Women’s Satsang: The Women of Seva – Sharing and Wisdom Circle

In 1978, Dr. Girija Brilliant, Dr. Larry Brilliant, Wavy Gravy, Jahanara Romney, Dr. Nicole Grasset, Ram Dass, and Dr. G. Venkataswamy co-founded the Seva Foundation.

The Seva Foundation started after The Brilliants’ had successfully helped eradicate smallpox and were looking for a new initiative. Knowing that over a billion people live with unaddressed vision impairments; that hundreds of millions of underserved people need ongoing eye care; and that 90% of all vision impairment can be prevented or cured, the Seva Foundation grew out of the belief that restoring sight is one of the most effective ways to relieve suffering and reduce poverty.

The Seva Foundation’s name comes from the Indian concept of “self-less service.” The organization provides critical eye care to underserved communities (especially women, children, and indigenous populations) and has provided surgeries, eyeglasses, medicine, and other eye care services to over 44 million people in over 20 countries – including Tibet, Nepal, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Sub-Sahara Africa, and the United States.

This month, the Ram Dass Women’s Satsang has the unique and rare opportunity to host two of the founding members and two board members of Seva, as they share intimate stories of starting and sustaining this incredible organization.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Girija Brilliant
Girija Brilliant received her Ph.D. and MPH from te University of Michigan in social epidemiology. Her work in India and Nepal helped identify gender and education as key factors in preventing rural populations from using available eye health services. Along with her husband Larry, she was a co-founder of the Seva Foundation, whose projects have given back sight to nearly 5 million people. She was the editor of the Nepal Blindness Survey, the first nationwide survey of blindness in Asia. She is on the board of Camp Winnarainbow and served as advisor to the Muslim’s Women Fund. She is trained as an Iyengar yoga instructor and is a Zen Buddhist practitioner. She serves on the the Marin County Commission on Aging and is their liaison to the Marin Coalition of Agencies Responding to Disasters.

Jah Romney
Jahanara Romney was born and raised in Minnesota. Her formative summers were spent at Beecher’s Resort outside Minneapolis. Jahanara (then Bonnie Jean Beecher) headed out to NY and LA during her college years and has pretty much been on the road since. Music, theater, community activism all were passions. These still groundher, as do Jahanara’s family and her Sufi tradition. In the late 1960s @ early 70s. jahanara with her husband Wavy Gravy and a few dozen of their closest friends traveled on the psychedelic-painted Hog Farm commune bus across the US, Europe, and on to Nepal.  Those close friends included Girija Brilliant and husband Larry. Since the years on the bus, Jahanara has deepened her study with her teacher Taj Inayat and has been instrumental in founding and guiding the Seva Foundation. Along with Wavy, Jahanara brought together her love of acting and nature by starting Camp Winnarainbow of which she was co-Director for 30 years.  Living in community — literally in a commune for 50 years — has been the source of the greatest learnings in Jahanara’s life. Jah lives in Berkeley and spends summers at Camp Winnarainbow a few hours north in Mendocino County. Her son’s family joins for Camp each June.

Suzanne Gilbert
Suzanne has had a lifelong commitment to social action, spirit, and public health. Her early work in anthropology and public health in India and Nepal reinforced her commitment to work collaboratively across cultures. These interests guided her Masters and PhD studies in Public Health at the University of Michigan. A planner by training, Suzanne has been guided by intuition for most life decisions. This included leaving a University research position in 1978 in order to join with an amazing troupe
of souls in starting the Seva Foundation. As a Seva volunteer, Executive Director, Program Director, and now Research Director, Suzanne has had rich opportunities in many worlds. These include Maharaji’s satsang, the HogFarm Commune, Vipassana and Zen communities, and other traditions and movements which aim to deepen self-reflection and make the world a more fair and just place. A great joy is the love and learning shared with dear women friends, including other founders of Seva. Suzanne lives with her husband Tim in the Bay Area with kids in the same time zone.

Sunanda Markus
In India in 1972, Sunanda met her guru, Neem Karoli Baba, as well as studied meditation with Theravada Buddhism teacher Shri S.N. Goenka. She has continued her practice of Vipassana meditation since that time, along with actively practicing yoga. Currently the finance director for the Love Serve Remember Foundation, Sunanda spent decades as the finance director of a small publishing company, while also being involved in the field of contemplative studies. She spent a dozen years as the program coordinator for the Academic Program of the Center for Contemplative Mind, and then managed the grants program for the Mind & Life Institute. As part of the nonprofit world, Sunanda has served on the boards of the Insight Meditation Society and the Seva Foundation, chairing the foundation for three years. She was an active member of the Seva Guatemala Project, supporting integrated community development. Sunanda currently lives in Montreal.

For those who identify as Women, whether CIS, Trans, or non-binary

Women’s Satsang Mission Statement

The Women’s Satsang has been formed to help cultivate heart connection and allyship among people within the Ram Dass Community who identify as women, whether cis gender, non-conforming, or non-binary women. As an autonomous group, our purpose is 

• to deepen into the teachings of Ram Dass and Neem Karoli Baba from a female perspective

• to foster connection and mutual empowerment within the Ram Dass Community, and 
• bring forward the wisdom of women for the benefit of all beings and the earth.

Our Values include:

• Lovingkindness

• Honoring relationality and inclusivity

• Allowing for ambiguity and mystery

• Celebrating the light as well as the dark, embodiment as well as ascension

• Blessing the web of interbeing that connects us all

• Respecting people over performances