Towards Integrity

Tags

awareness, harmony, integrity, Tao Te Ching, zen

What would our life and living look like if we were to experience it with spontaneity and without any ideological filters? What would happen if we were to remove the dichotomy and the separation between the material and the physical? What if we were to live in harmony with the silence, the silent balance between the yin (the seed) and the yang (the spark)?

Some of these questions, and many more variations of the same, are posed in the Eastern classic, the Tao Te Ching. I pulled out my dog-eared and dog-nibbled copy of the translation by Ralph Alan Dale on Friday evening, as the rain that had been falling all day kept me indoors, in the company of multiple sessions of tea on the reading couch with the very puppy who had nibbles the bindings in her first year of life.

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday evening, I had taken my weekly walk in the reservation at the location where the East and West branches of the Rocky River meet at the base of a 350 million year old shale cliff. The lack of recent rain meant that I could walk halfway into the river on the shale beds by the shore, some of which are probably only a few million years old. I noticed immediately that the river bank had been cleared of a lot of older, dying brush and trees, and the shale beds were much more accessible and walkable. In the evening hour of sunset, I was grateful that I had half the river all to myself.

Kneeling on the layers of compacted shale to take some photos of the shale cliff in the distance, I noticed that some new layers of leaves from the trees on the river bank had started to cover the shale deposits I was kneeling on. It struck me that here, right before my autumn colored eyes, I was witnessing the seeds of a new layer of shale in their seeding. In that moment, with one knee on the river-bank, I realized that thousands of layers of existing shale were eventually going to accept, and then integrate this autumn’s offerings into their existence.

I imagine that that is how moving towards integrity, living with integrity actually manifests? One spontaneous experience at a time, one season at a time, one layer of Yin and Yang at a time, one layer of silence and song at a time, we chip away at the ideologies and dichotomies that keep us encrusted in dogma and duality.

In moving towards integrity, we may realize that we were always there, that we never left. One knee pressing new leaves into the layers of shale, one arm raised towards the sky, eyes flooded with golden sunlight, chanting our mother’s songs by the very river on whose shores the natives traveled for hundreds of years…

The spirit of life  
never dies.  

It is the infinite gateway  
to mysteries within mysteries.  

It is the seed of yin,  
the spark of yang.  

Always elusive,  
endlessly available.  

- Tao Te Ching (verse 6)

Kumud

P. S. What are the moments in which you feel that you are moving towards integrity? What do those moments feel like? Do share with us in the comments and/or our weekly twitter chat, Sunday Nov 13 at 9amEST / 2pm GMT / 730pm India in #SpiritChat. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The golden sunlight that integrates everything in its path…

The 350 million year old shale cliffs that form one bank of the Rocky River… (November 2022)

Our Inner Conditions

Tags

awareness, conditioning, resilience, sensitivity, spirituality

Partly cloudy days can provide beautiful lighting for outdoor walks. When the partly cloudy day happens to be the first day of autumn with a distinct chill in the morning air, one has the distinct feeling that there is a different calling for the weekly forest walk that day.

And so it was that I accepted the inner invitation to visit with the local bird reservation this Friday – a visit that I hadn’t made since the spring! All the familiar locations looked a bit different. A new water fountain in the pond, near the entrance where my favorite bridge is located, brought a welcoming freshness to the water and a delightful hum that warmed the ears. New signs in several trails educating visitors about the mission and the support needed for the good health of the reservation. And much more.

The trail itself had very few leaves on the ground yet, so the sun rising slowly through the forest created beautiful light and colors on the leaves still on the trees. Nature’s morning and evening light patterns can help create a beautiful inner condition of stillness and peace.

A visit with a favorite book or movie or podcast, an actual conversation with a good friend, a greeting card in the mail, a wave from a neighbor walking by as you sit on the porch — one or all of these ‘things’ can instantly brighten our inner condition.

Some of us may also have daily, intentional, spiritual practices which, over time, help us build resilience into our inner condition. Why build resilience? Such a condition can serve us well in moments where a random text message, a tweet, a news item, a harsh word or any such intervention by the outside world can instantly disrupt our condition. The higher the degree of resilience of our inner condition, the more quickly and easily we can find ourselves back in our state of equanimity after our mind’s surface has been insta-stormed by the world.

