On Living the Dream

Tags

children, dreamers, dreams, living, living well

I rarely ever dream any more at night. Or at least, I can’t remember the last time that I dreamt while sleeping, let alone what I may have dreamt about. Some would wonder — how is that possible? Why did you stop dreaming? 

Let me answer that question by engaging in some wordplay. What is a DREAM? Or rather, what is the invitation of a D.R.E.A.M?

A Dream is one that which gives us a Desire, a Directive, a Determination to Delve Deep within ourselves and connect with the Divine. 

A dReam is one that reminds us to Reflect, Renew, Re-heart and Re-establish our Resolve to create a purpose which is much bigger than ourselves.

A drEam is one that Excites, Energizes, Enervates and Elevates us to heights that manifest the potential of the divinity within us.

A dreAm is one that Activates us to take Action for the betterment of All — and reminds us that All encompasses All things, regardless of their current state of Awareness.

A dreaM is one that is a fountain of inner Motivation and inspiration, an invitation to Magic and Mystery, a connection to our perpetual Motion Machine fueled by Meditation, and serves as the Mother of all dreams.

In retrospect, perhaps I don’t dream while I am sleeping any more, because I am immersed in living a new D.R.E.A.M while I am awake. My dreaming has expanded to ask questions of myself every single day. Am I connected to the Divine? What do I Remember? What is the best use of my Energy? Do I Act for the betterment of All, including myself? What is the Motion of my life and living?

My invitation to you is to stop talking about dreams and dreaming, and start living them new. If we are to truly live, let us engage a new dream that is so wide and deep and high, that we will need the help of our family and friends, our neighbors, our communities and the Divine Universe, to make our D.R.E.A.M be birthed from darkness into the reality of light. 

What may this new dream look like to you? Here is what it looks like to me. #IHaveADream that my daughter and all in her generation inherit a world that celebrates them for who they truly are, for their infinite divine potential to be loving, kind, compassionate and peaceful.

Will you help me live my dream and make it a reality? Will you perchance dream again, and choose to live It?

Kumud

P.S. On this day, as I begin another revolution around the Sun and I smell spring in the bouquet of flowers as I write, I invite you. Join me and share your dream as I host the #SpiritChat community on twitter for our weekly conversation, Sunday January 17 at 9am ET / 730pm India. Yes, there will be chai and treats, and who knows, maybe even some cake 😉 Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

I share with you, a bouquet of dreams – what’s your favorite?

Renewing the Heart

Tags

new year, refresh, reheart, renew, resolutions

On the face of it, January 1 2021 didn’t look much different than December 31 2020. New Year’s day was ushered in with the same cold, cloudy, grayness and wetness that has characterized our Northeast Ohio winter for most of December. If anything, the amount and intensity of rain that fell on January 1 reminded me of a summer monsoon in Mumbai.

And yet, that was all on the outside. The intensity on the inside had been changing since New Year’s Eve with the three-day ‘Reset, Refresh, Re-Heart’ initiative that I had been fortunate to be engaged with. Amid the thundering rain that was falling outside on New Year’s Day, Sister BKS Shivani was setting forth the challenge before me during the second day’s meeting titled ‘Refresh’:

“Let us take responsibility to raise the #healing vibration of the planet, by raising our own inner vibration” – BKS Shivani

I am not one for making many, if any New Year resolutions, but this was a challenge that spoke to me. The intensity and urgency with which she said these words seemed to silence the sound of the rain pelting the windows. Her words made me ask – what if? What if I were to refresh my heart’s commitment to raising my own inner vibration? What if I were to take responsibility for the multitude of conflicting reactions that my mind creates in response to the words and actions of others — some of which aren’t even directed towards me?

What if I could train my mind to violate Newton’s law of ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’? Is it possible to violate physics? Tall order for an engineer, I thought. Newton’s law as stated above applies to the physical world. Vedanta says that the mind is also a physical entity – a fine physical entity – and hence subject to the laws of action. What do our reactions do to our mind They set off vibrations within us, which reach our heart, and the heart then creates impressions or samskaras. These impressions are the ones which we carry with us throughout our lives and beyond. If we train our mind to interrupt the reaction at the point of action, then, we we could rise above Newton’s law by dissolution of the “mind stuff”. 

