Help me to help others

Hi everyone,

I am writing to ask your help with my dreams that I will go through one step at a time.

I have written a childrens book which teaches Western children of the simple values in life that many of the Balinese children still have in their lives. It is an adventure story too. It is about a little Balinese boy called Nyoman, who shares his daily life and his adventure of climbing a big volcano with his friend Ketut.

I needed an illustrator for the book. I was searching for one but then I saw some amazing art that the Bali Street Kid Orphanage (Yayasan Kasih Peduli Anak or YKPA) had done. This orphanage keeps kids off the streets in Bali and saves them from begging and prostitution. They have about 30 kids in the orphanage ranging from 4 - 16 yrs old.

I thought that they would be perfect to do the illustrations.

We have been working on the project for over a year now.

The kids get alot of pleasure to draw and one day to see their own art in a book will be inspiring to them.

We are nearly there with the paintings however I need now more professional artists for the portraits of the faces of characters and continuity of the book.

I will donate 50% the books profits to this amazing orphanage. I feel that the book will bring self value to the kids rather than just monetary value and yet the orphanage relies on donations to put the kids through school and for their room and food.

The remainder of the profits I want to head to India and do volunteeer work in orphanages and hospitals.

I need your help to launch this book, to help the kids at YKPA. At this point I need help with graphic design and photographing the illustrations. Hopefully a world wide publisher will take it on.

About me :

My life has been so enriched in so many ways.

I have never been an ambitious person that needed to have lots of money, or big houses or cars.

At this point today I have a few dreams. They are not for myself. I wish I had the selfish gene that would get a thrill out of shopping or buying a nice piece of furniture. I just don't.

I have one dream only and that is to be of service to others.

At the same time I am a creative person and I have a million things I want to do to help the environment, help children, help poor people or just help people in general.

I am studying right now for my Bachelor of Applied Social Science majoring in Counselling and soon I will add a degree in Community Services.

I am living in Bali at present. I have lived here for almost 27 years. I see so many changes and I feel there are many sectors in society that need help.

Please contribute and help me to help others,

Thanking you,

Many blessings

Nirmala

Ps. The donate button is at the top of this page :)

Whoever contributes to the book will receieve a credit mention in the published edition. Please inform me how much you have contributed to my email yogileslie@yahoo.com.

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Laughing Meditation

I live in Balian Beach, Bali.Every morning at 8am I arrive to teach yoga in the big hall on the 3rd floor of Shankari's palace to all of her Balinese staff. Numbers run from 30 - 50 per day.
Shankari has a huge jewellery business here in Bali and also a resort, Shankari's Bali retreat. So silversmiths come to my class, accounting staff, I.T staff, kitchen staff, hotel staff and gardeners.
We do chanting, crystal bowls and 45 minutes of yoga.

After being here for more than two months, I am getting to know all the faces and names and personalities of the staff members. I really enjoy it. The Balinese are so receptive to yoga and just lap it up. I am aspiring to one day teach in Bahasa Balinese..lets see.

Today I had a really nice experience with all the class after I taught and I want to share it.

It is connected with a time I had travelling.

I remember I was on the beach in front of Amma's ashram in beautiful Kerala, India last year at about 6.30 am with two of my friends. We were in search of a place on the beach where we could enjoy silent mediation.

We found a spot and we sat down to our very serious morning mission of finding peace on the beach and then 5 minutes later..I heard something and squinting to my left. I saw out of the corner of my eye, a group of men suddenly arrived right next to us on the beach.

About ten Indian men had arrived all noisily talking and then they came in between my friends and I and started to speak to us with their Indian accent.

" Get up!! Join us !! We are starting our morning meditation. Come on!"

Not being very impressed, my friends and I all looked at each other and actually we had no idea what they were talking about. They disturbed our meditation and they were adamant that we join them and we were half asleep. Who were these people? Who do they think they are to disturb us?

Well..we all were a bit suspicious but we reluctantly got up and joined the standing circle. We didn't have much choice.
A man explained to us that the group come to the beach to do 'laughing meditation' for 3 minutes a day every day. And then they started to laugh and I swear it was funny..all these strange people that I did not know inviting us to laugh.

Already the situation was funny in itself. So we all just cracked up.I mean we all just started to be hysterical with laughter. Every laugh was different and the faces were so funny and then after three minutes we stopped. That felt really good. It was impressive how good I felt.And then we went back to our meditation but with a completely different mindset. I felt , awake, alert, lighthearted. It was great! The memory of that morning will always be in my mind.

In Bali, usually at the end of the yoga class, the staff and I all stand in a circle holding hands and each person says "yes for .... " (love, peace, success etc) and raises both hands taking their turns in a clockwise direction. When everyone finishes , we end with three confirmations ' yes yes yes!! and we raise all hands with each yes.

So this morning in my class..when we had finished our closing prayer in yoga, I made everybody stand in a circle and we started to do laughing meditation..It was very amazing to see what happened. There was a feeling of true happiness. Everyone felt connected to others and were laughing so hard.
You could feel the energy level in the room increase by five hundred percent.

Later when we did the 'yes' circle, everyone was almost shouting what they wished for with joy. There was such a high vibration. Everyone was touched by this beautiful thing that we don't do enough. LAUGHTER!!!

If you want to delve a little deeper into the benefits of laughing ..check out these sites:

http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_001/papers/manuscripts/_116.html

http://www.mindpowernews.com/LaughterMeditation.htm

http://www.yogalaff.com/html/health.htm

Laughter meditation is going today to be included as a part of my class from now on!! :)