Human personality consists of the body, mind and, spirit. Blossoming of the human personality to divinity requires integrated development at the physical (body), emotional or intellectual (mind) and heart (spirit, the indwelling god) levels. Swami often says, "Bend the body, mend the senses and end the mind - this is the way to Immortality". The Sai Young Adults of the Mid-Central region, USA gathered in St. Louis to understand and learn tools to tune all the three aspects of the human personality towards God. The objective of the workshop was two fold. First, to impress distinctly in our hearts that God realization is the only purpose of human life and second, to learn some tools to help us achieve that purpose. The guest speaker was Dr. Sunder Iyer from Cleveland, Ohio who was a student and later a professor at the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam. Dr. Iyer lived 15 years of his life in close proximity to Swami and shared the lessons he learnt by narrating experiences he had with Swami. The workshop was interspersed with devotional singing.

In the first session titled, 'Building Foundations and Redefining Concepts', Sunder introduced and defined the three concepts of faith, prayer and surrender. We learnt that 'faith' means unconditional trust in the Divine, and that 'prayer' is communion with God. We also learnt the subtle difference between prayer and asking; prayer starts when asking stops. 'Surrender' is where the individual ceases to exist, God takes over and we become all the more strong. Sunder shared stories on each of these concepts which made the session very lively and inspiring. After the presentation there was an interactive group session where participants discussed these concepts through thought-provoking interaction and learning from each other. This was followed by bhajans and a bhajan-medley by the Kansas YA group.

The second session titled 'Basic Yoga and Inner Journey' educated us on the importance of a healthy and a self-disciplined body in the spiritual journey. Key learnings included: A healthy body is key to spiritual growth and 'yoga' means union with God. In this session, Sunder demonstrated some basic yogic exercises which required all the participants to join and learn right postures of standing and balancing, loosening each joint from neck to ankles. This session ended with a guided relaxation (Shavasana - Corpse pose), leading the participants into an inner journey of self-discovery. During the dinner break, regional YA updates from each of YA groups were shared and a plan for the YA presentation at the regional retreat in May was discussed.

The second day of the workshop began early morning Sunday at 6 AM with omkar, suprabhatam and bhajans followed by the session "Tuning the Mind", which focused on pranayama (breathing) and meditation. In this session, Sunder explained that breath is the bridge between body and the mind and emphasized the importance of rhythmic breathing in controlling our mind and our actions. Again he shared stories of his interaction with Swami which made this session interesting. We learnt that regular practice of meditation will help us retain equanimity (through rhythmic breathing) even in situations which make us lose our cool (e.g., when we get angry, upset, excited, sad or depressed). Additionally, the goal of spirituality is to maintain this equanimity. This session ended with Sunder leading the participants into meditation, which helped us visualize Swami as the source of light and the light from Him, flowing through our body and ending with our merging into Him. This was very refreshing, inspiring and energizing.

In the last session, titled 'The Search Within', Sunder brought forth the fundamental reality that the search for God begins and ends within one's own self and that in redefining our relationship with Swami, we are in reality redefining relationship with our higher Selves. He recounted some of his experiences when with Swami and stressed the importance of taking lessons from such experiences. He emphasized that the path to God is very individual and every one must chart their own path to Swami. We also learnt that Spirituality does not just mean, meditation and bhajans, but every act in our daily lives must be spiritualized and that God realization is not the end of life, but start of a life with a new vision, perspective, adventure and, divine consciousness. We then had an interactive group Q&A session. The workshop ended with bhajans and a medley by St. Louis YA group.

We felt that this workshop was very inspiring and touched our hearts. It gave us some tools and insights to focus on our spiritual path. We pray to Swami to give us the motivation and determination to practice what we learnt and to guide us towards the goal of God realization.

Lotus Stupa, logo of the retreat: This was the pillar which was infront of Prasanthi Nilayam until 1993. Here is a quote from Sathyam Sivam Sundaram, Part 1: Prof. N Kasturi says "This pillar which represents Yoga (union with God), with a number of rings to indicate the stages of Yogic discipline. This Yoga leads to the unfolding of the "Lotus of the Heart", whose petals are borne on top of the pillar. The next stage of this consummation of devotion and the blossoming of the heart is the "Flame of Illumination" and "Spiritual Light" symbolized at the top of the pillar."