On Spiritual Shifts

Tags

change, habits, heart, shift, transition

Brilliant sunshine. It is a welcome and wonderful start to the day, after days of waking up to overcast skies. I have slept in a bit, and the slight shift on this Saturday means that the sun is already streaming its golden rays on the light dusting of snow on the roofs in the distance, as I finish my morning meditation. I crack open the window a bit and the morning song of the birds comes flooding in with the rush of really cold air and the light of the moon that hasn’t set yet.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem like much, and yet, the combination of small shifts in external light and sounds from a mere twenty four hours ago, seems to have a significant effect on me in this waking hour. As I absorb it all, I ask if the small shift in one single aspect of my daily evening practices is having an outsized impact on my inner state the following morning?

From experimentation and observation, the answer seems to be an unqualified yes. My meditation journal tells me that I am currently on an ‘eight day streak’ of ‘evening cleaning’. It is a simple, fifteen minute practice of a ‘wholesale cleaning’ of the accumulated inner detritus of the day, every day. It is akin to brushing your teeth before going to bed at night, so the bacteria doesn’t grow in the warm petri-dish of your mouth while you sleep.

A small shift. Imagine ‘brushing out’ all the thoughts, words and actions that leave ‘crud’ within your heart, during the daily flow of normal life. Imagine doing this every single night, before you got to bed. What would the state of your heart be, when you wake up the next day? A bit cleaner, just like your cleaner teeth, I imagine?

It has taken be the better part of five years, to make this small shift. I have read and heard about the benefits of ‘cleaning’, over and over again, for five long years — and I am finally putting it into some kind of regular practice. And the shift within is noticeable!

Is there some small shift that you have been meaning or planning to make in your life, but for whatever reason, haven’t made yet? What is it that will inspire you to take action, make that change? For me, it was the realization that I had perhaps ‘plateaued’ in my inner growth, that made me ask – what is missing in my practice? It was sitting there, staring at me, right in front of my face. Evening cleaning – yes, of the teeth and if the heart.

I invite you to find your small shift within, whatever it may be, and then take action. Know that there is no such thing as a ‘small action’. Let not another evening (or year) go by, without making the shift that whispers to you. Start today, build up a streak, keep track of the effects, and observe how the small shift is creating big course corrections for you.

Who knows. You may discover that it doesn’t take much of a shift for the heart to open just a bit wider and the light to flow brighter.

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat, Sunday Jan 23 at 9amET / 730pm India with the #SpiritChat community. We will share about our inner and outer shifts. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

A small shift in light helps bloom this flower (Brazil)

On Inner Conditions

Tags

awareness, heart, spiritual practice, spirituality

Snowflakes! I am waking up to snowflakes! This was my first thought as I emerged from the stillness and peace that has enveloped me in today’s hour of meditation — a habit that has sustained me well for the past few years, and greatly helped improve my overall inner condition.

Meditation has inspired an attitude that distracts me from pessimism and orients me towards the unfettered beauty of the inner and outer world that I live in. It inspires me to be mindful of, and mind my ‘inner condition’, as reflected by the state of my heart. Meditation has guided me to love those who are easy to love, and be patient with those who aren’t so easy to love.

With sustained practice, it’s easy to be in a condition of equanimity when we are by ourselves. And yet, we live and engage with a world of people with hugely varying states of ‘inner conditions’. My inner condition can thus change quickly, with worldly ‘triggers’. Sometimes , this happens as soon as I step out of my meditative state. So why even meditate, I used to ask? This, in turn, led me to ask more questions.

What are the sources of these triggers that disrupt my peaceful inner condition attained during meditation? Do these triggers repeat themselves? What additional work can I do, to preserve my meditative condition of lightness, as I traverse my daily worldly life?

As is often the case, the answers come from the heart’s being in a receptive, loving, observing condition. Be easy to love, and love with a light touch. Bring joy from a distance, and embrace lightly in connection. Celebrate your uniqueness as you delight in your travels. Dance in the wind, let it twist and twirl you along the way.

Ah. The lessons in observing the life and conditions of a snowflake!

