On Spiritual Common Ground

Tags

battle ground, common ground, common sense, harmony, oneness, transformation

At the beginning of the month of October, I decided to step onto the “battleground”. Up until then, I had decided that I would stay on the sidelines and watch, and not get involved in any of the election action. I had already decided who I was going to vote for a while back, and I had never been really engaged in political activity in any US election. I truly believed that even if I wanted to get engaged in the action, my actions wouldn’t amount to much anyway. In addition, I didn’t even know how or where to get engaged, even if I wanted to.

It was all going ‘according to plan’ until a few things happened, almost simultaneously, on a single day. Driving my daughter to school one morning, she saw a few yard signs pop up on the main road, and softly asked – “Dad – what will happen if they get elected again?” To put her heart and mind at ease, I quickly said – “don’t worry honey, good people are doing their best, fighting the good fight to make sure that that doesn’t happen”.

On my way back after dropping her off at school, the question was asked to me – “who are these ‘good people’ that you mentioned to her, Kumud?” That was the first whisper. In the afternoon, my cousin from Michigan, who now lives in California and is very engaged politically, asked me on Messenger – “so, how are you folks doing in Ohio?” That was the second whisper. Later that evening, as I was out for a quick grocery run, a text message popped up on my phone. “Will you be voting in this upcoming election?” It was an outreach effort by a group of ‘South Asians reaching out to fellow Asians’, asking for my intent and support. I said, “yes, of course”. That was the third whisper. 

The universe had different plans for me. Three strikes within twelve hours and I was out of my inaction. It was time to step onto the battleground. At the end of the text outreach conversation, I found myself asking the lady, “How do I do what you are doing – text other people about their voting plan?” She said, “let me check and I’ll get back to you.” I waited. There was no reply for a few hours. I figured, oh well, I tried. It isn’t meant to be. Then around 11pm, I got a text with a link to sign up for “text banking”. The floodgates were now opened. 

For those of you who are not familiar with US elections, certain states are “battleground states” because unlike a lot of states which are “safe bets” to be “Red” or “Blue”, these six or seven states are a “toss up”. Ohio, the state that I live in, is one of them. In a tight election, the outcome in a single “battleground” state or few can decide the outcome of an entire election. I will spare you all the details, but once I stepped into action, I drank from a firehose. I learnt how to “text bank”, “phone bank”, started posting about “martial arts” analogies on twitter, joined a FB group of fellow action-takers, and much more. Every waking hour outside of work and spiritual hours, I was immersed in thought and action.

A few days ago, I started hearing and reading about the doubt, fear, anxiety and concerns of that mirrored my daughter’s original question and concern. I found myself asking – does only “our” side have these feelings and concerns, or does “their” side have some of them too?  The more I asked this question, the more I found myself trying to find “common ground” while being on the “battle ground”. The logical answer was that if “they” are human like “us”, they also feel the same emotions as us.

They also fell the loss of loved ones, and the joy of a newborn. They also feel thirst and hunger, heat and cold, fear of death and anxiety of loss. They also get up at sunrise and go to work, and need sleep after a hard day’s labor at home or outside the home. They also look upon the changing of colors in autumn with delight, marvel at the flight of the bumblebee in the spring, and wonder about the magic of the blue moon on Halloween.

There is “common ground” enough, even in the midst of the battle in the “battle ground”, if we are willing to look beneath the surface. As spiritual practitioners, would we not be well served, even in the heat of the battle in the battle-ground, to remember to adhere to our foundations of oneness, awareness, kindness, empathy, decency, integrity, compassion, truth and love? If so, then the common ground lies beneath us. All of US.

Let us not poison our common ground with hate, for we will need the same ground, after the current battle, to re-seed it with the seeds of hope for healing, unity, equality, respect, harmony, integration and transformation, as we move onward to create “a more perfect union”. 

Kumud

P.S. Join our weekly conversation on twitter in #SpiritChat – Sunday, Nov 1 at 9am EDT / 7:30pm India. We have been meeting every Sunday, in our “common ground” of #SpiritChat for many years. We will continue to do so. ALL of you are welcome. Namaste – @AjmaniK

P.P.S Note that the US switches to Daylight Savings on Nov 1, and the chat will (most likely) be an hour later than usual in your time-zone. 

