Sports Day at YICG - Annual Holiday

Every year Sports Day brings all our families together for some old and some new games!! See if you can recognize the games.

Check out our photos on Facebook.

Conversational Hindi at YICG - Languages

Body Parts Bingo in Conversational Hindi!!!

Come learn to speak Hindi and also have lots of fun!!

Learn thru games, music, poetry and movies!!

Hiking in Sunken Meadow Park - Long Island

Photographing the photographer~~!!!

A brisk chilly day for a wonderful 2 hour hike in December  with Rajesh Verma leading the way. Surprisingly challenging on the Bluff, facing the ocean - steep, slippery with dry leaves. Immensely enjoyable by the Adult Gita class members.

College Essay by Kripa Bhagat - The YICG Experience

College Essay by Kripa Bhagat:

"Every Saturday afternoon ever since I can remember, I have participated in the Hindu heritage classes offered by the Young Indian Culture Group. In first grade, we were hearing stories from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. In sixth grade, we were making power points about the temples in India. Now, we understand the stories behind our culture, the religion behind our prayers, and the values behind our actions. I learned how to think conscientiously about the world around me. The lessons taught me to ask questions about everything. I learned the importance of respecting other people's opinions, preserving my culture, and appreciating others'. Every lesson gave me a broader view of the world and made me appreciate my own opportunities. As my life continues to thrust me in new situations, I am thankful to have
had an environment to grow into the strong-willed, passionate, and perceptive woman that I have become and I am excited to bring these qualities into my future experiences."

Leadership Lessons on Compassion and Empathy from Vedic 5 class

Prerequisite for Leadership - Compassion and Empathy - from Vedic 5 High School class

Krishna tells Arjuna in Chapter 5 - Vs 18-21 The Wise see Atma in everyone, irrespective of status in society. They are neither elated by pleasure nor saddened by pain. They remain in a constant state of joy. They conquer their senses, mind, intellect through the power of meditation and reach oneness with Brahman.

Some guiding principles to bring into our daily lives :

‘First see to understand and then to be understood’
* The more respectful and understanding you are, the more open you are to learning about other people
* The more you learn, the less you fear
* The less you fear, the more comfortable you feel around all kinds of people
* The more people you know, the more you appreciate the diversity of experience and the more interesting your life becomes

Genuine Listening
* First, Listen with your eyes, heart and ears - 7% words, 40%Tone/Feeling, 53% Body Language
* Second, Stand in their Shoes
* Third, Practice Mirroring - it does not advice, does not judge, it reflects
* Mimicking Mirroring
 Repeating Words Repeating Meaning
 Using the same words Using your own words
 Cold & Indifferent Warm & Caring
   
*Poor Listening Styles
- Spacing Out
- Pretend Listening
- Selective Listening
- Word Listening
- Self Centered Listening(Judging, Advising, Probing)

Conversational Hindi - Young Indian Culture Group, Languages

The sweet sounds of Hindi!!
Rachna Bahri with Conversational Hindi students

Mangala 2010 !! Festival of Arts !!

Meena Mani & Geetanjali Group

View Clip

The many participants in 'Mangala' Festival of Indian Arts at the Landmark in Port Washington on Dec 5th, 2010.

Mala Desai and Odissi

View Clip

Malini Srinivasan & Dancers:  View Clip

Sejal Kukadia Tabla  View Clip

Lalitha Badrinath View Clip

Our Organizers: Runi Ratnam, Rathi Raja, Latha Desikan, Jayanthi Krishnamurthy & Tanuja Reddy

Diyas for Diwali at Young Indian Culture Group!

Diyas for Diwali by Vedic Heritage students!!

YICG - News from our Book Club

Our Adult Book Club meets monthly at the Herricks Middle School with Shanthi Rokkam as the mo

derator.

Book Club members Shanti, Usha, Uma, Niru and Kris discussed The GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson. The book traces the disappearance of Harriet and the dynamics in the Vanger family. What surprised us about the book was the extent of exploitation of women in
Sweden.

YICG Odissi Indian Heritage

YICG Odissi students with teacher, Mala Desai!! At the India Heritage Festival!!

Diwali Festival at Herricks!!

YICG students at the Diwali Festival at Herricks! Thank you for helping at the YICG Table, Mythri and Kripa!

Our Management Committee - YICG

Preparing for all our yearend activities - Holiday Festival, Mangala, a bus trip in the spring......

Hiking in Caumsett Park - YICG Adults - Nassau County

Our very first hiking expedition to Caumsett Park! We have been talking about it for a long time and our very own Hiking Expert, Rajesh Verma, led us to the beautiful Long Island Sound with Chai to boot!! Along with Parle biscuits!

Vedic 5 - Wisdom and Action; Youth Gita Class - Long Island

Wisdom from Vedic 5:

The number one quality that our youth want to develop is Wisdom. Our Adult Leadership Forum joined us to share in specific ways to gather wisdom. We focused on 5 ways by five teams -

  

   Seek and build relationships with others

   Seek and build relationships with the world

   Develop your intuition

   Use your common sense

   Make plans and decisions based on fairness and truth

  Try to see the "Big Picture".

Krishna to Arjuna in Ch 5 Vs 4 "The Wise see no difference between knowledge and action" - An action leads to knowledge and knowledge leads to action. They complement each other.

The Winning Team! - 'Develop your Intuition' - High School Junior group

Our newly forming Adult Leadership Forum - Thank you for participating!

Math Challenges!!

Can You solve this problem-If three days before the day after tomorrow is Monday. What day is today?
Are those brain cells all tangled in a knot yet? Our budding mathematicians are learning how  to solve similarly challenging problems using strategic problem solving skills.
 