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday January 16 at 9amET / 730pm India. There will be questions, tea and coffee, and yes, even some cake! – @AjmaniK

Snowflakes… teachers about our inner condition…

On Sustainable Living

Tags

compassion, discipline, ethics, giving, sacrifice, self control, sustainability

Sustainability. It was the central theme of the annual Aerospace conference called SciTech that happened this week. I attended virtually, along with thousands of other professionals, academics, students, policy makers and more. Five days of new ideas and conversations about how to create sustainable solutions for earthly aviation and beyond-earth exploration.

New technologies, new vehicles, new fuels, new investments. These were all proposed, to meet the challenges that climate change presents to the (aerospace) world. It did not take long for me to ask the question – what sustains, what creates sustainability for the humans creating the sustainable solutions?

I had to wait till Friday evening for the answers to emerge. As is often my wont, I return to the library upstairs, pick a book from the ‘spiritual’ section, and open it to a random page. I landed in the middle of a chapter titled ‘Ethics’, and the author was speaking to the three core virtues of a life of value.

Self-control (or dama) is the first virtue that sustains us. It is when we offer resistance to our desires that we develop strength, discipline and resilience. Each act of resistance adds another layer of sustainability to our spirit. Solitude and silence are two practices to develop self-control. “Progress in silence is progress to realization by connecting us to the creative power of the divine.”

Self-sacrifice by letting go (or daana) is the second virtue that sustains us. Letting go is the practice of giving or providing assistance to those in need, and also freedom from greed. What is the sustainable way of letting go? “Give with faith, do not give without faith, give liberally, with modesty, with sympathy.”

Compassion (or dayaa) is the third virtue of sustainable living. Compassion is the practice of being at peace, of forgiveness, of avoiding ill-will and cruelty. “It is through compassion that we can overcome selfishness and develop patience and forbearance.” If we can tune into the extent of suffering in the world, we can remember to live a compassion-first lifestyle.

Self-control, self-sacrifice through letting go, and compassion — three sustainability keys given to me — and I share them with you. Sustainable and simple habits are easier to integrate into our lifestyle, aren’t they? With sustained practice, we can transform our heart to a kinder, gentler, lighter, quieter, and healthier version of itself. With a transformed heart, we can discover a well-spring of love to create a brighter world for our life here on earth and beyond.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat, Sunday January 9 at 9amET / 730pm India in #SpiritChat. We will gather and talk about sustainability on our journey ahead. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Ref for the ‘three keys’: ‘Ethics – An Idealist View of Life,’ by S. Radhakrishnan, The Hibbert Lectures, 1929.

Harmony with the elements… a key to sustainability

On Life and Simplicity

Tags

acceptance, friendliness, joy, kindness, simplicity

As I sit here on the first morning of the New Year, watching and hearing a new flock of geese landing in the lake to rest for the day, I cannot help but marvel at the simplicity of it all. My awareness of the simple things has been heightened over the final two weeks of December in various ways.

The first of the two weeks led me to vacation with the family in the Caribbean among sunrises, ocean tides, sandcastles, the full moon and much more. There were many hours of one on one time with family members, family conversations over dinner, and simply sitting around in each others energies while doing nothing.

I had the opportunity to experience some deeper-than-usual meditations, read some books, learn bits of Spanish, and immerse in the peace of the locals. And yes, there were the extraordinary long walks on the beach, some moments of which I shared through photos with all of you.

I did not bring back a single souvenir other than the sense of how deeply we are connected to the elements — a connection that often tends to gets lost in rush and noise of our daily lives. It is difficult to describe what happens within you when you watch the sunrises over the sea for seven straight mornings while the ocean roars at your feet, as you walk the beach watching the seagulls and pelicans gliding over the water, and the glistening of the reflections cast by the sun and the full moon.

Words cannot do simplicity justice for they can only attempt to describe the mind’s construct of thoughts and rarely capture the imprints on the heart. Perhaps there is a better way to preserve and grow such beautiful and rare moments of connection with nature, even when we are not in its presence on the beaches of the world?

This was the question that I asked myself in the final week of the year when time seemed to be passing in ultra-slow-motion. One answer that emerged was from the Yoga Sutras of  Patanjali, which describes four practices that can help to simplify our life by purifying our mind and heart.

