Designing our Spiritual Futures

Tags

celebration, design, future, present, spirituality

The house is still asleep as I slip out of bed to go upstairs and begin my day with meditation. Bindi, the younger puppy, stirs as I walk by, gives me a glance and goes back to sleep. She knows that I will be back in an hour so, and playtime will then begin.

The rain has been falling hard all night, but I want to hear more of it, so I half-open the windows in the living room on my return downstairs. Ah. The soothing sounds of birds intermingled with the rain filtering through the leaves on the trees. The sight of raindrops holding on to the edges of the shrubs with skinny, pine-needle like leaves, that grow taller by the summer outside the living room windows.

I sip on my cup of tea and wonder. How far have we come? How much further do we have to go? Are we still making a difference? Should we continue on the path or take a diversion? How engaged are we in designing our own spiritual futures?

In the context of the age of the universe, ten years is a minuscule amount of time. In the context of a human lifetime, ten years can be a significant number. To put it in context, pause and consider. What are some significant (spiritual) events in your life over the past ten years? The answer to this question can reveal much about why we are on our spiritual path, our companions, and the quality of our journey.

If we sit deeply with the question from a spiritual perspective, the answer can reveal some truths too. The purpose of our inquiry isn’t necessarily to create a ‘progress report’. It is more like we are visiting with ourselves in loving kindness, observing our inner state, and being grateful for our present gifts. It is acknowledging that no amount of effort, however small, in the journey towards divine connection is ever wasted. Every action counts and everything is counted.

Our individual progress may seem slow and yet, when many slow moving waves merge together in harmony and resonance, they can move entire masses of land over time. What can we learn from nature and her design prowess?

We can design our own spiritual future if we are willing to acquire the tools we need, harmonize with like-hearted companions, and do the daily work that connects our consciousness to the joy, truth and awareness of our own manifest destiny.

As the rain starts to taper off and the heat begins to rise again, I realize that I need to refill my cup and grab another cookie. It is time to look forward to the weekly gathering of travelers, celebrate the present, and look forward to growing into a brighter future.

Kumud

Join the #SpiritChat community for our weekly virtual gathering on Twitter, Sunday July 25 at 9am ET / 630pm India. We will celebrate ten years of traveling with tea, cookies, and maybe more… Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Nature designs beautiful presents in togetherness. We can learn from her…

On Spiritual Enrichment

Tags

enrichment, obstacles, prosperity, spiritual goals, wealth

It felt like an early autumn morning as I walked out on to the deck after a night of storms. The remnants of the coastal storm had brought some welcome relief from the heat along with overcast skies. However, one glance at the thicket of trees filled with green leaves was enough to bring me back to summer.  It was going to be a great outside day. Perhaps I would work in the garden and  pull weeds in the flower beds, I mused. 

My musing turned to three hours of first removing the overgrown grasses on both sides of the fence, and then working around the rose bushes on the weeds. Why do these weeds keep showing up, particularly in a six-foot portion of the flower beds? I know that I have put down landscaping fabric (weed barrier) and covered it with layers of river rock over the years. What’s missing?

As I dug into the six-foot portion with my special tool that helps me extract the weeds from the roots, I noticed that I wasn’t hitting any fabric beneath the rocks. Aha. Mystery solved, or so I thought. I now remembered that I had run out of landscape fabric when in that six-foot portion when I did the flower bed project a few years ago. No wonder the two rose bushes in that portion would always be out-shone by the ones that bloomed in the adjacent twelve-foot portion that does have the weed barrier, and a lot less weeds. 

A single shortcut taken by me three years ago, and I have spent an inordinate number of hours paying for it in maintenance and  lack of enrichment in that part of the garden. I essentially left the door open for the weeds to create ‘poverty’, right next door to the ‘wealthiest’ part of the flower bed. I felt like the farmer who keeps watering his fields while the back-stops on his sluice gates are left open. Do you ever feel that way in life, in your spiritual practice?

I felt like that for years. My progress, my heart’s growth would happen in fits and starts. I did a lot of reading, which I still do, because I love to read.  I spent a lot of time and learnt a lot in years of my visits to the local temple. I still do. I rarely missed an opportunity to attend day(s)-long retreats with spiritual Gurus visiting town. That didn’t happen over the past year, but I look forward to them again. And yet, something was missing. The aspect of long-term enrichment of the heart and soul remained elusive. I didn’t feel like I could call-up deep inner peace, silence, stillness, and such, at a moment’s notice. And then something changed.