Nature is filled with examples of common ground, common waters, common skies and more – may we watch, listen, learn and integrate into our lives

Towards Betterment – with @JonMertz

Tags

betterment, self-care, self-improvement, self-knowledge, spirituality

What is the primary goal of spiritual practice and a spiritual mind-set and heart-set towards life? We all may have different answers to this question. From personal experience, I can say that the answers to this question often change with time, with our station in life, and as our definition of life-purpose changes.

One thread that runs common through all our answers to the question of “why spirituality” is perhaps to find an answer to the question – “Who am I”? It is with this self-inquiry that our search for self-knowledge often begins. It is when we begin the journey to look within that we can begin to see the aspects of ourselves that may need “improvement”. This often leads us down the path of seeking “self-improvement”, which often brings us to the path of “self-care”, and then “spiritual care”. 

Hold that thought for a minute while I introduce you to my friend Jon Mertz. I met Jon in my early days of twitter, and we quickly became friends because he had a clarity of purpose and a transparency that was refreshing. He was very supportive of #SpiritChat during the early years, and remains so to this day. The opportunity came to meet him in Dallas, TX in January 2013, and we got together for lunch when I was visiting there for an Aerospace conference. 

Let’s bring back the thought of “self-improvement” and “spiritual care”. Over the past few weeks on twitter, Jon introduced me to his  concept of “betterment”. I was drawn to the concept because “betterment” seems to be the logical outcome of “self-knowledge” and “self-care”. It is when our spiritual practices “better” our state of awareness, “better” our state of Joy, “better” our state of Truth, that  we know that spiritual growth is happening. 

Jon Mertz has written a wonderful post to introduce the concept of Betterment as a “New Leadership Calling”. From a spiritual perspective, the “calling” is what first awakens us to the notion that we need to change something within. Regardless of our initial goal or motivation to change, it is when our efforts and practices produce tangible betterment in our lives that we are inspired to keep walking our path. 

Betterment is simple. How do our actions and interactions make others better? How do our actions and interactions make ourselves better? – Jon Mertz

The simpler an idea is, the easier it is to implement, integrate into and sustain in our daily practice of living. Betterment meets that criteria. 

Betterment is evolutionary and, sometimes, transformational. – Jon Mertz

The outcome of our spiritual practice is often transformational. Transformation of the heart, mind and spirit is the knowing that answers the question —  Who am I? How am I making myself and the world better?

Simple and Transformational. Betterment is the calling.

Will we step up and answer the calling?

Kumud 

Jon Mertz’ Bio : Jon Mertz founded Santa Fe Innovates, a social entrepreneur accelerator program and community. He also is an interdisciplinary leadership doctoral candidate at Creighton University. @JonMertz on twitter and founder of the Thin Difference community. 

Kumud’s note : I am grateful that Jon has introduced me to the concept of #betterment. I am excited that I will be hosting him in our weekly #SpiritChat  on Sunday, October 25 at 9amET / 630pm India. Come meet Jon and stay for some tea and cookies with us as we talk about #Betterment for all. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Meet Jon Mertz – author of “Betterment – A New Leadership Calling“

On Knowledge and Knowing

Tags

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

It’s good to be welcomed back home again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kumud

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

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

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

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

Towards Peace Supreme

Tags

justice, peace, source, spirituality, supreme

Monday, September 21 was the observance of the International Day of Peace (IDP) sponsored by the United Nations and celebrated with various events held by organizations across the world.

I became aware of IDP through the Heartfulness organization’s effort called “Connect for Peace”, whose goal was to connect 40 million people in meditation over a period of 24 hours on that day. In order to understand “what does peace mean?” to different people (kids, athletes, change makers, spiritual leaders and more), a video of responses was compiled and shared (see link in the footer… highly recommended)

So, what does peace mean to you? How and when and where do you best experience it? How often do you seemingly lose it and how do you restore it? How can we experience Supreme peace, and be established in its awareness in the majority of the moments of our daily lives?