Be kind to those suffering – practice Karuna or kindness.

Be joyful in the joy of others – practice Mudita  or joyfulness.

Be friendly to those who are friendly towards you – practice Maitri  or friendliness.

Be accepting towards those with malicious intent – practice Upeksha or acceptance.

These four simple practices can become the guideposts for our life’s journey. And yet, so often, we run into challenges with one or more of them on a daily basis, don’t we? Can you relate to any of these practices that are a challenge for you?

The invitation of simplicity is simple, but the acceptance and practice of it is often made complex by our mind-thought-word-action system of living. We know that simplicity can be as simple as giving free reign to the heart, and yet we often walk away from it as we stay entangled with the mind and its complexities.

Perhaps the advent of the New Year can help bring us closer to simplicity, as we accept its invitation, one day at a time. Maybe we can say yes to four simple practices – to kindness, to joyfulness, to friendliness, and to acceptance.

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly gathering with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday January 2 2022 at 9amET / 730pm India. We will consider the invitation of simplicity as we step into the New Year. Namaste – @AjmaniK

A flower’s simplicity… in December

Our Spiritual Quest

Tags

awareness, december, journey, light, spirituality, winter

On some mornings, particularly on heavily overcast ones, where the carpet of the sky is laden with the dust of the night, we trade sunrise and sunlight – or rather accept, as we cannot really trade anything that doesn’t belong to me – for stillness and reflection amid the deep peace that nature offers to us – and wander in our quest, even if a bit seemingly aimlessly for a while…

only to be led to new paths which we may have often passed by but did not have the courage or willingness to explore because we were enamored by by the familiarity of chasing sunshine – and we then see all too familiar sights from new heights and with new insights as our eyes stretch and work a bit harder in the relative darkness…

to realize that there is yet enough light, even on those overcast morns, to discover the berries of winter, watch a pair of mallard ducks peacefully swim alongside a troika of geese in the stillness of the lake – and even when they swim out of sight, we know that they are there, somewhere, from the gentle wake that spreads from their meeting in the middle of the lake to the shore and breaks up the reflections of the tall trees in the water…

perhaps some day, when the calling is loud and deep enough, we will understand more the reasons – but until then, our quest, our journey towards peace and exploration, peaceful exploration, continues, powered by the energy and light of all those who have gone before us…

as we know fully well by now, we are at peace in the knowing of its glow, that the sun shines bright above the overcastness, and that the source is awake in its effulgence, and that permanence is its nature because it reflects within us when we look with new sight…

Yes. There is light enough for our quest, no matter what it is our heart may be seeking. Peace, hope, love, joy, light – they are all serendipities to be found on the way, and our practice may even help to establish them permanently within our heart. When our daily practice, informed by our quest, becomes a lifestyle, we can find ourselves awakening with more lightness every day to the goodness within us and those around us.

Let there be light enough, to keep our quest alive.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat, Sunday December 5 2021, with the #SpiritChat community on twitter. We will continue our quest with holiday goodness and goodies. Come share with us. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Nature’s gifts… for December’s quests…

On Giving and Fragrance

Tags

fragrance, giving, heart, learning, lifestyle, light

It had been an exhausting day and a half of work as I was trying to wrap up the technical paper and presentation that was to accompany it. Finally, after what seemed like a really long day by the time it came three o’clock, I made some time for afternoon tea. I could tell that it was a brisk day outside what with the almost leaf-shorn trees standing still against the clear blue sky and the brilliant sunshine quickly fading to the south east.

Walking upstairs to “close up the office”, I noticed that the sun had created hundreds of spot-lights off of the stained-glass-like lamp sitting by the window. The reading chair called to me, and I walked over with the cup of tea, pulled the “Rumi” book off of the shelf and let the sunshine soak into my soul.

The next half hour felt like I must have traveled into a different universe where the silence becomes you. The sunlight lit up each page as I read poems about love without rules, the nature of what we are given when a loved one holds us to their chest, true silence that makes you feel like the soul’s belonging, and how spring awakens autumn from its slumber. Who says you can’t stumble into spring in the middle of a late afternoon on a late November day in autumn?

