Instructions to the participants

• The session will start with a two minute deep breathing to calm and center our minds on our feelings before the group leader reads the following points to note:

• These sessions are for you to pour your hearts out. Please note that:

  • No one will record what anybody said.

  • There will one person who speaks at any given time while everyone listens confidentially, mindfully, reflectively and nonjudgmentally.

  • There will no subsequent talk of who said what after these sessions.

  • Everyone will have two chances of expressing their heartfelt feelings about what you heard, saw, observed and felt during the conference thus far, not what you thought but what you felt. There will be other opportunities of expressing your thoughts. In these sessions, let us focus on our feelings.

  • Everyone will have two chances to express her/himself. Please be brief and focused: 1 minute maximum per round per person.

  • No discussion in the two rounds

  • We will pass a stone to the person on our left and the person with the stone speaks while all listen. If she/he decides not to say anything, she/he merely passes the stone to the person on the left. There is no compulsion to speak.

• The group leader has the stone to start the first session: he/she introduces him/herself and expressing the feelings on the top of his/her heart and passes the stone on the left

• The person with the stone introduces him/herself and expressing the feelings on the top of his/her heart and so on it goes full circle.

• The group leader says, “Now that we have heard everyone in the group, does that change how you feel? Let us go around the circle once more and express how and what we feel now.” The group leader starts the second round.

• At the end of the second round, the group leader will give everyone a note paper to anonymously record a word, a phrase or a sentence expressing the utmost feeling in their heart at that instant, fold the paper and return it to the group leader.

• There will be free-wheeling discussion after that if there is any time left.

Data Collected

Anonymous record of the expression of the utmost feelings:

1. Grateful that the conference is so helpful, both its easier and its harder lessons

2. Joyful content to be on my path

3. I feel reassured in the belief that God is indeed good

4. Oneness

5. Happy to be among likeminded people. Expected more spiritual deepness from speakers than deep knowledge of religion

6. Love

7. Grateful, positive energy

8. I feel nourished very deeply in this conference and it keeps growing each year

9. I feel really good about the changes to come

10. Really confused, don’t know what I am supposed to say. Grateful for being here and oneness of people – feeling of oneness has been achieved

11. I feel appreciation and comfort

12. Peace brings abundance

13. I feel happy that that there are other people looking to be peaceful and encouraging of others in this world

14. Don’t want to do this exercise, general contentment

15. Empowerment, love

16. Connection

17. Gratitude

18. Grateful, appreciative

19. Honest

20. I am feeling hopeful

21. Peacefully transformed

22. I feel very good right now

23. We receive what we need, we just have to be open

24. Feeling love and peace, most of all unity

25. Deep gratitude and amazement

26. Grateful, challenged to spread the good news

27. I am a page waiting for the words, with confidence that the author will provide them

28. Love, hope, faith, gratitude

29. Loved

30. Calm and serene

31. Gratitude and calmness

32. Gain great insights from so many wise people

33. Contentment, contentment

34. I feel very grateful, appreciative and loved with people around me & love for myself, Bliss

35. Grounded

36. Peace, thankful, content, blessed, Love

37. Acceptance

38. Affirmation personal and corporate

39. Gratitude

40. Connection

41. Hope

42. Today

43. Watch my mind

44. Unity

45. Lot of gratitude towards all, immense love how all of us want to change the way we look at oneself – unconditional love

46. Joy for acceptance of differences and sameness

47. Unity in diversity

48. Anxious, want to know

49. Anxious and confused yet a sense of understanding

50. Not wanting to open up - same time opening up – door is the heart –makes life easier

51. Vulnerability. Le'ts get on with this – great deal of peace

52. Lot of belief is judgement of unfolding – not feeling good – had beliefs all these years

Visualization of the Data

Visualization of the data collected from the participants in the form of a wordle shows the prime feelings of the participants as a group.  The dominance of the appearance of a word expreses the dominance of the feeling expressed. The more dominant the appearance of a word, the higher the number of times the word repeats in the data collected.