On Celebrating Nothing(ness)

Tags

action, celebration, healing, lightness, nothingness

The daily nightsong that begins in the pre-dusk hour with great earnest, has been particularly persistent this season. Over the past few days, I have found myself trying to identify the player(s) of this orchestra through online searches of bird songs, Audubon societies, and more. Truth be told, I have not yielded much, if anything. It is more like a whole lot of nothing.

And then, one night last week, after another round of futile googling of the source(s), I was reminded of Winnie the Pooh…

My favorite thing is to do a whole lot of nothing – for something good often comes out of nothing.

I paused, and asked myself – what is so wrong with not knowing the source(s) of the nightsongs? How about I simply do nothing more than embrace the beauty of the orchestra, without trying to assign name, cause or reason to the sounds and harmonies? What if I were to simply choose to enjoy, even celebrate the gift of spring’s songs, without trying to analyze them?

And so, for the past few nights, the night’s songs that last from dusk to dawn, have taken on new tones, new rhythms, new colors for me. It is as if they have been reborn. I have been opening the windows a bit more, drinking a bit more tea, and simply been sitting in open surrender to the all and the nothing.

The result? The allness and the nothingness have often flooded me, occasionally stopped my breath, flitted a not-knowing smile across my face, and filled me with the very same orange-peach glow that sunset often spreads across the sky at spring’s twilight. I have stopped my wandering and wondering in those few moments, to allow for something good to happen as a result of my celebration of nothing(ness).

Impossible to do, you say? Well. Consider another Winnie the Pooh gem of living wisdom:

They say that nothing is impossible. But I do a bit of nothing every day…

Embrace the impossible moment. I invite you to create time and space, where you do a bit of nothing every day with loving effortlessness. Maybe something good will be created as a result. Maybe, in embracing nothingness, time and space will cease to exist, and be reborn as love. Maybe we will discover that our inner black holes are in fact filled with the allness of light, and that nothingness is simply a portal to That something, which is in fact, everything.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us Sunday April 14 at 9amET, as we embrace nothingness while listening to each others’ songs, drinking tea, and sharing light. Namaste – Kumud

Sunset and twilight – an invitation to celebrate nothing(ness)

On Inviting Peace

Tags

inner peace, invitation, peace

It had been a more than usually stressful drive to work that morning. It seemed like one of those days that folks were determined to do their best to annoy me with their driving antics. The closer I got to my exit, the more my inner temperature and dissonance was rising. And my ride to work is perhaps a walk on the park as compared to some folks who have long commutes in bumper to bumper traffic.

As I headed onto the exit ramp, a thought crossed my mind. What if, I were to experiment with not letting traffic annoy me so much? What if, I were to simply let people flow in and out of my path, and simply be witness to their journey? How much emotional energy would I possibly conserve by choosing to remain on my island – the very same island of peace that I often began my journey to work on?

And hence, I began the process of being a witness to the peaks and valleys that my inner peace traversed on a daily basis.

If I were to ask you – when is the last time that you accepted an invitation from peace – what would you say? Or, when is the last time that you extended an invitation to peace?

There are so many reasons that we get distracted from our Inherent peaceful nature. When we experience a truly restful sleep, it is because we have been in reconnection with this deep inner peace. The mere act of living in the world around us, the daily tugs and pulls of life, of relationships, of expectations, of our emotions, of our to-do lists and our goals and deliverables – can drain our peace. We feel the need to refill and reconnect with peace again.

How do we reconnect and refill?

There is an Inbuilt awareness in each one of us which Informs us that peace Is. Peace Is ours if we decide to accept, yield to Its Invitation. Peace Is in the knowing that in every Instance that It trends away from me, I can Invite It to return. Peace Is like breath. In every breath that leaves me, is Inherent the Invitation to breathe It back within. Peace is hence the thread of Life Itself.

So, let me ask you to consider your response in the next Instant in which you are presented the peace choice…

What will It take for you to Imagine, Invite, Immerse In, Invoke, Inspire and Incentivize peace? Will you decide to make peace Imminent or will you decide to postpone it?

Take your time. I will wait for your answer. But don’t hold your breath (or your answer) for too long.

Peace is your Invitation to receive, yours to receive, and then give away. Breathe deep. Inhale it. Then exhale it.

I invite you to make Peace your IAP – your Individual Action Plan. Will you declare that #IAmPeace?