I decided to try a new meditation practice. My ‘trainer’ asked me for a favor. “Make a commitment to practice for ninety days.” Ninety days? I had been practicing on and off by myself for years. Ninety days was going to be a walk in the garden, weeds and all! And so it began. Morning practice. Evening cleaning (weeding!). Night-time remembrance. Repeat next day. Weekly ‘deep cleaning’ (weeding!). Slowly, days turned to weeks, which turned to months. It has been over four years. Why am I still practicing?

My practice makes me feel enriched. Every morning – okay, more mornings than not – I feel like a kid in a candy store as I sit for the morning meditation. What new treasures am I going to discover today? In the evening, as I do the inner weeding, I prepare for the dreamless sleep that is going to come after bedtime remembrance. More enrichment follows. Some days I feel like I am immersed in all this wealth at random moments during the day. I can carry my peace with me because I feel like I have access to a secret treasury. 

Except that it wasn’t a secret. All it took was wondering, asking the right questions, waiting for the answers, and when offered the help of a new practice, accepting the invitation to make a small commitment. It was like deciding to fix that six-foot piece of missing fabric, and see if the weeds would stop taking the roses’ bloom away next season. It was learning that enrichment isn’t about accumulating a wealth of practices, but more about doing that One practice which consistently gives us great joy, peace, harmony and whatever makes our hearts glow with purpose. 

What is that enrichment practice going to be for you? If you are already practicing, you are already on the path to enrichment unlimited. If you aren’t, then pause and consider. Ask some questions. Be open to the answers. And keep sight of the knowing that you, just like anyone else, deserve to be enriched beyond your wildest dreams.

This is your time. Don’t shy away. Be still. Listen. 

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly conversation with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday July 11 at 9am ET / 2pm UTC / 630pm India. I know that you have the ability to enrich someone with your experience and insights. Come share with us. Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

Let’s make no mistake – weeds and thorns contribute to enrichment too!

In Loving Remembrance

Tags

love, memorial day, purpose, remembrance, yoga

The act of remembrance is a multifaceted thing. Some practice it in deep silence while others may engage it with sound and fury of music and focalization. Some may pick up a brush, dip it in colors and paint their memories into masterpieces, while others may dance their way across wooden floors in the company of new friends.

Regardless of personal preference, the practice is important because it reminds us of the frailty and fragility of our own life. Remembrance and memorialization have been with us as integral parts of our lives for as long as human memory exists. Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians built great pyramids. Why? So that they could be remembered, not forgotten.

This fear that we shall somehow be forgotten in death is perhaps what drives us to seek a purpose-filled life, a life where we ‘make a difference in the world’ and even ‘leave it a better place’. What could we perhaps do in this life that would make us immemorial? We could begin by remembering why we’re here in the first place.

One simple explanation of this ‘why’ is that we are here to remember love. Not just ordinary, human love, but to partake in the experience of divine love. In the Yoga tradition, this experience can be felt through Bhakti – a deep, constant, immersive remembrance of the beloved in the divine. And yet, this is only one way to love.

The Yoga of action, or Karma Yoga, also leads us to divine love. We simply have to remember to dedicate all our actions to the real doer, the divine. The Yogas of knowledge (Gyana) and meditation (Raja), both have pathways to lead us to the remembrance of the presence of divine love in our lives.

Our greatest spiritual challenge is that of forgetfulness. We forget that the opportunity to experience divine love is available to us in every given moment. Yes, love requires labor. But what if we were to remember to integrate deep immersion, inspired action, experiential knowledge and in-the-moment meditation into our labor of loving?

With loving remembrance, we can develop awareness of oneness, and our lives can become living memorials of truth and joy to all those whose silent sacrifices of life-force have fired our hearts with higher purpose. Let our gratitude flow towards them today.

Namaste,

Kumud

Join us for our weekly Twitter chat, Memorial Sunday (in the USA), May 30 at 9amET / 630pm India in #SpiritChat, as we discuss remembrance and love. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

On Bridges and Spirituality

Tags

bridges, connections, courage, freedom, healing

I decided that I was going to walk farther than ever before along my recently discovered walking trails around the lake. I figured that I would go as far around the circle that I was allowed, and then have to double-back on my path. It would be a good opportunity to view the morning interplay of light, water, sky, birds and trees from both directions — going clockwise and counter-clockwise.

What I hadn’t accounted for was that I would be presented with an invitation at the three-quarter mark around the circle. It was lying hidden among the tall grasses, in a shallow formed by the meeting of two down-slopes on either side of a moist stream bed. Perhaps the smallest of bridges I have ever encountered — one that a tall person like me would even leap over.