This dissolution is what the sage Patanjali refers to in his seminal treatise of the Yoga Sutras. Life happens because or our living, and we are all vibrational beings. If we choose a path that helps us raise our inner vibration, and keep it in that raised state, we will find ourselves on an elevator which has no down button. This doesn’t mean that we won’t feel the cold, dark, gray, wet winter days of our lives. By raising our own inner vibration, our heart will evolve to such an elevated state that no amount or intensity of external action can cause us to react in a way which brings us back to our previously lower state. 

The question thus becomes – will we accept the challenge to raise our own inner vibration? If we do so, and if enough people also do so, then this New Year will indeed be one of renewal of the planet’s heart. I invite you. Join me. Let’s raise the vibration. 

Kumud

P.S. Join in with the #SpiritChat community on Sunday, Jan 3 2021 at 9am ET / 730pm India as we gather on twitter and raise the vibration. I will bring some questions, some of which may even challenge you. Invite a friend or two. We have a lot of work to do together. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Reference: The entire “Reset, Refresh, Re-heart” series is available on YouTube. Three days. Three hours. Happy New Year! 

Heartwork by my daughter, A. Ajmani

On Revisiting Joy

Tags

celebration, healing, journey, joy, spirituality

As late as last Tuesday, it appeared that we were drifting towards “skipping Christmas” this year. For whatever reason, and I can probably rattle off a lot of them, the family, including me, just didn’t seem to have caught the spirit of the season. We all seemed to be in silent agreement about the skipping and sleep-walking towards 2021. Some things are not meant to be, I thought.

And then came the snow on Wednesday evening. It wasn’t the violent snowstorm that had come a couple of weeks ago and dumped more than a foot of snow on us in the span of twenty four hours. No. This was the gentle, quiet, languid snow where every flake takes its own sewer time drifting towards the earth. There is a haze that sets up at sunset and it’s almost as if the overcast sky holds the last light of the day in its arms such that the radiance makes the night as bright as the day. The lights around the neighborhood come to life and their reflection against the water and the falling and fallen snow creates a sort of magic that extends the silent invitation.

Come play, it says. Come revisit. Come and remember. Find a single reason for Joy. You look at the new puppy sitting by the patio door with wide eyed pleading, waiting for you to open the door to the deck so she can go out and roll around in the fluffy white, even feast on it. Silently, the tide turns and my daughter announces that mid-Thursday that she is done with all her finals. My wife decides that enough is enough. She goes to the basement, and while I am on a work telecon, single-handledly digs out the eight-foot high tree that has been wondering if it will get to see the lights this year.

I am still wondering about reason, but the snow falling and the water swirling around me has other ideas. My daughter has decided that she is going to play with the gingerbread cookie kit sitting in the box. With that, the tide has fully turned. Cookies, my friends!

I am transported to a time where the heart feels like it is bobbing for waves in the ocean, where you have waded in just far enough and deep enough that your feet can still feel the earth. As you hold ground with the tips of your toes, every so often, a wave comes and lifts you clean off of the ocean floor into moments of joy and exhilaration. Every time you think you’ve had enough of the waves and try and return to the shore, the slightest of undercurrents invites you to stay a bit longer.

Revisiting Joy doesn’t happen like a flash of lightning during the middle of a late summer thunderstorm. It happens with the slow drift and soft lullaby of the peacefulness of every snow flake that is grateful that their falling has been cradled by grace and give brilliance to a single heart on some of the darkest nights of the year.

My hope is that you get to revisit too. We can only resist the invitation of nature for so long. We can resist our intrinsic nature even less, and our intrinsic nature is Joy. That is what we were built for. To remember, experience and share it.

Joy to our world. Let us revisit and soar again.

Kumud

P.S. The house keeps filling up. Lettered stockings have now appeared on the fireplace. Santa is getting his delivery ‘truck’ ready… Come join us and share your story of Joy. I hope you can find a reason. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Learning to fly by revisiting Joy

Harbingers of Hope

Tags

faith, giving, holidays, hope

It was one of my Grandmother’s favorite quotes. When I would ask her about the minuscule impact that her giving of yesterday’s flatbread to the the sadhu (monk) who would come and clang the wrought iron gate every morning to announce his presence, she would say — “doobte ko tinke ka saharaa’ — “to the one who is drowning (in a whirlpool) in the middle of the river, even a blade of grass floating by seems like a lifeline”.

