This article began as an ambitious quest to find out how Sai young adult groups began in the U.S. and how they have developed to their current status. SYAN reporters interviewed many youth from around the country but this is by no means an exhaustive report. We invite you to enjoy this glimpse into the development of Sai youth groups in different parts of our country and hope it is a representative sample. For future issues SYAN invites contributions to this ongoing story from our readers. Please share your accounts of how your group came together, how it has evolved, and your visions for the future of Sai youth activities in the U.S by writing to contact@syan.org.

Just a decade ago there were barely one or two Sai youth groups striving to create an identity in the United States. Now more than 40 young adult groups dotting our map, with an entire infrastructure to support them - local representatives, regional representatives and advisors, an advisory body (the NEC or National Executive Committee) and a national YA newsletter. This expansion, which is still very much in progress, is packed with success stories, interviews, inner views, challenges, and most of all, personal transformation.

Pravin Wagh, of the Tustin Center in southern California, was instrumental in starting one of the first Sai young adult groups in the country in late 1992. He recalled the predicament of Sai youth at that time. "The Bal Vikas program (now called Sai Spiritual Education or SSE) had picked up a lot of steam and was starting to graduate lots of teenagers from its Group III classes," he said. "Unfortunately, these young adults didn't really have a whole lot to look forward to in the greater Sai community." Other youth from Florida to California shared similar scenarios of feeling too old for SSE and too young to be absorbed into the adult world of their centers.

The seeds are sown

Mr. Hal Honig of New York, a member of the NEC, also remembered those days. At a joint officers' meeting (on the East Coast) a number of people recognized the unmet need and so Mr. Honig, then president of the Mid-Atlantic region, went directly to the youth, including the older teenagers who would soon graduate from SSE programs. He found that most of them were interested in continuing with Sai in their lives, but they needed a youth program that offered good peer interaction and activities. Thus the official gears began to churn.

Meanwhile, back in southern California, about a dozen youth followed the natural energies of their group. Under the auspices of the Tustin Sai Center, they formed a Sai youth group. With encouragement from many of the adults in the Sai organization, they took on new service projects, became SSE teachers and soon brought their high level of energy into the official Sai organizational arena too. By 1994, the youth were regular organizers for a campfire story and singing session at the annual Southern California retreat.

Brindavan acts as a catalyst

In 1993 Hal Honig received permission from Sai Baba to bring a group of young men from the U.S. for the summer course in Brindavan (outside Bangalore, India). Since the summer discourses are especially geared for Sai Baba's college students, this was an ideal and unique opportunity for the group. Mr. Honig rounded up a group of about 20 boys and flew to Brindavan with an original play that they performed during the summer course. Two years later, he received permission to repeat the special experience for another similar group.

"All the plays were about transformation," said Mr. Honig, adding, "They were based on a quote from Swami: 'Sunk in the search of passing pleasure and cheap recreation, people have become deaf to the counsels of the past and the call of the sublime.'" One of those plays was called The Sublime, and it included two jugglers and several English songs that are still sung at Sai Centers (such as "Swami Take My Hand" and "When Dark Clouds Fill Your Skies").

"Swami loved that," Mr. Honig recalled with joy, explaining that He particularly appreciated the strong concentration required to juggle. Upon their return after each trip, Mr. Honig took small groups of those Sai brothers and acted as a catalyst to start the budding YA groups throughout the country. They shared their play scripts, as well as stories from their experiences.

What became evident was that these journeys were important to American youth -not only because Swami lavished personal attention on these youth, but also because He gave personal guidance to help build the foundation for the growth of the Young Adult program, not only in the U.S., but also worldwide. For example, the crowds of devotees may have only seen that those American boys were blessed with the opportunity to share time with Swami and His college students. Actually, the Lord was also conducting hands-on leadership training by making the boys practice their public speaking skills before Him.

Several groups of young women also attended those summer courses in that timeframe. Some of them recalled that the experiences were part of building their identity as youth.