The invitation of the bridge created a decision point, an opportunity. Do I abandon my original plan to double-back and experience the trail from both directions, or do I accept, cross over, complete the circle and engage a different experience in that space and time?

We often encounter such ‘bridge experiences’ in our lives. Bridges tend to hold a fascination for most humans engaged in exploration and discovery, because they represent new possibilities. A bridge need not necessarily be a physical entity – far from it. People and practices, and their ability to facilitate new connections can serve as bridges too.

In many ways, music, art, dance, painting, sewing, hiking, reading, meditating, day-dreaming, sky-watching, cloud-spotting, gardening — name your favorite — can become a bridges. When we accept the invitation of any experience that transports us into a realm that creates sustainable silence, stillness, peace, we become a ‘bridge person’, don’t we?

And yet, we often refuse the invitation of bridges. Fear and uncertainty make us reluctant to build them, to cross over them, or invite others to cross with us. We often choose to double-back and keep reworking our well-trodden paths, rather than engage the ‘new bridge’ experiences, no matter how small the leap or crossing may be. What can help us accept the invitation?

Remembrance that faith, courage and grace are our friends can help us be bridges for others. When we experience our ability to help people in small ways, we gain spiritual strength. When we accept the help of those who have crossed before us, we open our heart to the light. In making small bridge choices, we plant the seeds of bigger crossings.

We are almost home. It’s time to take the leap, to cross over. Are you ready? Let’s walk.

The smallest of bridges, can set us free…

A Spirit of Acceptance

Tags

acceptance, healing, knowing, knowledge, pain, remembrance, suffering

ery time I tried to come out of it, I kept falling back into the light – that’s what happened multiple times as I tried to emerge from the morning meditation session. It was a bit like the oceans current pulling you back as you try to come ashore after a swim. I did not resist the pull of the light. Every time I was pulled back, I emerged a bit lighter as a result. 

It was a good thing that this happened on a Saturday morning and I could engage this dance without any time constraints of a work day or a school day. Any other day, and I would have resisted being pulled back or falling back, because I had ‘other things’ to do. Such is the nature of the balance between acceptance and resistance. 

How much time and energy are we willing to give to the clearing of our mind and the opening of our heart? When the messengers of pain and suffering come our way, are we going to be accepting of their messages and sit with them, or are we going to rush them away like unexpected guests at our doorsteps? 

Acceptance has another dimension. Our acceptance of our own beauty, our talents, our abilities and our frailties often meets with internal resistance. At some point in our lives, we all have perhaps had a nagging sense that we are not enough, that we don’t belong, and that we are somehow even deserving of our undue share of pain. Our emotional and mental health suffers as a result. 

One pathway to acceptance of our selves is knowing who we are. This self-knowing is different from the knowledge (about who we are) given to us by others, no matter how well (or ill) intentioned they may be. It is useful to ask the question, and ask it often – who am I in this moment? What is my truth? What am I feeling and where did this feeling come from? And so on.

Eventually, when we have had enough immersions in the answers, we may not need to question any more. We come to realize that we are the ocean, and that our separateness from it is a form of forgetfulness of that knowing. 

Through remembrance, comes the knowing of “I am That”. From knowing, come acceptance. With knowing, we can then stay in the ocean or emerge from it. It does not matter either way, because we are then in constant remembrance that we belong to each other. True healing and helping can then begin.

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly gathering with the #spiritchat community on Twitter, Sunday May 16 at 9am ET / 630pm India. We will talk about acceptance over tea, fruit, flowers and cookies. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The sun crests over the trees on a spring morning…

The Heart’s Fullness

Tags

celebration, easter, emptiness, fullness, spirituality

For most of the years that the weekly #SpiritChat has been around, we take a break from our Sunday morning Twitter gathering on Easter Sunday. It has become a bit of a tradition, if you will.

This Easter Sunday, we are going to ‘break with tradition’ because my heart has invited me to do so. Let me elaborate.

I usually wait until after my Saturday morning meditation hour to choose a topic for our Sunday chat. Clarity usually comes to the heart after meditation. As I sat for today’s hour, I didn’t even ‘ask for a topic’ because I wasn’t planning to do the chat anyway.

And yet, the universe had different plans. As my thoughts receded and the noise was replaced by a fullness of warmth and light that first came as a trickle, then a flood, and then a stillness that just sat there, my heart’s master said — “hold space for them like I am holding space for you.”