Some of you may have heard the story of the monk getting ready to meditate by the river bank who sees a scorpion drowning in its effort to swim. The monk picks up the scorpion from the shallow water, and as she is about to put him down on dry land, the scorpion stings her. The monk is unperturbed, and gets ready to meditate again. The scorpion wades into the water again, starts drowning. The monk rescues it again, and gets stung again. When this happens a third time, an observer sitting by the bank cannot resist asking the monk – why do you keep rescuing the drowning scorpion when all it does is keep stinging you in return for your kindness?

The monk replied – the scorpion, one of apparently much lower awareness than me, is holding true to its nature, which is to sting. I, of higher awareness, ought to also hold true to my nature, and which is to be kind and perform kind actions, don’t you think? Why would I give up my peace, my serenity, my stillness, my Dharma (way of being) in response to the scorpion’s sting?

Such is the nature of our living in the world. The world stings us when we do kind things. Let us not forget that sometimes we may be the scorpions – maybe not in action, but with our thoughts and words. Often, the stings are unprovoked, undeserved, unexpected, unjust and unfair. How do we respond?

We respond to the stings of the world in accordance with our height of inner awareness and depth of inner peace. We are not all monks (yet), but some of us are on the path to becoming aware again, remembering again that supreme peace is our intrinsic nature. By associating with those people, places and practices that evoke peace within us, we connect with our peace within. Through regular connection with supreme peace, we raise our awareness to the point where we lose our sting, and the world, our mirror, loses its sting too.

Have you ever wondered why new born babies tend to make everyone around them happy? One reason is perhaps that the new born is still immersed in its connection with the peace supreme. The newborn hasn’t had an opportunity to forget that It is That or that That is all there Is. The newborn isn’t questioning whether it is the drop or the wave or the ocean. It is simply being peace.

That is the state of newborn peace which our spiritual practices can return us to. When you and I practice peace, we contribute to creating supreme peace for all of us. Why create peace? Peace creates a channel to convey natural justice based on natural law and order, which is indeed supreme.

Spirituality teaches me that peace supreme is above all and within all. There is no journey towards it, because I am already there. It is infinite, and that is enough for me. How about you?

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly community gathering on Twitter with #SpiritChat folks – Sunday, Sep 27 at 9amET. We will gather in peace and play with some questions and answers. Namaste – @AjmaniK

YouTube link for compilation of answers to “What does peace mean to you?” – https://youtu.be/TEKSFltSsvs

When the bee meets a flower – Peace flows Supreme

On Harvesting Every Moment by @merryb923

Tags

autumn, awareness, equinox, harvest, presence

If ever a reminder was needed to fully enjoy and be present every moment, the pandemic that hit early this year and all of the chaos that has followed must’ve had that impact. No longer able to travel, visit loved ones, attend gatherings, see live entertainment, and so much that still hasn’t made its way into the “new normal”, all being replaced with uncertainty, worry, and stress for so many. 

While we learn to be grateful for each moment of happiness, clarity, love and beauty, we also learn to be grateful for the opposite, as all of these moments are the seeds and the fertilizer of our spiritual growth. 

There are days that are easier to be present, such as today, as I sit at a deserted beach on Cape Cod, watching the tide come in fiercely as the sun sets behind me. I sit by the waters edge and listen to the waves, hearing nothing else, I close my eyes and smell the ocean air, taking in each moment that I have here, where tranquility flows naturally. 

Other days, when life is hectic or uncertain, it is not as easy to be present, or it is preferable to instead long for yesterday or wish for tomorrow. But I have realized that on these less than perfect days, the moments that force us to be present are those that shape us for the rest of our lives. These are the experiences that make us who we are. We find ourselves while we are weathering storms.

I have always considered myself “lucky” to have been born on the first day of autumn, the idea of a harvest inspires me. As we gather what nature has provided for us physically, we should also gather what it has provided for us internally. 

