It was late on Christmas night when the meditation finished. The energy from the hourlong dancing and Sanskrit chanting flowed into charged silence and was now dissipating into the darkness.
Meditation is a twice-daily practice at Baan Unrak Children's Home in western Thailand, where I had come to volunteer with 20 friends, but it was novel to all of us.
Currently, 112 abandoned, abused, or orphaned youth live at the home. The project has no religious affiliations, but it is operated by the international Ananda Marga yoga foundation, which has community service as a founding principle for reaching enlightenment. The phrase used in meditation, "ba'ba na'm kevalam," is translated from Sanskrit as "love is all there is."