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. It has been two weeks since I decided to be witness to the peace disrupters of my daily travels. Gradually, I have yielded a bit more space, slowed down or sped up to facilitate easier merging, changed lanes in anticipation, and more. My daily commute is becoming more peaceful by the day. There are trips when my peace island departs and arrives, virtually undisturbed.

What area(s) of your daily activity could benefit from an invitation to peace? Are there any relationships that could use a peace invite? Could you be a third-party agent to invite others to the table of peace?

Join us Sunday, March 31 at 9am EDT / 1pm UTC / 630pm India, to discuss #IAmPeace. A cup of tea and some cookies await you. Namaste – Kumud.

The sunset’s daily “invitation to peace”

Align and Shine

Tags

alignment, compassion, spiritual practice

Align and Shine – by Dr. Christy Johnson

During #SpiritChat on the topic of Loyalty earlier this year, I tweeted “Still not a fan of the word #loyalty, I vote for alignment – aligning to self, others, and the highest good of all“ as my answer to one of the questions. After that tweet, Kumud challenged me to host a chat about alignment, which led me here.

I believe a driving force behind each of our earthly incarnations is to embrace our authentic selves. The idea is to accept our messy, imperfect humanness despite the contrast with our soul-level perfection. Via self-alignment, we can shine more brilliantly and vibrantly as whatever may block our light gets removed. Self-alignment also illuminates the evolutionary path for those who can see and hear us, those who are aligned to us.

As part of my own explorations, I took three different extensive Mindful Self-Compassion courses starting in late 2017. I tried and tried Mindful Self-Compassion practices, believing if I just stuck with them, something would shift but finally after a year and a half I realized it isn’t something I align to deeply. Aha! So Mindful Self-Compassion joins other powerful but not aligned to me approaches like acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Transcendental Meditation.

Giving myself permission to release Mindful Self-Compassion from my daily practices relieves me from unconsciously pushing to make it “work” and frees time and energy for what does align. Now I feel lighter and freer and have found ways to apply my healing modalities to the issues at hand. Through this evolution, I’ve become more self-aligned, which is precisely the point of Mindful Self-Compassion!

As your evolution deepens and strengthens, you also align to the highest good of all. Self-aligning more fully frees energy that gets reabsorbed in the world and also models the power of alignment.

How do we find what aligns? What are the clues? How do we know what either doesn’t align or has passed its expiration date? Ever notice how effortless life becomes when you’re aligned to what you want to be doing? Alignment leads to flow and flow, in turn, supports alignment. What resonates also energizes us. When we align, we shine.

Please come to share and shine on Sunday, March 24th at 9 A.M. EDT on Twitter with hashtag #SpiritChat.

Host Bio: Dr. Christy Johnson quit her decades-long engineering career in 2010 to open her own integrative energy healing practice. She helps clients overcome life challenges and also align with themselves, others, and their highest good via soul level information, energy healing, and empowering self-help tools. You can connect with her via her website www.intuitiveheal.com , on Twitter @IntuitiveHeal and on her YouTube channel.

Editor’s Note: Thank you, Christy, for taking up the ‘alignment’ challenge and stepping up to host the weekly chat on Sunday. I am sure that it is going to be a wonderful opportunity for many to ‘Align and Shine’! Namaste. – Kumud

On Spiritual Radiance

Tags

celebration, healing, radiance, spring, winter

There was no mistake about the invitation. The morning sun had finally made its way through the haze as is crested over the ridge, seemingly at the same moment that I reached the bottom of Cedar Point hill. The only question was whether I was going to turn left or right onto Valley Parkway, park in one of the alcoves, and accept the invitation to walk.

And walk into spring I surely did. Unlike the day before, when spring seemed imminent but wasn’t quite there yet because the river was firmly frozen and the wind that blew through the clearings was swift enough to crinkle your bones, today was different.

There was a certain radiance in the invitation today. A radiance that spoke through the ever so slightly higher pitch of the songs of the birds. A radiance that invited the fishermen to walk out to the middle of the river on the sheet of ice still thick with opacity. The radiance made the water flow briskly in channels between the ice floes, and also started to create pockets of water inside the thick sheets.