As you can tell, I never forgot her interpretation of giving. She wasn’t merely giving yesterday’s flatbread – she was giving Hope. She was giving light for another day, or maybe even for a few hours, to a single human being, who would arrive daily in the hope that his hunger would find some relief. She was helping to sustain someone who had chosen the life of detachment — not beggary, mind you —  but a conscious, aware choice of total, unconditional surrender to divine sustenance. 

There are very few among us who can practice that  level of complete faith. Our faith is often an incomplete one, where we think of our spiritual practices as tools in our tool belt. Today, I feel emotionally down, so let me meditate a bit more. Today, I feel really good, so maybe I’ll give my meditation tool a rest in my too-belt. One of my Vedanta teachers describes it as a “faith of convenience”. We employ faith as a tool of bartering with the divine and the universe. 

And then we are left wondering why our faith does not work as and when, and in the way, we expect it to. Imagine that we were to only breathe when we found it to be convenient for us to breathe. We wouldn’t last very long, would we? Then why do we expect our intermittent faith to sustain us? I posit that this is where Hope enters our practice. Hope fills the voids and cracks that our incomplete and intermittent faith and half-hearted actions create. 

This is not to say that Hope isn’t necessary for the world at large. It is. In Rabindranath Tagore’s famous verse, he says — oh, wait. As I google the quote, I see that many have used ‘hope’ and ‘faith’ interchangeably… “Faith (Hope) is the bird who feels the light and sings while the dawn is still dark”. And then there is Emily Dickinson’s poem which begins with… 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

The practicality of life necessitates that we may need both, faith and hope. When one flounders, the other shores us up. When we lose faith and start drowning in life’s storms, hope steps in and becomes the blade of grass that keeps us afloat. We can then find strength to sing our song while the dawn is still dark. With both hope and faith, we can discover Joy in the gaps between the breaths of our life, and make every season a season of giving.

In the pure spirit of Joy that emerges from a complete faith, we can choose to become harbingers of Hope. Our giving is then complete. That’s a season worth celebrating. What say you?

Kumud

 

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering of a community of faith, hope, joy and giving in #SpiritChat – Sunday, Dec 13 at 9amET / 730pm India. I will bring some tea and fresh flatbread (with a drizzle of caramelized brown sugar) to share. Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

The Heart’s Transitions

Tags

changes, seasons, transformation, transitions

I hadn’t seen them on the pond lately, which seemed to coincide with the fact that it had been heavy, overcast and a bit gloomy over the past few days. The cloud cover had been so thick that it was difficult to discern the sunrises and sunsets. However, last night, as I was woken up by the almost-full moon shining outside the window among scattered clouds, I anticipated that today was going to be different.

Sure enough. They came by the hundreds, in groups of two dozen or so, as they landed ever so immaculately in the water and made their way on to the frost covered ground that was being quickly warmed up by the languidly rising sun. The ones who had already claimed their temporary abode on the shore, raised quite a cacophony to welcome the next batch. The first transition that had started at sunrise, was fully underway. 

The second transition would happen around noon. All of those who had gradually made their way into the warming waters, would now reverse course and park on the grass for their afternoon nap. I did not see them make the third transition today, but I imagine that it was sometime before sunset. They had all taken off, onward in their migration south, by the time I went outside at dusk. 

Nature teaches us a lot about transitions, and how to possibly simplify our lives by paying greater attention to them in our daily actions. The rising of energy into the heart at dawn, the peaking at ‘solar noon’, and then the waning at dusk — all these transitions give us guidance, if we so choose to pay attention. On a slightly longer time-scale, there are the transitions marked by the lunar cycle — one which is most noticeable to the heart at the advent of the full moon. Further more, there are the seasonal transitions. The farther away we live from the equator, the greater is the variation in the length of daylight with the seasons.

The seasons makes for a more subtle energetic transition for the heart . We often become aware of this transition hrough our emotional response, particularly when the days trend towards becoming really short between fall equinox and winter solstice. And so, here we are. The short days of late autumn and the full moon is upon us again. A lot of nature’s daily, monthly, seasons, and annual transitions are temporary. And yet, the heart does not need to necessarily follow suit.

What if we were to prepare our heart for some permanent transitions. What if we were to permanently transition our hearts from indifference to compassion? From doubt to faith? From weariness to resilience? From indifference to empathy? From callousness to kindness? From arrogance to humility? From sadness to joy? From condemnation to respect? From prejudice to inclusion? From debasement to dignity? What would our inner world look like if we were to effect one or more of these permanent transitions?