Who are these them, I asked? They are those who want someone to celebrate with, but can’t. Or they are those who want to simply share with someone about their week. Or they just want to see a friendly face, like your friend, the veteran who stands under a tree outside the local post office holding a “be kind” cardboard sign – the one you stop and chat with every single time you see him, inquire about his health issues, share some prepackaged food or a mask, and more. Yes him, who often reminds you of the fullness and richness of your life, as he says “God loves you” at the end of every one of your street conversations.

Yes. Hold space for them, because them includes you. Be the vessel that can be filled with potential. That was this morning’s invitation, and I accepted.

What is fullness or emptiness? It’s relative, isn’t it? To paraphrase Lao Tse, “we focus on the beauty of the vessel, but its usefulness, its potential is in its emptiness”. When the heart’s vessel is full, we feel led to empty it, to share what is held within, whether it be joy or sorrow. When the heart feels empty, we want to fill it up again.

Back and forth, the pendulum swings, and a time comes when our heart’s fullness is permanent. We are home again to love. We can all celebrate that, can’t we?

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly chat, Sunday April 4 at 9amET / 630pm India in #SpiritChat. Bring some goodies to share, and we will celebrate fullness. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Flowers fill the heart… Happy Easter!

Seasons of Renewal

Tags

light, new life, renewal, seasons, spring

Over the last week or so, I’ve noticed the slant of the sun’s light and the arc that sweeps across the sky in my northern latitude, has changed. My morning and evening walks have made me acutely aware of this change. As the sun rises more eastwards and sets more westwards a bit everyday, the March of increasing sunlight is difficult to ignore. Winter is still holding on, and yet, bit by bit, spring is loosening its grips on the earths and the waters where the Sun cannot yet reach directly. 

The increased range and angle of the Sun creates increased warmth in the earth during the day, which lets the soil do more its work of awakening the roots during the night. Or at least that’s what I imagine. The birds have already awakened to the season and the cries of fledglings demanding food in the nests outside our living room windows are ample proof of this. In addition, there is the music of the shrills of blackbirds on cattails harmonizing with the squawking of the arrivals and departures of new flocks of Canadian geese in the lake every morning and evening.

The not-so-hidden message in the midst of all this new activity seems to be a call to renewal. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the timing of this message coincides with the renewal of hope in our heart. We feel renewal because we can see the beginning of the end of the pandemic that brought a lot of components of our lives to a standstill over the past year. We may sense renewal because nature is reminding us of the consistency of natural life-cycles that have persisted through millennia, despite our ignorance of, or interference with them. 

It is often said (in metaphysics) that outer Nature is simply a projection of our own inner nature. The state in which we see the world without reflects the state of our world within. If this is true, then every season, every transition, every change in the amount and intensity of light and warmth within our heart is reflected in the external world of Nature. If this is true, then every moment that we invest in healing, reflecting upon, and meditating on the source of light within our heart becomes and opportunity for renewal of both our inner and outer world. 

I posit that This is the true invitation of the season of renewal. I further posit that we can evoke and invoke the season of renewal in whenever we so choose to renew the awareness of our heart’s light. It is when we awaken to the light of our truth that we can stream, and yes, even binge-watch, all the seasons of renewal within our heart.

And now, it’s time to walk the dog, or rather, let him walk me outside. It’s a beautiful spring day outside. Namaste.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday March 7 2021 at 9amET / 730pm Inda. Tell us about your favorite season of renewal! Thank you. – @AjmaniK

Sunlight falls on Autumn’s leaves in Spring – March 6 2021

The Heart’s Serendipity

Tags

heart matters, heartmonth, serendipitiy, surprises, surrender

To try and define serendipity is to perhaps attempt to fly without wings. Let that not stop me from trying, though, because the mere notion of the word makes me smile. Saying it out loud makes me smile even more. Try it. Slowly. Se-ren-dip-ity. There. Are you smiling yet? Now, let’s get back to the definition.

Let’s begin with the dictionary definition and origin of Serendipity:

…the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way…

Origin: coined by Horace Walpole in 1754, suggested by The Three Princes of Serendip, the title of a fairy tale in which the heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’.

What’s you’re definition of Serendipity? Does it involve any fairy tales? Here are a few of my offerings. 

Serendipity is an unplanned, unheralded, unexpected event, accompanied with a welcome surprise, which transports us to a different level of consciousness from the level of awareness that we initially stepped into the event with.

Serendipity is a suspension of attachment accompanied by a surrender to the possibility that infinite outcomes may exist for any given action.

