Find Your Own Jamaica

According to the Bhagavad Gita, selfless service with the right attitude is in itself a form of prayer. A karma yogi's actions of helping others with no benefit to one's self is a contrast to the typical focus of yoga: focusing on self-development and self-realization. During asana practice, we are encouraged to focus on our own breath, our own bodies, and to tune out the students and the world around. We go within. In karma yoga, our focus is on those around us.

My senior year of college I chose to participate in two international service immersion experiences to Jamaica and Guyana. I had done some local volunteering while I was in college, but when it came to attending domestic service trips, I'd back out just days before leaving due to anxiety over traveling. For whatever reason, I felt pulled to the Jamaica trip in January of 2006. The majority of the details of the trip have left my mind, but social media is forever! I'm thrilled to have uploaded pictures from digital cameras of us painting a school, visiting children and the elderly, and building the foundation of a new home. I loved every minute of that trip, but not just the service. What stuck with me most was the hospitality of our Jamaican hosts, bonding with my fellow classmates, and the evening reflections. While riding back to the airport for our return flight, I looked at one of the chaperones (and now my supervisor) and asked, "Why aren't we doing more?" Even after all of our hard work, it didn't seem to be enough. The poverty we witnessed was unlike anything I'd ever seen before and it seemed unfair that we were leaving after only a week. I don't remember her answer, but I didn't need one.

I had my own answer: "Do more." Since that trip, I didn't just volunteer to work with vulnerable populations for a week abroad, I made it my life's work. And I didn't have to go very far to do it.

The irony of my question on that first Jamaica service trip is a contrast to what I most recently experienced while chaperoning my 6th trip to Jamaica. I am blessed that my current full-time job is coordinating and creating volunteer service opportunities for college students locally, domestically, and internationally. I find that while I am chaperoning in Jamaica, I spend a significant amount of effort encouraging students to go with the flow, be in the present moment, and not to think about what the next project or service site will be. Every evening, after we've reflected on the day, I prepare them for the following day, not wanting them to get too ahead of themselves. During this trip, we move day to day... moment to moment.. or at least try to! Although this is the experience I give to my students, you better believe I have everything scheduled out for the week straight down to wake up times, what days we need to make sandwiches for lunch, who's gluten-free and how I'll arrange a different dinner for them when our Jamaican friends want to make us pizza, when I'll surprise them with fresh coconuts, ... etc.

But this year was different. The students who attended the Jamaica trip this year were so present that they sat at our host's house for five hours eating, conversing, playing card games, having photo shoots with a single flower, watching ants carry a grain of rice to an ant hill (no joke!)... no one asked when we were leaving, what we were doing next, what we were having for dinner... they were just fully present to each other and to our host (and to the ants!)

A mantra that has been with me since before I was born is "let it be." Even though I have it tattooed on my wrist, there are many times my anxiety and drive to be efficient and effective as a leader get the best of me. A lot of difficult and meaningful service work was done during this year's trip, but the lesson the students took from the trip was a reminder to "just be," a staple in the Jamaican culture. Our host, Father Paul Mushi of Tanzania, reminded us that we are not "human doings" but instead "human beings." My constant desire to "do more" doesn't need to be linked to an action of doing, but instead what we call in my office the "ministry of presence." I truly believe that being present to someone in need is in itself an act of karma yoga, which can often be more difficult and uncomfortable than building a house or painting a school.

I'm blessed that every year I am able to visit my friends in Jamaica to help in whatever way they need, while bringing some amazing students with me. I've also had the pleasure of traveling to a variety of other countries and states for service experiences, but you don't have to travel far to participate in karma yoga...

Saint Mother Teresa reminds us that there is work to be done at home. In fact, she's quoted often in saying, "Go home and love your family." Of course she wants people to love their families, but she is also implying that you can serve by helping people in your own home and own community. You do not have to travel to Jamaica, Calcutta, or anywhere else to serve. You are surrounded by opportunities for karma yoga every day, right where you are.

A Karma yogi acts and does his or her duty, whether that be as "a homemaker, mother, nurse, carpenter or garbage collector, with no thought for one's own fame, privilege or financial reward, but simply as a dedication to the Lord", states Harold Coward – professor of Religious Studies with a focus on Indian religions.

Karma yoga does not have to be an extravagant act of service. As long as your actions in the role you are in are selflessly directed at your God, the Universe, your Higher Power, your dharma, a greater purpose; you are acting as a karma yogi.

So find your own Jamaica... and just be.