And so I walked, letting the radiance of it all warm me from head to heart, bathe me with the light breeze that flowed from under the bridge as I walked out on the rocks towards the middle of the river until my passage was blocked by sheets of ice laden like layers of lasagna. Right there, in that stillness amid all the music, I spontaneously started singing – a prayer that invokes health and wellness for the universe and all her beings.

An invocation for guidance in our paths, to prepare us well for our walk, to give us strength to endure winter and also give us lightness to welcome the radiance of spring. A prayer of gratitude to all those who are walking with us, have walked with us, and whose radiance continues to reach us from the wide yonder beyond. Right there, on the rock in the middle of the river, came the awareness of the beautiful, gentle energy of the divine feminine, and its influence in my life.

And so I walked some more, absorbing, healing, sending thank you notes to all the women – mothers, sisters, aunts, teachers, grandmothers, my wife and daughter, and all the ladies of #spiritchat. All of you have raised me up, and it is from you that I continually learn the singular fact that radiance requires no medium. It is an energy like love, like kindness, like the light streaming through the trees and making patterns on the melting snow, which gives your heart the distinct knowing that, yes, you too, are the spring to somebody’s winter.

There is great joy in acceptance – to accept the invitation to walk, to be That radiant spring.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P. S. Join us Sunday, March 10 at 9amET/ 630pm India (note that US shifts to daylight savings this Sunday!). We will celebrate and honor the radiance of spring, and share team and cookies for International Women’s Day. Namaste – Kumud

Witnessing radiance – standing on a rock ledge in the middle of the Rocky River, as the river melts around me…

The river flows North to Lake Erie, and small, frozen waterfalls serenade her passage

The play of light and shadows, spring radiates into winter

The halfway point… I walked out into winter… I paused… I returned with spring…

Common Ground Spirituality

Tags

action, awareness, healing, relationships, spirituality

Common ground, like common sense, is becoming increasingly difficult to find. It isn’t that common ground doesn’t exist any more – it is perhaps that it has become buried under the layers of our increasingly fragmented lives – like the bulbs we planted in autumn, biding their time waiting to spring from underneath the layers of snow and frozen earth.

When we may think we have reached the end of the line, and that we have nothing more left in common, perhaps we can dig a little wider. We can step back, take a walk, or even sit in morning meditation and ask – what is it that we may have ignored or overlooked? And the answers may surprise us…

Commonality of backgrounds (immigrants from different continents), forgotten common interests, overlap in family values, shared beliefs (in goodness and kindness), common celebratory practices (food!) – even agreement in things we disagree about, things that annoy us, our shared dislikes, and much more….

Such was the invitation this week… to (re)discover, uncover common ground. To (re)search for it and renew it yet again. And the more I stepped back and looked with fresh eyes of the heart’s light, the more I found it in my close and distant relationships, even some faded and forgotten friendships, and particularly among the few that are especially close to me.

I discovered that it is perhaps in retraversing that common ground that the heart can find new paths, and find reasons to do some (not so) random acts of kindness. It is beneath frozen lakes and lagoons that the lighted waters flow again from the spring thaw in the heart. It is tending to common ground that enables us to repair the bridges that have grown algae because they haven’t been tenderly paused on, gently walked on, lovingly talked to and softly sung to for so long…

But why would we bother to do the work to find common ground in the first place? To assuage our guilt? Or to save, heal, being back to thriving, that which is worth keeping? And why is it worth healing? Because we have invested so much in it and come so far? Or whether we still see the potential for future growth, success and expansion – the spark that can kindle a thousand more micro explosions of joy when given the proper conditions of pressure, temperature, timing and ideal mix of fuel and air in the combustion chamber that is called common ground?

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us in our weekly twitter chat, Sunday Feb 24 at 9amET / 730pm India – walk and share some common ground (over tea and cookies) with us. Namaste – Kumud.

Visiting some ‘common ground’ bridges and pathways… as spring broke through briefly (Friday, Feb 22 2019)

On Breathing Light

Tags

awareness, breathing, celebration, healing, light, remembrance

The journey began Monday evening, when the iPad which had gone dark over the past few weeks, and refused to start up inspite of my best attempts of geekery, decided to come to life. I went searching in the library app for something good to read, and an incredible journey into breath began when I downloaded, and read, that same evening, from cover to cover – WBBA – but more about that a bit later….