How about a bit of word play? Serendipity happens when we allow our awareness to be ‘dip’ped much deeper into the gap in consciousness that seren-ity creates for us. Who needs wings, eh?!

Enough of definitions. Let me share some personal serendipities with you, in no particular order of time and space. Perhaps it will inspire you to think of some of your own.

Serendipity is a bit like when your teenager downloads yet another painting app for her phone, and you wonder – how many painting apps does she really need? A few days later, she shares with you one of her most creative ‘finger’ paintings yet. Yes, that.

Serendipity is a bit like when you, finally, after years of ‘rolling your own’ with your ‘practice’ of meditation, humble yourself enough to say ‘yes’ to the invitation of ‘meditation with pranahuti’ (Heartfulness), and the universe smiles back at you with deep love as it holds your hand on your new walk. 

Serendipity is a bit like when on a vacation trip to Mexico for spring break, you wake up early one day to take a walk with a Shaman who teaches you about how to ask permission of the universe – the earth, the skies, the waters, the winds – and then, a day later, your fear of water disappears as you learn to float in a crystal clear cenote. Yes. That.

Serendipity is a bit like when you go to the Friday evening happy hour after work on the insistence of a friend because you love all their deep-fried appetizers and you end up with a ‘chance meeting’ with a savant who ends up becoming your friend, then your wife and the one who has taught you every day over the past twenty six years about the meaning of higher love with her actions.
Yes. That.

Serendipity is the result of the universe’s gifts to us when we untether our mind from our heart and surrender a sliver of time and space to creativity, intuition, and openness. The result is that the infinite does its thing and adds sparks of joy to our heart.

The heart’s serendipity. Yes. That’s That. 

Kumud

P.S What does serendipity mean to you? Can you think of instances of ‘discoveries of sagacity’ that have created sparks of you for you? Join us and share some of your moments with us in our weekly community gathering in #SpiritChat on twitter, Sunday February 28 at 9amET. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The Heart’s Serendipity – Artwork by AA

On Truth and Reconciliation

Tags

healing, light, reconciliation, spirituality, truth

It’s a mid-winter Saturday morning as I wait for the sun to rise and break the logjam of cloud cover that has been hanging in the sky like a spider hanging on for dear life, precariously at the end of its thread. I am reflecting on today’s morning meditation and the sunlit energy state that it created for my heart — a state that I hope to remember to carry with me through the rest of the day, and evoke when the cloud cover returns within or without.

The events of the week, particularly of Inauguration Day last Wednesday, have flung open the door to a state where speaking the truth is not the exception any more. The calls to ‘end the uncivil war’ and to ‘be brave enough to see the light’ are like balm to the wounds of millions of hearts who are looking for relief from the weight of pain, even grief, that they have been carrying like muse on an uphill mountain trail.

I have told the story before, and yet, in the context of truth and reconciliation bears repeating. It took me the better part of twenty years to tell my mother the truth of how much it hurt that I, the middle child, didn’t grow up with the rest of the family. It took a moment of inspired courage, standing on the balcony of a small apartment watching the sun set, holding our cups of tea, that I opened the door to speak my truth. And, to my pleasant surprise, she spoke hers. It I didn’t take me long to realize that her decision to ask her sister to raise me as a seven year old was the toughest thing she had done at her young age of twenty nine. The two of us speaking our truths to each other that evening, led to many more truthful conversations during the rest of her visit to the USA. By the time she left, I was well on the path to forgiveness and reconciliation.

That conversation was almost thirty years ago. It wasn’t that we didn’t have strong disagreements or great challenges in our relationship in the years since, but we never forgot that speaking and living our own truths, and walking in each other’s shoes with compassion, was our way back to respect, reconciliation and healing. By the time she suddenly passed away a few years back, she had become one of my best friends, confidants and advisors. Even though I continued to question some of her truths, and we had many long phone conversations about them, I never questioned her capacity to love.

What did I learn from my experience? I learnt that we are all capable of truth and reconciliation, and that our heart’s light stands ready to show us the way if we can muster enough courage to heal our wounds and let go of our pain. Is it ever too late to discard shame and blame in favor of civility, candid conversation and co-creation?

The spider doesn’t need to hang by its thread any more. The clouds have parted, the sun has risen, and it’s time to resume weaving the web of love with threads of truth, reconciliation and healing.

Bring your light. We need your courage to heal.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly conversation, Sunday Jan 24 at 9amET / 730pm India as we discuss some truths. The sun will be rising, I will be pouring tea, and we will walk the light. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Sunrise on the lake – Wednesday, January 20 2021

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?