The changing of the seasons is a good prompt to reassess accordingly, and during the fall, a spiritual harvest of each and every moment shows us how much we have grown, and to be grateful for it.

— Meredith Bouvier @merryb923

Kumud’s note: Meredith has been part of the #SpiritChat family for many, many years. I am delighted that she will be stepping up to host the weekly chat on Sunday, September 20th at 9amET for the community. Let us join her and support her hosting journey as best as we can. In the moment. Thank you, Meredith! 

A moment by the Ocean – photo by Meredith Bouvier

On Light and Lightness

Tags

autumn, light, lightness, Tran sformation, transitions

More than the change in the early morning temperatures, there is a remarkable stillness that comes with dawn as the season make the turn from summer towards autumn. You can feel the stirring of change in the leaves as the ones that are to yield their greens to the yellows and reds and oranges get ready to lighten the load of the branches with their eventual precipitation.

I have been watching this transition brought about by the change in the angles and intensity of light for many years, and yet, every year the totality of the letting go of the deciduous ones rarely fails to amaze me. It’s almost as if autumn comes to remind me of the benefits of harnessing the change in light within to take another step towards lightness on the path.

There is a sense of urgency that comes with the shortening of the days as the setting of the sun in the distance moves ever so slightly Southwest every evening. Every day that winter comes closer, the physical light that we have access to grows a few minutes shorter. The birds know it, the bees know it, the butterflies and lightning bugs that have disappeared knew it, and yet, somehow, sometimes, us humans choose to forget it.

Maybe it isn’t so much that we forget about the shortening of the days but it is that we have our mind immersed in the past or the future that we are unaware of the transitions. External unawareness reduces the sensitivity of our inner sensors, as they collect dust from living a life of blindness towards the gift of the presence of light.

It has taken me about thirty minutes to write this post on a crisp Saturday morning. The two boys across the lake on their swing set have been going back and forth like pendulums all this while. The stillness of the forest has gone from the steady hum of insects to the awakening of blue jays. The young puppy has gone from calmly sitting on the dew covered cushion to chasing its tail in circles.

I sit here wondering about how the developing of the practice of focusing on the source of light within the heart has improved my awareness of the importance of lightness in my life. Lightness can come when we are lost to the external world in the moment, when light within returns to the source. We often experience lightness in joyous external activity like music, painting, dancing, writing, cooking and the like.

It is when attachment to activity and inactivity stops, when all the colors merge into One, when the letting go is effortless in its completeness, that the immersion in lightness is complete.

No matter the season, spirituality and spiritual practice is perhaps about being in that lightness, carrying the awareness of transformation within us, in every moment.

Onward. Bring on the new colors. I am ready to let go. How about you?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and conversation with the #SpiritChat community on Twitter – Sunday, Sep 13 at 9amET/ 630pm India. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Where all the colors merge into One, in that light we can experience lightness…

Spiritual Return to School

Tags

backtoschool, change, school, spiritual practice

The entire notion of ‘return to school’ this fall has taken on a new meaning in the context of the pandemic. For my daughter’s school, the conversation between administration, teachers, support staff, parents and local, state and health agencies has spanned most of the summer. Finally, this past Friday, school did reopen to students. The entire first day was spent in orientation sessions about new rules and guidelines.

And yet, about 15% of the students have chosen not to return ‘in-person’. They have chosen the ‘online’ option. In many ways, the ‘return to school’ has become a bit of a fragmented experience for the student community. Just like the world that they live in, school has become a brand new world for students. Wearing of masks and six-foot distances, taking turns while visiting their lockers, no large assemblies, no theater in the auditorium, no inter-school sports. It’s quite a bit to take in for the parents, let alone the school community.

However, inspite of all the changes and adjustments needed to make ‘in-person’ school possible, the ‘first-day survey’ says that the students are happy to back. The social bonding that happens in school cannot be duplicated online and is thus an important part of the educational experience. One may argue that some level of social bonding does happen in online (social media) interactions, but we can all agree that the ‘real life’ meeting is orders of magnitude more impactful. So, what does all this have to do with spirituality?