When, where and how do we begin the heart’s transition? More importantly, why would we want to do so? Even more importantly, what would we be willing to give and accept, for such a transformation of the heart? 

Kumud

P.S. The migrating geese, another few flocks of them, will be back tomorrow. It’s supposed to be another day of sunshine. Join us for their  morning song and conversation with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday November 29 at 9amET. I will bring some tea, cookies, and yes questions. We will work on our heart’s transitions. Namaste – @AjmaniK

When transitions become transformations…

On Knowledge and Knowing

Tags

acceptance, awareness, choices, healing, invitation, knowing, knowledge, remembrance

It’s good to be welcomed back home again

— where all the stress that you brought with you is instantly dissipated by the first few steps of immersion in the stillness of the forest where the leaves are turning orange

— where all the energy that the trees have accumulated in your absence is seemingly showered on you in the falling of a single leaf

— as if you had walked into the ocean whose waves instantly wet every corner of your body – no matter how long you might have been away

— the ocean and the forest does not ask – where have you been? What did you accomplish there? Why have you been gone so long? How come you never wrote or called?

Maybe the ocean or the forest don’t ask these questions because of their state of being. Or maybe they won’t ask those questions because those answers would be from knowledge – whereas they are immersed in their own knowing.

Their own awareness, and their existence is not really influenced by our comings and goings — to them, all our knowledge is of no matter. Our knowing? That is a different matter.

I had been gone for six months. The fisherman’s trail off of the entrance path into the forest was welcoming as always, with the murmuring of the river inviting me to go left or right – or maybe straight down the middle to the bank where the trees overhang the water in suspended animation amid the stillness, and the mosquitoes immediately find you unless you find a spot with the slightest of breezes, whence they will leave you alone.

The crushed rock of millennia still holds the bank in place for those days when the river will rage – but not today, certainly not today. Today, the invitation is to walk into the middle of the river as the invisible force guides me with one hand and holds the flowing waters at bay with the other . And so, I accept the stillness and the gentility and the whisperings and the noontime birds speaking sweet nothings, stepping gently on one flat rock at a time, some of them barely big enough to hold all of my toes — and as soon as I can go no further into the river, the breeze that comes around the huge bend upstream greets me with an embrace that turns my heart into the wings of the monarch that has long gone South.

And yet, no matter all of that. You are here, You are home, in the center — maybe slightly left or right of it, but the center holds you— and you stand still. And then, an unprecedented invitation, to sit on the dry part of the river bed beneath your feet. You hesitate, but then you decide, that this is the moment for you to surrender to knowing.

So, you sit on the rock in the middle of the stream and absorb all the energy flowing upwards into you from the earth, flowing downwards into you from the overcast sky, from the waters flowing on either side of you, a bit faster on your left because it is devoid of the cluster of rocks that form eddies and lagoons on your right — so much peace, feeling the universe holding you in its knowing — and all you had to do was to accept the invitation.

In his book on Zen, Osho talked about the difference between knowledge and knowing. They are both limitless, and yet, knowledge binds us and knowing frees us. Knowledge creates desire to know even more, whereas knowing releases us from desire. The wave that surges from the ocean to touch the sky of knowledge, falls back into the ocean and is home again — in the ocean’s acceptance is the wave’s knowing of peace, love, joy, serenity, tranquility, silence, stillness, truth and kindness.

I am sure that you have all felt the light and lightness of this knowing in your experience with certain people, places and practices. I hope that you choose to accept their invitation, visit with them, and sit with them for a while in the days ahead.

Kumud

P.S. Join us Sunday, October 11 at 9amET / 630pm India as we gather on twitter for our weekly #SpiritChat in the knowing that we will partake of tea and cookies 🙂 Namaste – @AjmaniK

Author’s note: ‘stream of thought’ written while walking the Rocky River Reservation, October 6 2020.

Sitting… in the knowing that the Universe holds me with Love

The world flowing around me… as I sit in the river bed

Finding Our Own Path

Tags

discovery, freedom, walking, zen

Walking in nature has grown to be one of my favorite outdoor activities over the past four or five years. This invitation to walk the local reservation came about suddenly one day as I was driving to work. That was then, and this is now. Hundreds of miles and thousands of photographs later, there are still new paths that remain to be walked and new experiences to be had on the frequently traveled ones. 

