One of the foremost factors creating this change is the leadership that Swami sent to our group. During the first few years of its conception ASYA was composed primarily of students who, owing to their academic pressure and variable schedules, were not able to consistently lead and participate in YA activities. However, over the last one year, we had an influx of almost a dozen Young Adults, consisting mainly of working professionals and talented students. They immediately took active and consistent leadership roles in all YA activities. With this infusion of energy and enthusiasm, we found ourselves embarking on our old activities with renewed interest. For example, our service activities were initially limited to cooking and serving breakfast at a young adult foster home called Another Chance. More recently we were able to expand this activity to include educational workshops, called "Pathways to Success" and computer training classes. Study circles, which were an erstwhile intermittent phenomenon, are now held regularly, once a month. Service activities are now a weekly event. Satsang and other informal gatherings now happen almost every two days!

Another factor contributing to the momentum was recognizing and utilizing the inherent talent amongst young adults. Not only did these activities benefit all participating YAs on an individual level, they also played a primary role in bringing the group together. Identifying the vast musical talent within our group we decided to organize an audio-visual cultural program for a conference. We had more than 20 meetings over a period of 50 days where all YAs (whether musically talented or not) were involved in a diverse range of tasks: lead singing, chorus, accompaniment, video editing, stage and mike setup, audio-visual synchronization and handouts. These gave us a great opportunity to bond with each other and share our commitment and passion for serving Swami. Other YAs in our group were proficient in Vedic chanting. To make use of this talent in bringing the group together, we decided to perform Vedic Chanting for Swami's birthday celebrations in November 2001. Likewise, recognizing the proficiency of some young adults in leading guided meditation, we have also conducted meditation workshops for Young Adults. We have also made use of the resources available to us from the adults at the center. We organized and underwent training in the Sathya Sai Education in Human Values curriculum under the supervision of an elder from the Center. This helped us to take Swami's message in the form of interactive EDUCARE workshops to the teens at Another Chance. These workshops help the troubled teens to deal with problems such as anger, peer pressure, and self-esteem.

One of the main reasons for our group's growth is because we have fun together in each other's company. Apart from event-based activities, we started regular activities such as monthly study circles, monthly Vedic chanting, and weekly community service projects. As part of a regional activity, our group meets weekly for chanting and devotional singing. Very often, several young adults meet for a varied number of activities ranging from meditation, workshop planning and musical lessons with instruments such as the guitar, harmonium and tabla, to reading books, playing games like racquetball, or to just plain "hang-out". These informal get-togethers have been the catalyzing factor in bonding us through our common interest in Sai. These serve as an ideal medium where we share and learn from each other and inspire each other towards commitment, devotion and dedication to Sai. We have also had several informal "fun" activities such as making a weekend trip to another center for attending the overnight shivaraatri bhajans (devotional signing dedicated to Lord Shiva). We also organized a fun-filled picnic and sports day, primarily targeting the need to connect with the group III SSE students and the younger YAs. Several YAs took on mentoring roles and heartily welcomed the youth into the ASYA group.

The Sai center remains the basis for our activities, and we are fortunate to have an abundance of support and encouragement from the center membership. Young adults actively participate in all the center activities and assist in various tasks ranging from weekly activity assistance to planning special events like the annual regional retreats and service retreats.

Today we have a core group of about 25-30 active YAs in our group and more than 70 YAs on our mailing list. We all are each other's loving family, with Swami as our guide and goal. Swami's grace has transformed our young adult group into a dynamic medium, which serves as a path for young adults in this journey towards HIS Lotus feet. We pray that Swami maintains His steady grace and compassion on us.