And so it went as I faded in and out of what seemed like forever. My tea sat on the small round table by me, slowly exhausting its warmth like the setting sun as it was fading quickly behind the rooflines of the homes in the distance. The thirty minutes of warmth felt like the fourteen years that I had spent being raised with love by my Aunt who had been born on this day ninety two years ago. The divine had blessed her with the ability to share her light. She gave of it freely to her kids, to strangers, to the fruit and vegetable sellers, to the part-time maids who came to do myriad home tasks, and so on. I was fortunate to bear witness to a lot of her giving.

Giving and its lessons can come to us from any direction at any time. The nature of giving is such that we often do not not know what we have been given until it comes our turn to give in a similar way. She would often remark that I would understand why she acted in the ways that she did, even when exacting discipline, when I would become a parent myself. When that day came, my understanding began to dawn, but it happened in an unexpected way. The medium was the giving nature of the one who gave birth to our child.

And so my slow learning continues. Now, our child teaches me through her peace and her gentility and her passion for social justice. The spiritual masters teach me by about limitless giving by their transmission of spiritual energy to all those who are willing to receive. And so on it goes.

Some of you may say that I look at life through rose-colored glasses. And that is okay. For one, I like roses. The rose keeps on spreading its fragrance, regardless of how many thorns are nearby. The rose knows who it is, and what its purpose is. Is that not a great example of the nature of giving? In addition, I can use the same rose-colored glasses to look at myself with love, kindness and compassion. If I only look at my own thorns, what is the world going to see when they look at me?

Yes. The spiritual path can be long, arduous, daunting, and even seem futile for the seeming lack of progress. There seems so much more work to do. Tagore says in his translation of one of Kabirdas’s poems:

“So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;

And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;

And when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain;

When the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to the letter.

Kabîr says, “Listen to me, dear Seeker! the true path is rarely found.”

So what is a practitioner to do? ‘Rarely’ does not mean ‘never’. One solution is to keep on practicing our nature of giving. Sustained practice improves our inner state, which enables us to create tangible changes in our outer state, create a new lifestyle. If we embrace giving by fully engaging our heart, we can find ourselves in oneness with the rose, whence the petals and thorns are indeed one flower. The fragrance of our giving than shall then know no limits.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly Twitter conversation, Sunday Nov 28 at 9amET / 730pm India in #SpiritChat ~ come share your fragrance with the community. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Fragrance of the rose… attracts morning dew

On Changing Perspective

Tags

inner change, perspective, photography, spirituality, walking

What a difference a week can make!

This Friday, as i begin my weekly walk on the school campus, the Sun is already cresting the trees, as I approach the trail from a distance. The one-hour shift of the clocks last Sunday has created a totally different perspective for my walk. I have gone from starting my walk just as the sun would be rising, to walking in full daylight.

Even though the intensity of the morning light is different in the waking and walking hour, some things haven’t changed. The welcoming embrace of the lake and the trees, the wetness of the grass, the dramatic colors of the leaves that are on the trees and the ground, the raucous warnings of the blue-jays, the groups of ducks swimming in the water as they keep an eye on how close I get to the shore. And so on.

And yet, somehow, the nature of the light — sometimes soft, sometimes harsh; sometimes silvery, sometimes golden; sometimes enhancing the brilliant colors, sometimes casting long shadows — makes me think about the importance of perspective.

The nature of external light, of its source, doesn’t change from day to day, season to season, year to year. What really changes is how we see things, particularly familiar things. A different day, a different hour, gives us the opportunity to change our focus, our framing of the subject, our cropping (removing things from our field of consideration), and our composition (all that we want to include) and perhaps most importantly – our perspective of light.

Yes, I am leaning heavily on the language of photography because it is something that I engage in regularly. Playing with light and perspective on the outside has often helped me to ask questions of myself. What if I was to change my perspective on a certain matter, particularly on one that regularly creates inner disturbances? What if I were to do a full 180 turn from the ‘long shadow’ side and look at the ‘light side’ of a matter? Could I gain some inner peace, create acceptance and regain vital energy by changing my perspective?