Nature has taught me much about life and shown me some glimpses of its inner workings during my walks. The variations of the seasons and how one season’s end is a preparation for the next. The contrast between the stillness of the water in the lagoons and the rush of flow in the river after the snow melts. The trees that grow taller every year so that they can carpet the ground with leaves every autumn to provide fuel for the forthcoming spring. This, and much more, has unfolded on the many paths for me. 

Such is the nature of the physical paths that have unfolded for me over time. It is hard to imagine that one could really walk in deep harmony with nature without experiencing a parallel spiritual journey within. Nature does not promote any path to the walker. It provides a new canvas every day and invites the sojourners to bring their imagination to paint a new path with every step. Some of my most satisfying walks have been where I simply wandered and let the sounds of the river and the play of sunlight among the trees be my guides. May every day bring a new way — that seems to have become my mantra.

According to Osho, ‘The Way’ is a good description of the philosophy of Tao. There is no goal — there is only the way or the path. 

Each moment, wherever you are, you are at the goal if you are on the path. In Tao, there is no talk about moksha, nirvana or enlightenment. The spiritual work is that you have to find the path, the Way. 

So, what does the Way look like? How do we find it? How do we know that we are on it? The challenge of this approach, if we choose it, is that we have to find our own path before we can start walking it. It cannot be given to us by anyone, or walked for us by anyone. There are no footsteps to follow, or leave for others. This may be disconcerting to many who have had a ‘religious’ upbringing, and yet it is an opportunity for great freedom of exploration. The variables are courage, risk, and adventure. An adventure of self-discovery, and of the path itself. 

There is a blue heron that I have often stumbled upon during my walks. She shows up at different locations in the reservation depending on the season and the hour of the day. She invariably sees me before I see her, and starts to leave before I can take a picture of her. So, I stopped trying to photograph her. Then, one day, without preamble, there she was. Standing still on a log in the lagoon, for what seemed like an eternity. It was as if she knew that I had stopped trying to ‘capture’ her, so she stopped trying to escape from my presence. That was a really good moment on the journey, for I felt that I was one with the goal and the path. 

And so, we keep walking, keep discovering, keep on letting the curves and bends of our path unfold before us. We draw from nature as we learn more about ourselves and our heart’s capacity through direct experience every day. It’s a great way to feel alive, isn’t it? 

Kumud

Join me and the #SpiritChat community, Sunday August 16 at 9amET as we continue our journey and cross paths on twitter yet again. Namaste – @AjmaniK

One of the sights on one of the many paths in the Valley Reservation

Healing Energy of Play

Tags

energy, healing, play, playfulness

I wouldn’t be surprised if the notion of “play” isn’t exactly on the forefront of most people’s minds these days. With all the challenges facing us in so many areas of our lives, it almost seems “tone deaf” to even talk about “play”. And how are we to effect spiritual healing through “play”? Let me tell you a small story. 

Last week, I talked about the new puppy that has done a “takeover” of our home. As one would imagine, her energy level is simply off the charts. It took her a mere two or three days to cajole the older dog to engage in full out play with her. He simply couldn’t resist his instinct all her invitations to play, and eventually they both were having long sessions of all out, football like scrimmages on the living room floor. The quiet, brooding, meditative seven year old came back to life. I didn’t know that he still had it in him to engage in “play” with such joy and abandon. 

Then, another thing happened. One morning, I gave her her newly discovered, favorite, dog-bone shaped, mini-biscuit. I walked away, thinking that she would be busy for a while. When I returned a few minutes later, she was sitting in the exact same spot that I had left her, in the position that is her invitation for us adults to come play with her. The treat had been set aside in the corner of her play pen, untouched. Silly me. I then realized that her favorite treat wasn’t the dog biscuit — the opportunity to play was her favorite treat!

And so, I wondered. Where do we “adults” lose our propensity to engage in “play”? Is it that words and phrases like “leadership” or “responsibility” or “accountability” or “parenting” or “setting a good example” and so on make us forget our playful nature? All of us, in our formative years after birth discovered the world around us through play, didn’t we? We would play, sleep, eat, drink, and do it all over again the next day, wouldn’t we? So, what happened somewhere along the line that we largely forgot our sense of play? Why is it that we forgot the connection of play to our well-being and health?

Or did we really forget? Maybe we simply replaced physical play with other kinds of play. What is “play” anyway? One way to define  play is its outcome – how do we feel after the experience of play? If we feel lighter, more joyous, more at peace in any or all of the three – the heart, body or mind – after engaging in any activity, then we have engaged in play. Any creative activity that engage us in a manner which heals our heart, body or mind, can indeed be a form of play. Don’t you think so?