Well, that’s a good question. I guess one connection that comes to mind is the question – how have our spiritual practices served us in times of great change? Most students seem to have taken all these big changes in their ‘return to school’ process in stride, and with a good attitude. How do we adults handle great changes in our (learning) environments? Assuming that there are no setbacks, and that ‘in person school’ continues through the academic year, these fairly large changes will be in effect for a fairly long time. If we were in a similar situation, how would our spiritual practices be affected or undergo change(s)?

Let me share one personal example of change affecting spiritual practice. Ever since we brought a new puppy home six weeks ago, my morning meditation routine has had a ‘return to school’ experience. I had no idea how difficult it would be to try and sit quietly in the same space with a ten-week-old puppy. You see, the puppy wants to do the exact opposite of sitting still at 7am in the morning after a good night’s sleep! So, I had to change, adjust, and even school the puppy a bit. I would let her play for half an hour, let her burn off her energy, and then sit for my morning practice. And guess what?

After a few days, she caught on to the fact that this was my quiet time. I often found her curled up at my feet at the end of my morning sitting. I won’t go so far as to say that my original daily practice has been fully restored, but I am on my way back. It is a ‘return to school’ in a different environment for me and my practice. The timing and space where I practice varies depending on how the morning develops, and I have developed a new sense of gratitude for what I can accomplish on the days when I am able to practice.

That’s my short story. How about you? Have there been occasions where you’ve had to make small or big changes to your practices? Have you experienced a ‘spiritual return to school’ at any time and learnt new things about yourself and your environment? What did you learn in the process?

Kumud

P.S. I invite you to ‘return to school’ with the #SpiritChat community on Sunday, August 23 at 9amET on twitter. We will ask some old questions in new ways, and share some new answers. Maybe we will even get a bit of an education on taking change in stride and staying in school. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The Essence of Self-Love

Tags

awareness, healing, love, spirituality

The Essence of Self-Love (by Elisa Balabram)

Last month, our host Kumud Ajmani and #SpiritChat, celebrated 9 years of weekly spiritual and inspirational conversations. Congratulations! I may have joined six months or so after its launch, though I’m not sure when exactly. Since then, invariably every conversation includes at least one Tweet on #SpiritChat that makes a reference to Self-Love.

I’m copying a paragraph from a recent article I wrote on my blog Inequalities, Racism, Self-Love and Action that I think is relevant. I imagine that a world filled with self-loving individuals would be a more peaceful, respectful, joyful and loving world, would you agree?

“Self-love is not gloating or self-aggrandizing. One could argue that if someone is gloating, they are seeking approval from someone other than themselves, in order to give self the permission needed to feel loved. To practice self-love is to go beyond societal and cultural expectations of one’s successes and/or failures.  Self-love is the deep knowing within oneself that one matters, has value to offer, is a light, for simply existing and being one’s heart centered, authentic Self.”

For me, the essence of self-love is a clear unimpeded connection to one’s heart space, soul wisdom, and love within. It includes giving self: acceptance, love, kindness, and permission to fail. It may also require taking things lightly, being free of judgment (work in progress), treating self as one’s best friend, and creating opportunities to express oneself authentically and creatively. In addition, I find it helpful through the self-love practice, to develop an awareness of the inner critic, and to apply tools to minimize its influence. How are you practicing self-love and what does it mean to you?

Join us this Sunday at 9am ET for a conversation about “The Essence of Self-Love” and share your experience with it.

Elisa

Elisa Balabram is a lecturer, intuitive business/life #coach, writer & #author of: Ask Others, Trust Yourself & Mending a Broken Heart: Lili´s Magic Journey. Her blog is at https://www.askotherstrustyourself.com

 

It is with great pleasure and gratitude that I welcome Elisa (@womenandbiz) to host #SpiritChat on Sunday, Aug 9 at 9amET on Twitter. Please join in and share with Wlisa and the #SpiritChat community. Namaste. – Kumud

Elisa Balabram #FF @womenandbiz on twitter

On New Foundations

Tags

foundattion, Gardening, spirituality

It was about this time last summer that I decided to undertake a project to “rock-scape” all the plant beds on the sides and the back of the house. I figured that this would be a sort of a permanent solution to the annual mulching of the beds in spring. The landscape fabric was first laid down around the existing plantings, and then a lot of “river rock” was put down. The fabric and rock was in effect  removing the foundation for weeds to grow. It looked great and the remaining part of last summer was essentially free of pulling weeds from the beds. And yet, my celebration was not to last through this summer.