"Swami gave a lot of attention to all of us -- He gave us personal direction, cleared our spiritual doubts, He showered the love of a thousand mothers on us, He materialized various objects for a number of girls in the group and among other things, He presented saris to all of us." said Sangeeta Lekhi, who began her YA career in Florida and is now part of the New York City YA group. "He was also like a father and a teacher and talked to us about marriage, not dating, sense control, studying, leadership and other issues relevant to youth then, now and perhaps in the later years as well.

Organization gives shape to the Young Adult movement

By the mid-90's, all these experiences found their way back into the youth groups that were mushrooming across the U.S.

The next step occurred when Swami brought youth from all over the world together during the Sixth World Conference of Sai Centers in November 1995. Many American youth attended, but were not quite sure what to expect. Then, as one youth participant recalled, the Malaysian group, headed by J. Jagadeesan, found a room and held a separate meeting for youth. Until then, the major influences for youth groups in the U.S. had come from models in Malaysia and Canada. Now, it was as if the whole world had opened up, offering new ideas and the enthusiasm that comes from finding peer companions on the spiritual road.

A new idea took birth - why not hold a special world conference for Sai Youth? The idea was carried to Swami, who gave permission for the first such conference in July 1997.

Preparations for the first World Youth Conference in Prashanti were a catalyst for new levels of organization and communication among America's Sai youth. Selections began to take place for local youth representatives and advisors; members of various groups traveled throughout the country to share experiences about the logistics of creating a youth group. Ultimately more than 200 American delegates attended the conference.

NEC enters the picture

As guidelines came into being, many formerly unfettered groups experienced the discomfort of a new structure. With Swami's guidance, the three-member National Executive Committee (NEC) was created. Its members, Mr. Hal Honig of New York, Mrs. Phyllis Krystal of California and Dr. William Harvey of Connecticut, continue to govern and guide youth activities throughout the country.

"We only step in when we think something will be done that Swami will disapprove of," explained Mrs. Krystal, about the NEC's role. "Otherwise, we try to leave the youth free to make decisions because we are a different generation."

A newsletter is born

One of the most daunting challenges to creating a national youth program in the U.S. was the vastness of our country, and hence, establishing effective communication. From top down and bottom up, youth found creative ways to address this issue. Many groups replaced phone trees with email and list-serves, while others relied on websites.

In June 1995 a Sai brother was inspired to create a newsletter who was then a student with a lot of determination and limited resources. When Swami accepted the first photocopied issue of the Sai Students' Bulletin (SSB) after the summer course, He thumbed through every page. He gave His permission to publish the Bulletin quarterly and said that it should be distributed by "word of mouth."

Within a year, the SSB team included members from different parts of the U.S., Canada and Malaysia. It became the national Sai newsletter for youth aged 16-30. As the age range was extended in the U.S. to 35 years before the second World Youth Conference in 1999, SSB became the Sai Young Adult Newsletter and took on a broader-based crew to reflect the new spurt of growth that occurred between the two World Youth Conferences and has continued unabated ever since.

Where we are today

While that growth has not been exactly tabulated yet (efforts are on to do so), the good news for the nomadic YA is that Sai youth groups now exist in every part of the country! They are scattered from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast, from the Dakota prairies through the great plains of the Midwest to the Lone Star state, and in settings from rural to urban to suburban.

Throughout the country there is about an even split among Sai sisters and brothers.

Some youth groups are relatively new while others have existed since the inception of the youth movement in this country. For instance, the groups in the Pacific Northwest are about three years old while those in the Southeast Region are about 7 years old. However, each group's demographics depend on its location. For instance, in a college town like Boston, a majority of the members are students, while in a city like Chicago there is a mix of students and working professionals within the youth group.

Service reigns supreme

Naturally, the specific activities that each group undertakes are based on the needs of the surrounding community, available resources, and the group's degree of association with the local Sai Center(s). A two-member YA group in Iowa City serves its older citizens through Meals on Wheels every Saturday, while a relatively large and active group in the Bay Area has taken on the task of community empowerment through computer classes and human values education.