A winning class on Math Challenges and Strategies!!

Diwali

A long standing tradition at YICG! A sale to benefit our program - 20% of your purchases support our program!

From Vedic 5 - Freedom of Choice

A compilation of answers from survey on 'Freedom of Choice' - the amazing maturity of our youth always astounds!

In my life, I am in charge of - How to treat people; my reactions & emotional attitudes.

In my life I am not in charge of the Outcomes and consequences of my decisions; the lives of others; actions & reactions of people around me; my past; when I go to sleep; other people's decisions and their abilities to cooperate with other people.

I will probably feel more free when I get into a good college and get a job; or after I retire.

I can't make my decisions some times and I need help from my friends; I worry about the future constantly;
I can't hurt a friend knowingly or say no to people when they ask me for something.
I can't make many good decisions.

I won't put other people down or make fun of another
I won't deal with hypocrisy.

I can't avoid procrastination
I can't tell someone that I hate them to their face
I can't make a public speech
I can't live up to everyone's expectation

Times when I allowed others to make choices for me was when I was confused and stressed; or when others know more about the topic.

Times when I chose not to make a choice was when I was too hurt or frustrated to think; when I had to choose between 2 friends I valued equally; when I was angry and did not feel like considering my choices.

Creativity - Metaphoric Thinking

The TWIST on Nursery Rhymes

The good old nursery rhymes have so many possibilities of hidden meaning! Take 'Jack and Jill..' - Here are the thoughts from our youngster!! Two prize winners!
a). The wheel of Karma - what goes around, comes around. If they go up. then they must come down.They were being bad, so they came tumbling down!!
b). All about Friendship - Although Jack and Jill both took a lot of effort to walk up, Jack fell down. Instead of leaving Jack and taking whatever 'treasure' they went for. Jill went down after him.

TAJ MAHAL

 PYRAMID



Public Speaking - A debate for Our Times

News from Public Speaking - Level 2!
The winning presentation was in a car where the battle raged between the virtues of using a map and the convenience of GPS!! The jury is out on the role of Technology in our lives.....!! Or rather the dominance!

The map or GPS? The answers are not clear!!

Dahlias at YICG

Thanks to the Rokkam family for creating such a love for Dahlias in our hallways. Last year's Dahlia Fundraiser organized by them was amazing and we are sure many people enjoyed them in their gardens. I was very happy with the way the plant was growing over the summer until one morning when some rabbits ate up the whole plant - so next year it is!!! For the Dahlia Buffs - Growing Dahlias  & How To Video !!

Leadership, Creativity and Personal Development - 1

How can we be creative?? Some notes from our Saturday series 'Leadership, Creativity and Personal Development'. Check this out for more details!  BrainPower!

Genius is marked by the ability to imagine comparisons and similarities and even similar differences between parallel facts and events in different fields or 'other worlds'. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, in one day, after developing an analogy between a toy funnel and the motions of a paper man and sound vibrations. So we created our own challenges!

Challenges:
Make a Connection - Our young group drew connections between many different areas to stimulate creative thinking, along with presentations on their ideas. One of the winning analogies for 'Potato and Piano' was the shape of French Fries resembling Piano keys!!

Bring in a Parallel World - The challenge of opening a pizzeria in the community and spplying the parallel worlds of cartoon, military and transportation was fun. The winning ideas to improve sales were cartoon shaped pizzas and a pizzeria shaped like a military truck.

Our Fantastically Creative group

YICG

From Vedic 5 - Leadership Lessons from the Bhagavat Gita

Lessons from Chapter 2:

What is a Leader's true legacy? To family, community and society? The essence of leadership is to disseminate positive energy, hope and vision. If the view is only 'I, Me and Mine' , it is a very narrow view.
But how do you sacrifice personal interest for a larger good? By acknowledging the impermanence of life, it will make a leader fearless.

Krishna urges Arjuna to rise to a bigger purpose - it was his opportunity to leave a legacy.

So Rise up and Fight!!

You have the right over your responsibilities and the proper actions required of it, but you do not have the right to the reward resulting out of it.

True reward means fulfillment of a purpose - common good rather than only personal achievements.

Uddhava Gita and the Environment- Lessons of the 24 Gurus

Our Adult study group this year has taken up sections of the Bhagavata Purana, starting with the Uddhava Gita', considered by many to be an important part of the contemporary  movement to resurrect Dattatreya as the patron saint of environment in India and the World ... and to accept the patronage of Lord Dattatreya as the protector of the environment. The Lessons of the 24 Gurus is profound and yet eminently teachable to all.
An interesting resource is at Avadhuta Gita, with a comprehensive table on the lessons from the 24 Gurus, with the first 5 being Earth, Wind, Sky, Water and Fire.
A poetic and inspirational account at Dattatreya's 24 Gurus is a worthy link.

Your comments are appreciated!!! Please add!!

From Vedic 5 - Leadership lessons from the Bhagavad Gita

Lessons from Chapter 1 - Arjuna's Sorrow

Positivity - Is that a Choice?

Arjuna, in Chapter 1, is so overcome with sorrow on the magnitude of his dilemma, that he feels paralyzed. He forgets what choices he does have. We reflect on what choices we do have and commit to ourselves that we can have these freedoms.


“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one’s own attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one’s own way".    Viktor Frankl

12 ways to be more Positive!
    o You can choose to be more optimistic
    o You can choose to accept things as they are
    o You can choose to be resilient
    o You can choose to be cheerful
    o You can choose to be enthusiastic
    o You can choose to be more alert
    o You can choose to have a sense of humor
    o You can choose to be humble
    o You can choose to be grateful
    o You can choose to have faith
    o You can choose to have hope