I hadn’t figured on the ingenuity of nature. There are two bird-feeders stationed in two of the beds, from which seeds are constantly spilled onto the rock-scape below by the birds throughout the day. Earlier this summer, I saw some of these seeds starting to grow through small gaps in the rocks. I figured they wouldn’t last long, because their roots couldn’t possibly go past the landscape fabric. I was only partly correct. When I went to pull these new ‘weeds’, they did come out relatively easily because their roots had grown laterally along the fabric. 

That’s the story of the weeds that grew without a deep foundation anywhere and everywhere there was seed, water, sunlight, air gaps and a little bit of soil. They couldn’t grow deep, but they figured out a way to create a new foundation. Something similar happens to us humans too. Seeds of thoughts and emotions are always traveling to the soil of our hearts and minds. These seeds, seeking new foundations, travel to us from friends and family, co-workers, media and social media, Zoom chats, WhatsApp conversations, and much more. 

So, how do we ordinarily deal with these seeds? I have a bit of a “let me rock-scape my mind” approach. The idea is to prevent the  thought and emotion seeds to find new foundations in my mind. I have found that if I can keep my mind relatively “weed free”, then my heart has a good chance to operate at its optimal level too. Despite my rock-scaping, I still have to do a daily weeding of the seeds that find their way through and grow roots, shallow as they may be. And yet, there is another aspect to the notion of “new foundations”.

For establishing or renewing a garden or landscape with flowers and plantings, garden centers often sell young plants and flowers in planters. When re-planting these plants and flowers at home, it is vital to provide good quality soil, some fertilizer and lots of water so that they can establish deep, healthy roots and thrive in their new foundation. The storms and droughts of life, the re-plantings and re-growths are best handled by those whose foundations run deep in faith and love,

New foundations are best established by those whose spiritual practices help them to keep out the weeds, as well as grow healthy new gardens no matter where life takes them on their journeys. I invite you take inventory of your weeds and flowers among your mind. How is the health of your heart’s garden? What seeds have established new foundations in your heart and mind lately? 

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly twitter chat, Sunday August 2 at 9amET / 630pm India. We will plant some new seeds with the #SpiritChat community as we begin a new year and build some new foundations for new friendships. Namaste – @AjmaniK 

A planter with marigold flowers is ready to be planted into its new foundation…

The Magic of Slowing Down

Tags

serenity, silence, slowing down, stillness

I have always been a fan of the number nine. I was delighted when I first found out that if you added the number nine to any number, and you sum up the resulting digits, you got back the sum of the digits that you started with. Nine is preservative in addition. So, let’s say we begin with 25. Two plus five is seven. Now, add nine, and we get 34. Three plus four is seven. Let’s add ninety-nine. 34 plus 99 is 133. One plus three plus three is seven. Try adding 999. 1132. Still seven.

Now try multiplication with nine. Nine becomes transformative. The resulting sum of the digits will always be nine. 25 times 9 is 225. Two plus two plus five is nine. 25 times 99 is 2,475. Two plus four plus seven plus five is 18. One plus eight is 9. Yes, we can play with nines like this all day long. Magical when we slow down to contemplate, isn’t it?

In human life, when nine is engaged in multiplication, it becomes an agent for transformation. For example, it takes nine months for a human baby to be born. Is there any greater act of transformation than two cells becoming a baby? Can you think of an example in our daily lives where addition by nine represents preservation? I will give you a personal example. 