Breath has come into the forefront for me this week. There is a story in the Upanishads where the student asks the teacher – who among sight, speech, hearing, touch and breath, is the most powerful in life? The teacher says – ask each of them to leave, one at a time, and you shall know. When it comes the turn of breath to leave, the student’s question is answered…

I have been led to work with, observe it, and develop a greater awareness of the physical act of breathing this week. When the emotions rise, when I feel the stress level change, I have tried to pause and check my breathing pattern and cadence. The interesting thing about breath is that it is easy to observe, because it is always with us, even when it is temporarily is taken away. My observations have been quite a revelation. It is no surprise that I have discerned a direct correlation between feeling stressed and the disturbance in my breathing pattern.

So, how do I plan to use this breath awareness? I believe that, with practice, one could modulate, if not to some degree even consciously control, the autonomous breath and the nervous system connected to it. When our new breathing practice becomes habit, we shall find an emergence of new patterns, new pathways, new possibilities.

For when breath remains, all is possible in the field of possibilities, and then some… is it not?

What began on Monday evening, came to a head this morning. I share with you, my entry from my meditation journal:

There was a such a surge… a wave as high as me… in the final ten minutes… that it literally seemed to push me sideways… the intensity and breadth of the light was such as if it became like the air around me and that I was breathing it with every breath… it held no force, it’s nature was gentleness and pure being, and I was awash in its wholeness… it felt that the white light was energizing every single alveoli in the lungs… cleaning, cleansing, oxygenating, healing, liberating, and filling me with the life force that travels between every channel of the many layers of my being… it felt like the same way that I might have felt in my first awareness of being born into this physical world… the aggregated energy of all the prayers she might have said from the instant that the was aware of me, until her last… and with that breath of first new light, I felt such immense gratitude for the experience that I was led to celebrate the breath of light and life with you… and I hope… no, it’s more than hope… it is a knowing that every breath you breathe is also filled with light… and that you are enough light in this moment, and you will be enough in the next moment… and when the breath stops and leaves, the aggregate of the light you breathed and shared would also have been enough…

for when we add or subtract the infinite from the infinite, the infinite breath of love and light still remains… and that, breath, in life and what we call death, is worthy of celebration… so, let that celebration of love continue… even when breath becomes air….

Thank you. For awareness. For breath and light. For breathing light into me.

– Kumud

P. S. Join us Sunday, Feb 17 at 9am ET / 730 pm IST as we celebrate, breath, light and breathing light. Namaste – Kumud

Breathing light during one of my walks…

The one who took eternal breath, Feb 17 2016…

Why Spirituality – I Wonder

Tags

awakening, awareness, happiness, joy, spirituality, wonder

For those of us who have been in and around the weekly conversations with the #spiritchat community on topics related to spirituality and spiritual practice, the answer to “why spirituality” may be plain as daylight. Many of us may even think the question to be irrelevant, or take the answer for granted.

Yet, I have been wondering about this question over the past few days, with a sense of wonder, with a sense and spirit of inquisitive, curious, scientific examination.

So, let me share my sense of wonder with you, and ask the short question – “why spirituality”? What is it about your ‘spiritual practice(s)’ that sets them apart from the rest of your daily life? How do you integrate the results and outcomes of your spirituality into solving the challenges of life and living? Has your approach to ‘spirituality’ changed as your life situation(s) have changed? If yes, how so?

I have often found that the answer to the question, particularly the question that is borne of wonder instead of being borne out of doubt, is already present in our awareness. Over the past few weeks, in preparation for spring, I have been doing some ‘house cleaning’ of my books, media, music and notebooks. During one such episode this week, I came across a few books that were given to be by my mother over my past few visits to India.

As I was sorting through them, one of the ‘bookmarks’ that I came across was a trifold brochure called ‘why spirituality’! The brochure, published in 2011, contains a few quotes from the then leader (Chariji) of the ‘Sahaj Marg’ foundation (http://sahajmarg.org). It contained not one, but a few answers to my sense of wonder. Let me share some of them with you in the quotes below – maybe one or more of them will resonate with you.

“Spirituality is the need for an inner existence. The whole idea of spirituality is to revive in us that which is sleeping in us – the true inner being, the Self”

Why Spirituality? It is a path to an awakening within. It is a yearning for something more than the routine of daily, worldly life. In spirituality, life becomes a wondrous journey to uncover that inner Self. Wonder leads to a wondrous journey. Yes!