In my waking and walking experiences, revising perspective isn’t merely about changing my mind, my thoughts or my actions. Perspective is about acknowledging the light and its source, being grateful for its constant and accessible presence, and allowing it to soften the heart enough so that we can see our Self with new eyes.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly Twitter chat, Sunday Nov 14 at 9am EST / 730pm India. We will discuss perspective and all the new possibilities it can create for us. Namaste. – @AjmaniK

Framing, composition, focus, lighting and perspective- they all define how and what we ‘see’, don’t they?

A live recording from the walk… sharing a new perspective on where #SpiritChat topics come from…

On Words of Light

Tags

awareness, celebration, darkness, diwali, light, words

It is the final day of the final lunar fortnight of the year (according to the Hindu calendar) and I sit in the low slant of the fading light of autumn as the sun starts to descend behind the trees in the distance.

The sunrise tomorrow (November 4th) will herald a new moon, a new fortnight, and will set off celebrations of the “Festival of Lights” (Diwali) for hundreds of millions in India and those of Indian origin across the world. It is perhaps apropos to note that this year’s Diwali festival comes after a year of particularly deep pain, darkness and suffering in India, due to the ravages of COVID-19 earlier this year.

However, as is light’s wont, it cannot be hidden for long by even the deepest of darknesses. Spiritual teachers and texts often remind us that we have the capacity to accept whatever comes our way with grace, as divine grace. We also have the infinite capacity to learn to lean into the permanence of light, even though we tend to forget the Infinite when we get caught up the impermanence of darkness. Light is often merely a word away.

Joy, Love, Hope, Grace, Peace, Truth, Giving, Health, Purity, Kindness, Gratitude, Lightness, Simplicity, Equanimity. How do you feel when you read any of these words, or speak any of them? I posit that every single one of these words elevates your heart, mind and spirit in some way, however small. If it elevates you, then every single word like say, JOY, becomes a bearer of the energy that can transform this moment for you into LIGHT.

Try it some time. When darkness tends to weigh on you, first say to yourself, ‘this is impermanent’. Then, say out loud (or within your heart) a single word like JOY. Repeat. What if you could create a regular practice that engages you in light-filling actions and leads you to light-fulness? What if the next time you go for a walk, or watch the sunset or sunrise, or drink a cup of tea, or are folding the laundry, or washing the dishes… you were to repeatedly say to yourself… JOY, LOVE, PEACE. Joy, Love, Peace. joy, love, peace.

Imagine that every moment were to become an awareness of the permanence of the light within you, and a celebration of the source of that light. You would then celebrate the sunsets for the stars that they reveal, and life’s dark turns for the grace of light that awaits. Like a fish in the ocean that knows no separation from the water, you would then know no separation from light.

It’s time for me to return to my tea and watch the fireworks that the sunset is surely going to set off among the clouds. It’s time to light the evening lamp to welcome the year of light arriving with tomorrow’s sunrise.

Joy. Love. Peace.

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly Twitter chat, Sunday November 7 at 9am EST / 730pm India (time change in India due to shift to Standard Time in the USA). We will celebrate the light in our lives, and bring some light to those who may need it. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Joy. Love. Peace. A celebration of Light…

On Creating Abundance

Tags

abundance, autumn, fulfillment, gratitude, harvest, prosperity

I found some scissors, and did something I had never done before. I cut the six stems, put them into a mason jar with some water, and brought them with me. I figured that that was going to be it for this years blooms. And yet, abundance had other things in mind. A couple of days later, cutting the grass on that side of the house, I glanced over at the rose bushes, and paused. Every rose bush that I had cut from for the puja, seemed to have been bloomed a half a dozen new roses.

The simple abundance of a rose…

I saw the last minute request for additional flowers for the puja ceremony just as I was about to head out. If I were to try and find them at a store, I would surely be late. What about the roses that have been late-blooming because of the summer-like weather? A quick check revealed that there were at least a half dozen new blooms, which would be worthy of the offering at the ceremony for the Devi.

How was this possible, this late into autumn? I guess I had grossly underestimated the power of abundance, and the energies that create it. At this time of the year, the symbols of the harvest the are everyone. Corn stalks, bales of hay, pumpkins in orange, baskets of mums in various colors, and much more. And then there is the abundance of pies in pumpkin, pecan and apple, along with all the goodies of the season dashed with spices and cinnamon.