The painter with her colors and brushes and crayons and pencils and stencils and canvases is at play. The photographer with his cameras and landscapes and portraits and lenses and perspectives is at play. The amateur cook dabbling in the kitchen with recipes and spices or baking new creations is at play. The dancer, the musician, the writer, the poet – all are at play because their heart is lighter, their mind is healed with their activity. Any action can become play, if we approach it with a light, joyful and playful attitude. And yes, even ‘spiritually focused’ activities like meditation, yoga, prayer and more, can become play. Why not?

In the Bhagavad Gita (“the song divine”), it is said that this entire world is a creation of the divine energy at play. It is further said that the deepest and highest form of love is manifested as a result of this play. If one were to believe this to be true, then we can realize that play has tremendous (healing) energy. Imagine what our life would look like, if we were to open our heart and accept the invitation to play. In loving play, we could all experience deep bliss, deeper awareness and the deepest truth in all of our being, all over again. 

Kumud

P.S. Join us on Sunday, July 19 at 9amET on twitter for our weekly community gathering in #SpiritChat. We will toss around some  questions and answers, and experience the healing energy of play. I hope you can join us. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Hydrabgea in bloom – a wonderful example of nature at play!

Engaging our Youthful Spirit

Tags

engagement, leadership, new direction, spirituality, transformation, youth

The breeze blows swift this morning under overcast skies and the grasses rimming the lake seem a tad taller from having been replenished by the light rain that fell all night long. It’s the kind of morning on the deck where a light T-shirt isn’t warm enough and a sweat-shirt wouldn’t be cool enough… and so I put on a yellow soccer jersey with Brazil colors on top of the blue.

In the small Zoom chat on Friday, a lot of us were wearing blue again. I commented that blue was becoming a theme for the chats and Lucille (@sageandsavvy) reminded us that blue activates the “throat chakra” and empowers us to speak the truth. From hosting my niece’s wedding events on Zoom for three straight days this week, I know that yellow is the color of purity. Bride and groom wear yellow while the family applies orange turmeric paste on them, before they take a ritual bath the day before the wedding is a ritual of the ages in our community.

Blue, yellow, orange – add red and green trimmed with gold – the traditional colors worn by Indian brides, a lot of music, dance, and laughter, and you get a soul-filling vibrance that energized me and all those present. The energy of love and joy of the young bride and groom was unmistakable – even from seven thousand miles away. It was a wedding like me and many others had never experienced – an immersion and engagement of a different , unique kind where you could be fully present to the flow of youth-led celebration, without all the distractions and stresses of attending a real-life wedding.

As I write this, the wind has calmed a bit, and out of the corner of my eye, I see that the Mama rabbit who has set up family camp in the thick shrub beyond the fence, has arrived at the base of the deck’s steps. At a six foot distance, we have been doing this stillness dance for a few days. We are aware of each other, but we only look at each other through sideways glances, and we both sit in stillness — a bit like how the bride and groom sat during the fire ceremony part of the wedding. Once she has decided that she is safe, she moves to the base of the bird-feeder where the spillover created by the blackbirds is her repast. My phone flashes a notification — “Flight from GOI to BOM at 9am” — this was to be my return flight from the wedding in Goa. Rescheduled for next June.

Now, where was I? Yes. The contagious, vibrant, energetic refueling of the spirit provided by immersion in the colors and sounds of youthful energy. Last week was confirmation of a direction that I had been called to the week before – to focus my energy towards greater engagement with folks who are young in heart and spirit.

This new direction is not merely about engaging those who are young in age, although they are the inspiration for it. It is about offering the energetic experience, the wisdom, the talents of those who have been on life’s roads less traveled, to those emerging youth who will lead our world into its new future.

Some of this reminds me of my good friend Jon Mertz of @ThinDifference, whom I met on Twitter, and is the first Twitter friend I met IRL on a visit to Dallas. He has supported #SpiritChat for many years, particularly in its youthful years, and has been a long term proponent of “engaging generations and empowering future leaders.” It also reminds me of Simon Harvey (@Simon_GB), a day one #spiritchat participant, whose passion for leadership flowed through #LeadfromWithin for many a year.

I believe it is time for me to follow their lead, the lead of my calling, and the lead of many others like @GrandmaOnDeck, @GaryRGruber, @VegyPower and more. I believe it is time to focus on engaging the energy of youth across the world, and dive headlong into this new experiment and calling to a return to the heart.

