activities as well as the construction of a building. In addition, I have performed music for many concerts at temples, churches, schools, community and spiritual centers both in India and in many cities in the US.  In addition, I have volunteered full time at a local tertiary care hospital, as youth leader for two years at a cultural society, teachers’ aid, and several cultural associations.  In total, have officially documented community service hours of more than 1350 earned during the last three years alone.  My keen interest in community service involves my desire in helping people-children to older. With strong determination, encouragement from society, school and family, we all have been provided the tools and firm foundation necessary to employ our talents and abilities to courageously accomplish our goals.

While all the individual components mentioned in my definition of success may be modest, I believe that achieving and keeping up with all of them simultaneously defines happiness, a goal that is worth striving for.  “Money cannot buy happiness” is an old cliché, but one may as well say, “Success is not happiness”.  Therefore, “happiness” should indeed be the ultimate of all successes.  It is obvious that we can see happiness in these true workers. Without conviction no real work is possible for the true worker.  Teaching music, performing arts, participating in dances, or drama come from the self-sufficiency, from conviction of the goal-cultural community service and the power of desire to achieve it.  Interest in community service involves a desire to help people, from children to the older community members. Teaching music at a very young age is something that has fascinated me and helped me to serve as a mentor and leader for nearly four years.

Being, part of this community through my parents, I have made several genuine friends in both academic as well as extra curricular activities in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. I truly see youth’s ultimate success and happiness in the future, when all the parents of these youths participate directly and involve themselves in serving the community at large.  This is a great example of giving nature and testimony of community service.  It takes a lot of patience, time and commitment to do this and  “it is gratifying to see such qualities in all of our young talents”. There are plans for several outreach community projects facilitating an opportunity for every youth to find their niche through community service. As youth in today's society we can join together with a strong mission to achieve our future goals and dreams while learning to excel in a multitude of fields. We can enhance the desire of volunteering and serving the public by strongly establishing a passion of positive contribution producing more than what we consume and thus finding our meaningful niche of giving more than what we take with love and respect and devotion to the people whom we serve. 

 (Edited 2/2004 for content and formatting, Chinmaya Mission® Washington Regional Center, Webmaster)