“As a bird needs two wings to fly, a human being needs the two wings of existence, the spiritual and the material, to lead a natural and harmonious life”

Why Spirituality? For harmony, for the restoration of balance. Balance is restored by integrating a spiritual practice into daily life. A practice that blends into our daily living like sugar dissolves into tea.

“Happiness is the natural inner condition that we will reach when we have removed all unnecessary things”

Why Spirituality? Spiritual practice leads us to find true happiness and love. Joy is the quality of the inner Self, and is nurtured in spirituality, along with other qualities of the heart – courage, hope, faith, wonder, compassion, tolerance and, most of all, universal love. By following a spiritual practice, we have the possibility to experience universal love, the divine essence, within our own heart.

The brochure holds more wondrous messages. I shared the thoughts above with you, so that perhaps, you too shall wonder with a sense of inquiry – why spirituality? What is this spiritual path that I walk in my practice? How does my spirituality grow my heart and its inherent qualities, and the sense of joy and love within it?

Let the wondering begin. Let us share our wonder, our heart, and our joy and universal love with each other. And I will keep cleaning, exploring, practicing, uncovering more wonder. Namaste.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join the #spiritchat community in our weekly twitter conversation – Sunday, Feb 10 at 9amET / 730pm India. Bring your sense of wonder with you, as we share the answers to ‘why spirituality’, over a cup of tea. Thank you!

After the storm, a double rainbow outside my door…

The Spirit of Loyalty

Tags

heart matters, loyalty, poetry, service, spirituality

“I am loyal to the throne. Who are you loyal to?”

It is interesting that we can watch a two-plus hour movie (during a polar vortex shut-in) filled with action, and the one fragment that adheres to us, days later. In the movie “Black Panther”, the question above was asked by Okoye (the General) of Nakia (the future Queen), in the moments after there is upheaval in the country of Wakanda.

I thought about the question that evening, and it kept returning to my brain box for a few days. I am still thinking about it. Let us begin at the beginning. What is loyalty? One definition of loyalty is a strong feeling of support of allegiance. The other synonyms are faithfulness, obedience, adherence, devotion and the like. It would seem that loyalty would be a good quality or virtue to develop in our character, yes?

Before we answer the original question (who are we loyal to?), maybe we can reflect on some related questions. Where does our sense of loyalty come from? What qualities in others incite, grow and sustain loyalty within us? What makes our loyalties wax and wane over time? Have you experienced real-world examples of long-term, unwavering, even permanent loyalty in your life? If so, how did such examples of loyalty influence you, your life?

Now that we have put the questions out upfront, we can reflect on them and probe for the answers. If we choose not to probe, we can cast the questions out like seeds, and wait for the answers to bloom in their own time. Either way, if we remain loyal to the process of asking, and then provide space and time for the answers to be received by us, the process has a chance of working. In this increasingly hurried world, we can perhaps reflect on the question – how loyal are we to the process of receiving (answers)?

But I digress a bit. As I asked myself some of the questions about loyalty, one common answer that seemed to emerge was that a lot of our loyalties, allegiances, adherences, even devotions – are transitional and transient in nature. Time and space and relationships change as we transit through life, and so do our loyalties. Even the long-term loyalties of satellites (moons) to planets are constantly changing (albeit ever so slightly) over time. (Aside: what examples of ‘deep loyalty’ may Mother Nature reveal to us?) So what chance do we mere mortals, of finite life-spans, have of developing and honoring permanent loyalty?

Maybe we need to look beyond, if we are to experience a permanent sense of loyalty. Our physical frames of existence and our actions within them, bound as they are by time, space and causation, are bound by impermanence. Hence, the resulting loyalties are (mostly) impermanent. What if we were to go beyond the physical, and into the spiritual domain? If we were to become and be meditative, examine our heartspace and feel our heartsense, what deeper loyalties may be revealed in That light?

Before she asked that question of Nakia, Okoye actually said… “I am loyal to the throne, no matter who sits on it“. If we ask the same question of our heart, what will be the reply? Who sits on our heart’s throne? Who are we really loyal to? Does that relationship have a nature of permanence?

Kumud @AjmaniK

On behalf of the #SpiritChat community, I invite you to join us for a conversation on this topic – Sunday, February 3 at 9amET / 730pm India. We would love to know – who sits on your heart’s throne? Namaste.

Postscript: Fragments of a poem, that keep coming, as answers to the question… if you can think of additions, please share in the comments… Namaste…

There may be be love without cause,
Just because…
But what is the nature, of cause without love?