I hope you will join me in this new walk. I was going to wait to start walking towards this in a few weeks, but Elisa (@WomenandBiz) in yesterday’s Zoom chat taught me through a Maya Angelou quote — why wait to do the next good thing? Sharon (@AwakeningYourTrueSelf) encouraged me to follow the new direction with the same passion that I have had for the weekly #SpiritChat and Quaratulain (@iquarattariq), the youth representative in the Zoom chat, lent her warm, heartful endorsement.

So, here I am. I am hoping that some of you who have been with the #SpiritChat community for a while will provide inputs, ideas and guidance to this not-so-new heart direction for many of us. I will need all of your help and more, to take the current energy of “we’re all in this together” and transform it into action, so as to effect a transfer of power that will create a new core of leadership at the heart of this world.

I know that we can do this by engaging a new generation that leads and acts with the heart — for that is the key to sustainability.

My three week retreat is over. I’m back. Refueled. Ready for a new launch. Join me. Let all of us young in heart and spirit, you and Me, turn this world upside down, and become We.

Let us arise, awake, and stop not!

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly chat, Sunday June 28 at 9amET / 630pm India as we gather to celebrate the energy of youth. Maybe I will switch from tea to juice, and from cookies to fresh fruit. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The contagious joy and energy of young hearts and spirits…

On Living Memorials

Tags

inheritance, legacy, memorial day, memory, remembrance

My search for a topic for the weekly chat usually begins around the middle of every week. During most weeks, the topic that I have picked out on Wednesday or Thursday is rarely the final topic that I pick on Friday evening or Saturday. The process of picking the topic isn’t exactly cerebral — it is an amorphous, heart-energy driven act of deep listening. This week was no different. By Friday evening, the topic had gone from ‘welcoming traditions’ on Wednesday to ‘remembrance’ on Thursday to something related to Memorial Day’ on Friday evening.

Saturday morning’s meditation happened to be filled with the ‘Memorial Day’ thought-parade. This mental chatter is actually predictable every week, particularly If I don’t write the weekly cover post by Friday night before bed. Today’s thought-stream was filled with suggestions and questions about how to frame the Sunday conversation. As I emerged from the ‘meditation’ that really wasn’t that still or silent, I noted down the questions that had flowed to me. And then, as I sat outside with my tea, I was prompted  to try something different in lieu of the usual weekly blog post.

I decided to share the questions about ‘Living Memorials’ that came to me during the morning meditation. I don’t believe I have ever shared potential chat questions in the weekly blog post on the Saturday before the live chat on Sundays. And yet, I thought — why not? Maybe it would inspire folks to reflect a bit more deeply about this special Sunday in the USA. Maybe it would inspire them to write and share a blog post of their own, or privately journal about the idea of a “Living Memorial” over the weekend. Maybe it would take the pressure off of those who valiantly try to keep track of, and try to answer every question during the live chat!

So, without further do, here goes. On Living Memorials. Some questions for you. They are in no particular order other than ’stream of awareness’.  I invite you to sit with them. 

• What is the best memorial we can build to our spiritual inheritance? Our spiritual teachers?
• How can we truly live in memoriam of those who have nurtured us in life so far?
• Is it possible to build a living memorial to honor the forgotten? Why or why not?
• Memorials which hold great importance to us often create a great sense of attachment. What is the psychological, emotional, spiritual impact of memorials?
• Public and private memorials. What are the similarities and differences in the creating, the living of each one.
• If and when they look upon how we lived — what would their memorial to us say about our legacy….
• Physical memorials have been built by mankind for centuries. Why may this be so?
• Some memorials are expressions of gratitude for those who sacrificed. Others are remembrances of those who perished… How can we best honor both in our daily actions?
• The greatest acts of remembrance are done by those who ______ for those who _____
• What kind of memorial, if any, could be ‘constructed’ about humanity’s response to the current pandemic? Should there even be one? Why?

I hope you will take one or more questions and do a deep dive into the answer. Maybe the answer will change color with every sunrise and sunset over the next few days. I invite you to share some of your answers — either in the live chat Sunday at 9amET in #SpiritChat or through any other medium you choose to share in. If you have questions to share about the subject, I welcome them too.

Namaste, and Stay Safe!

Kumud

Nature is a living memorial to life and all that sustains it…