Nine years ago to the day, give or take a few days, a few folks gathered on twitter on a Sunday morning at 11am ET and had a conversation about spirituality. The topic was, “On Slowing Down”. There was no agenda or expectation that there would even be a second conversation the following Sunday. It was simply an experiment inspired by a question posed by me to one of my good friends – why isn’t there any chat on twitter about spirituality? Wayne’s response was —  so what if there isn’t one? Why don’t you start one? 

Answer a question with a question. That’s the classic way in which a teacher and mentor can nudge us to do something that takes us out of our comfort zone. I remember thinking back then — what will I even talk about? So, I asked Wayne again. What should the topic be? His response was — what do you love doing most? Talk about that. Hmm. What do I love doing most? I love slowing down, sitting and doing “nothing”. I learnt that from my Dad.

He could sit and read the newspaper for hours. He could sit in absolute stillness and silence with a cup of tea at peace for what seemed the longest time. He could stand in the kitchen patiently and tend to the assembly of his seven-layered, seven-colored rice dish for what seemed like forever. You simply couldn’t rush him for anything.

So, in the last week of July, which happens to be his birthday week (he would have been eight six this year), on a Sunday morning in 2011, a few friends of mine gathered and chatted about “slowing down”. There were only three questions. I did not ask the first question until twenty minutes into the hour. We had no idea what we were doing except that we were all simply happy to be there, enjoying each other’s company as we held our cups of tea or coffee and wondered about the merits of “slowing down”. 

That was then. Nine years ago. It seems like a life-time or more in online years. And yet, not much has changed in some ways since 2011, has it? If anything, the need for us to experience the magic of slowing down is all the more greater, isn’t it? How else is one to engage in remembrance and gratitude, if not through the active process of slowing down? How else, if not by slowing down, am I to thank all of those who have sent hundreds of thousands of words of hope and inspiration to the #SpiritChat community over the years?

How about slowing down offline? It is in slowing down that I can watch and deeply feel the sun rise slowly at the eastern end of the street at dawn or feel the silvery glow of the sliver of the moon’s rising at dusk. Slowing down allows me to contemplate the beauty of the flower that was separated overnight and fell to the ground in homage to the earth. It allows me to touch the dew fallen in the grass with light feet, and inhale the air of the cool morning breeze before the heat rises and melts it away. And yes – how is one to engage in meditation, if not by first slowing down physically and remembering to bring myself to a state of rest?

So yes, slowing down allows us to return to remembrance. Regularly slowing down within allows us to be in constant remembrance.  What kind of remembrance? The external world will be relentless in its demands on us, and yet That stillness will remain in our hearts forever. It shall be patiently waiting for us to accept its invitation to visit with it, to let the outer world be, and to choose to be immersed in the world within. Will we make that choice? How much can we slow ourselves down? Will we observe the observer and remember that there is That permanent, indestructible, all-loving, all-joyous, all-truthful One within All off us?

That remains the great question, the great challenge.

Nature has some pointers for us. As fast as a hummingbird flies or a bee buzzes or a butterfly flaps her wings, they all have to slow down, to come to a moment of stillness, so that they can experience the magical taste of the nectar of life. What can we learn from their behavior? Even the new puppy, who can go a hundred miles an hour, has to pause for a drink of water, a nibble at her food bowl, before she can take off again like an express train towards her next station of play.

Like the piano virtuoso Wayne Mcevilly, who inspired me to start the weekly chat nine years ago said — the greatest classical music compositions are so because the composers put as much care into putting the pauses into the right place, as they did into assigning the notes that each instrument is to play.

Let us condense nine years into nine minutes. That is my invitation to you. Take nine minutes and be still. Watch your breath or the light in your heart or the sunrise or the sunset or a single flower dancing in the stillness. Absolute stillness. There is magic in all of That. Thou art That. That is all there Is. 

We all can experience all of That, if we were to embrace the act of slowing down. No magic necessary. 

Kumud

P.S. Join me and the #SpiritChat community on Sunday, July 26 at 9amET as we slow down to create some magic. I look forward to hearing from you about your experiments with pure stillness. I will bring tea and maybe even some cake – you bring your open hearts and we will chat. Namaste – @AjmaniK

A bee slows down to visit a butterfly bush in the front yard