There may be clouds without rain,
With loud refrain…
But what is the worth, of rain without clouds?

There may be heat without light,
Warming the night…
But have we felt the love, of light without heat?

There can be sight without vision,
A heart’s decision…
But can there be vision without sight?

– A Traveler’s Loyalty

The Spirit of Mentoring

Tags

guidance, guides, mentoring, mentors, spirituality

I miss my mentors. All of those who have passed…

My Dad was perhaps my first real mentor. Long before there were those outside the home, and they were few and far between because good mentors are hard to find, Dad was there. Even though he had an inclination towards silence and stillness, it was his carefully measured, softly uttered, frugally spoken words that still linger with me.

Words uttered on a railway platform as the train was departing and I had come to bid him farewell till the next school break – “I expect nothing but the best of effort from you”. When you are in middle school, that stuff somehow stays with you for a while. In my case, it’s been a few decades and I still remember that message from my mentor. The home was always stocked with all kind of books (mostly from American fiction authors!) and music (Indian and western). It was his way of creating an environment for me to ‘learn’ outside of my education. And there was much more. That was Dad’s mentorship.

My mother’s sister’s husband, my second Dad, was pretty much cut from the same mold of silence. I got to know him well because I spent fourteen years (from age seven) growing up in his household. His mentorship to me came through his relentless devotion to providing for his family. He worked long, long hours working the family business, and you did not want to be ‘talked to’ by him after he got home after a twelve hour day. His reverence and dedication in celebrating the major Indian festivals was also a great lesson in ‘slowing down’ for me. And when it came time for me to leave his home and come to the USA for graduate studies, he was instrumental in convincing my parents that it would be okay. He was my biggest cheerleader, and that gave me tremendous belief in myself. That was Uncle’s mentorship.

When I moved to the US, his youngest brother here became my ‘American Dad’ and mentor. He and his family provided a sense of ‘home away from home’ that was vital for someone whose nearest family was on the other side of the world. An electrical engineer for Ford, he always kept a keen eye on me all through graduate school. I looked forward to meeting up with every Thanksgiving and Christmas, so that I could learn from him about how to raise a family with a blend of American and Indian values. A lot of his wonderful advice about faith, career and family, continues to linger with me. That was my Ann Arbor uncle.

And while all three of them have physically departed, I can honestly say that I often find myself asking – what would Dad (or my Uncles) do in such and such situation? I can also say that I have had a very tough time replacing them as mentors. The closest ‘replacement’ was my NASA mentor – I am greatly indebted for his decision to take me under his wing when I was first starting my career.

All this talk about ‘male’ mentors doesn’t mean that I did not have any ‘female’ role models. I have talked about them (my Mother, my Aunts, my maternal grandmother) extensively in many previous #spiritchat blog posts. For some reason, as I sat in morning #meditation this past Sunday, I was asked these questions – Who are your mentors? Who are you mentoring? How are mentors different from role models? And what about our (spiritual) guides? How do I go about identifying some new mentors in my life? What effect is the (apparent) lack of influential mentors in my life having on me and my growth?

I share these questions that were asked of me with you, with the intent that perhaps you can relate to (some of) them. Yes, we have all the power within us to do great things, but a lot of that potential lies latent – like fuel needing a spark. What if the heart-based guidance of a good mentor could ‘raise us to that stage’, and help us manifest our power, so that we may expand our experience of truth, awareness and joy?

Kumud @AjmaniK

Share your stories about mentors and mentoring in our weekly twitter conversation – Sunday, January 27 at 9amET / 730pm India in #SpiritChat. Who knows – maybe you will find a new mentor, or have an opportunity to mentor someone you haven’t even met yet? Namaste – Kumud

Swami Vivekananda – A mentor whom I met through his books, poetry, lectures and essays…

On Ritual and Science

Tags

philosophy, science, spirituality

A New Daily Ritual

Every morning, some days even before our multiple rounds of morning tea (or coffee) were yet to be completed as we sat by the pool overlooking the vast lake, she would arrive. Her smiling, glowing, full-of-life greeting was always the same – “Namaste, Sir. Namaste, Madam”. She would be decked with gold jewelry as if she was ready to attend an Indian wedding. This ritual became part of every single one of our ten days in Kerala.