A walk through the forest has its own signs of abundance. The riot of colors on the trees, the paths quickly filling with leaves, and bushes laden with berries to help the birds through the winter ahead. If we pay attention to how nature prepares for the seasons, we can learn how to appreciate, and prepare for the transitions in our own lives with abundance mentality.

It is easy, and perhaps even seem natural for some of us to focus on what we want or what we lack in our lives. It is actually equally easy for us to recalibrate our heart, mind and body towards abundance and open the channels for prosperity to flow into our lives. This attitude towards being content and fulfilled, and appreciating the gifts that we hold within us, is often called gratitude.

No matter what the season, we can create experiences of abundance for us. A single leaf, a flower petal, a drop of water, a crystal of sugar, is enough offering, when presented with a full heart. In such simple offerings made with gratitude, we plant seeds of a cornucopia of abundance that can be experienced by our hearts, and the hearts of those around us.

What offerings can we bring our hearts to make, to create abundance this season?

Kumud

P.S. Join our weekly gathering with the #SpiritChat community on Twitter, Sunday October 17 at 9amET / 630pm India. Bring a piece of pie, or a flower to share 🙂 Namaste – @AjmaniK

puja – a religious ceremony honoring a deity by invoking all the five elements, and the body, mind and spirit…

Devi – a deity representing the creative energy of the divine feminine

And just like that, the house has been filling up with gifts of flowers this week…

Messengers of Peace

Tags

celebration, peace, remembrance, spirituality

I decided to change course, and return to one of my favorite birding trails for my weekly Friday morning walk. Although it is less than ten minutes from my home, I hadn’t been there since spring. Now, with autumn at our doorstep and the migratory season underway, I figured it would have some new gifts of peace for me.

Two things typically happen when I step into the walking and birding trails in the various reservations around my town. First, and almost instantly, a sense of peace embraces me for it feels like I’m transported back into a cocoon of grace. Second, and this can take a few minutes, the poetry and prose muse returns and gets me writing. As I walk, I do my best to gather the messages that the messengers send my way in my memory, so that none may get lost.

Today’s first message was from the bridge spannning the pond covered with thick green algae. The excessive rain this summer has created such dense foliage and shrubbery everywhere that the bridge was barely visible from the trail. And yet, its welcome was as warm as always. And so, I did the ritual that I often do midway through every bridge crossing. I chanted an invocation, a mantra, asking for peace to radiate to all of humanity. Sarve bhavantu sukhinah. May all be at peace.

The bridge led me to the major section of the trail which winds its way through a canopy of woods. The sun was rising slowly and there was plenty of opportunity to simply stand and stare every so often for a few minutes at the play of orange and yellow streaks backlighting the leaves. Another peace chant. Bhumi mangalam, Vayu mangalam, Gagan mangalam. May the earth, wind and skies be filled with peace and prosperity.

The half or so mile under the canopy opens up into a trail that is flanked by two huge bodies of marshy water. Giant egrets, standing as still as the Sun in the sky, dotted the waterscape on both sides. Parts of the marsh had been taken over by natural fields filled with yellow flowers. Another peace chant followed. May the peace of the fauna and the flora find its way to us.

On my way back through the canopy, I asked myself the question – does nature instill new peace within me or does it serve to remove the clouds that often form the canopy that block my view of the peace within me? Perhaps nature is the mirror that reflects, maybe amplifies the level of peace that we bring to her. Our perceived lack of peace is perhaps merely our heart looking for someone to listen to us with love, and make us aware of all the prose and poetry that we already carry within us.

No matter the medium, the messengers and messages often repeat themselves. Truth. Kindness. Silence. Stillness. Joy. Consciousness. All the messages are simply reminders that all of the Peace that we need or desire is already within us.

May we remember.

Kumud

Join us on International Day of Peace, Sunday Sep 19 at 9amET / 630pm India for our weekly gathering on Twitter. Bring your message of Peace to share with the #SpiritChat community. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Nature’s Messengers… radiating peace…