She was the housekeeper who took care of the entire span of the five bedroom home that we were staying in. After her welcome greeting, she would immediately start her work. Broom in hand, she would start her slow back and forth walk. First, in all the common areas and all the walkways. Then, when we were at breakfast or at lunch, she and her helpers would take care of the bedrooms and attached bathrooms. Every time I saw her, she was working, focused on her task at hand, standing tall, head slightly bowed, radiating pride. If she ever took a break, I did not see it.

Adherence to Ritual

Now that I have been back for almost two weeks, my sleep cycle has mostly reset itself. Except when it isn’t. I was awake at 1am last night, and decided to pull the “Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (Vol. 1)” from my go-to stack of books. Randomly opening the book, I found myself in the midst of the essay on “Karma Yoga” (Science of Work) titled “We help ourselves, not the world”. It happens to be one of my favorites because it includes the following quote:

This world is like a dog’s curly tail, and people have been striving to straighten it out for hundreds of years; but when they let it go, it has ruled up again. How could it be otherwise? One has to know how to work with attachment, then one will not be a fanatic. If there were no fanaticism in the world, it would make much more progress than it does now.When we have avoided fanaticism, then alone will we work well.

It often comes to pass that we so fervently believe in our path, our vision, our righteousness, our desire to do good that we may unwittingly take on the traits of working like fanatics. Our work-ritual becomes our refuge, our excuse to become so hyper-focused on our goal that we lose sight of detachment and the real purpose of our life’s work. We think that our single-minded devotion to our cause is doing good to the world. But is it really so?

Ritual and Philosophy

At the beginning of the same essay, Vivekananda posits that there are three components of every religion: philosophy, mythology and ritual. Philosophy forms the essence; mythology explains and illustrates through legendary lives of great men and women; and ritual gives to that philosophy a concrete form so that every one may relate to it. Ritual is in fact concretized philosophy.

Ritual leads to symbols, to language, to communication and connection. In its pure state, it is in fact the seed bed of the science of work. In addition, the connection between word and thought often occurs through symbols. When I offer a greeting to you with folded hands and a radiant smile, my whole being assumes the symbology of love. The energy transfer in this ritual needs no scientific proof – try it and experience the goodness that it creates for the world, and more importantly, within you.

The Ritual of Hope

Her name was Asha. It simply means, Hope. On my last day at the lake house, I engaged her in a bit of conversation. A high-school graduate, married to Shenoy, mother of two kids – a boy aged eight and a girl aged six. She worked because she wanted to help supplement her husband’s income, so that they could save up enough to send their boy and girl to college. Her philosophy in life seemed to reflect her simplicity. “Do the work that is assigned to you with joy”.

Every time I think of her approach and attitude to her work, I draw hope from her daily ritual. She seemed to model Vivekananda’s suggestion for us regarding work:

It is the level-headed person, the calm person, of good judgement and cool nerves, of good sympathy and love, who does good work and thus good to themselves.

Thank you, Asha. I am going to adopt your attitude to work. And if you will allow me, I also plan to adopt your family – not to help you, but to you help myself. For you reminded me of the power of joy in work, and making work play.

Playing with Ritual

And as I played with this topic, it dawned on me that ritual is embedded in spi(ritual)ity. It may seem like wordplay, but maybe there’s more to it. There’s more. Ritual begins with ‘ritu’, which means season, i.e. in every new season, we can adopt a new set of actions, create new rituals. A further reduction leads us to ‘rit’, which reminds me of ‘writ’ and the Sanskrit ‘reet’ – which means code (of ethics), tradition, and yes, concretized philosophy. Finally, there is ‘ri’ – which is the root word for ‘rishi’ – those who follow the path of goodness and become illumined.

So much for science, eh? Sometimes it just gets in the way of play. Maybe we will just rebrand ritual as #workscience. What do you say? Who’s with me?

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us in our weekly conversation on twitter with the #spiritchat community. Sunday, January 20 at 9amET / 730pm India. We will talk about the role of ritual(s) in our lives. Which ones did we inherit? Which ones serve us well? Which ones do we need to walk away from? How do our ritual(s) help us on the spiritual path? Does science understand the effect that ritual(s) have on our emotional and spiritual well-being? So many questions. Come share – in the ritual that has become an integral part of my well-being. Namaste – Kumud.

Asha – the Hope of Kumarakom, Kerala