By asking and observing ‘what is it that disproportionately disrupts my inner condition?’, we can get heart-smart about the actions we take to decrease the frequency such disruptions of our condition. As we adjust our practices to decrease our sensitivity to the disruptors, we can improve our inner condition, and then do more of those practices which works for us. A positive feedback loop can thus be established within, and over time, the heart-mind-body system becomes less and less ‘allergic’ to our ‘irritants’.

If we want to establish, maintain and enhance a condition that is active but not reactive, a daily walk of self-observation of our condition is essential.

Yes, it takes ‘extra’ work, but what if it is perhaps the best work we will do on a daily basis? Start with a small daily commitment and bring a joyous attitude to the walk. Journal what happens daily. Watch the changes in your condition over ninety days.

Consider. If you start a new walk today, you may have a brand new ‘gift of inner condition’ for yourself by the end of the year.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly chat with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday Sep 25 at 9amET / 1pmGMT. We will take stock of our inner conditions as we gather over tea and quotes! How to start that new walk? Ask me if you need suggestions. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Sunflowers in various stages and conditions as autumn arrives…

On Life and Perceptions

Tags

awareness, bliss, mind stuff, perception, reality

It was perhaps the first time ever that I did my Friday morning walk on the school trail without my phone. I forgot it at home when I went for drop off, considered going back to retrieve it, and then thought… perhaps this will be an interesting experiment!

On a typical walk in the trails, I walk, pause, observe, take photos, walk some more, pause, and so on. It often ends up that it can take me almost forty five minutes to an hour to walk a mile or so. However, today’s walk was different, not just for the pace, but for the nature of the pauses and what I felt during those pauses.

Walking phoneless felt less like I was gathering, and more like I was simply observing. The lower angle of the Sun in the same hour as compared to last week. The hearing of leaves rustling and the raised white tail of deer bounding away as they sighted me. The almost complete coverage of the pond surface with green algae and slivers of rising sun reflecting in the blue patches. The wooden sign that said that the pond is a ‘scientific observation facility’ and hence ‘no swimming, fishing, skating’ and such. And so much more different views and perceptions on a trail that I have walked at least a few dozen times over the last year.

The experience made me ask. Why does perception matter anyway? How does it change over time? How we change it when necessary? What is its origin, and what is its connection to our spiritual journey?

It is perhaps no coincidence that I have pulled my weather-worn “Upanishads” book off of the shelf this week, and have stumbled upon a chapter describing the ‘five layers of existence’ within us. Perception is one of the layers — it is the fourth layer, sitting between the third layer, which is the mind, and the highest layer, which is bliss.

One may infer that in order for us to travel from the mind towards the highest layer of bliss, one has to walk through through the layer of perception. How do we best accomplish this? Are we aware of the quality of our perception in our daily life? One way to evaluate our quality of perception can be to observe our reactions to what is fed to our mind, voluntarily and involuntarily. Another way is to examine our fears, particularly those we had in the past, and what were the outcomes of those fears in our life?

We can further ask – to what extent did the perceptions of the possible outcomes of our (worst) fears keep us from experiencing bliss? What have we learnt from those self-limiting perceptions of self? What have we learnt from past perceptions and then adjusted our awareness, in order to get closer to and remain in bliss more consistently?

Some say that ‘perception is reality’. I would tweak that and say that ‘perception is the doorway to reality’. What is reality? According to the Upanishad, reality is the awareness that we are ‘well made’, perfect beings in the eyes of the divine. Our destiny on the path is bliss, except that we tend to get ‘stuck’ in the perceptions fueled by our mind, which is fueled by our senses, and so on.

Towards the end of the walk — a walk that was uncluttered by my desire to take a bunch of photos and share the best of them with all of you — I realized that there was a unique clarity born from this new experience for me. By removing the tasks of fiddling with the phone-camera’s filters of framing, perspective, lighting, focusing and such, a different kind of perception of the trail was revealed.

The ‘full-frame’ of nature, as designed, as intended to be perceived by us by the grand designer, was unfolded. I believe I had a sighting, for perhaps the first time during a walk, the doorway to bliss. Perhaps the door has always been there and I have been busy fiddling with trinkets? Perhaps next time, I will walk through the doorway of bliss, and even stay for a while.

Now where’s that phone? I need to write down my perceptions of today’s walk before I forget. I guess it will have to wait till at least my return home. Maybe I’ll just take the blog-post photo in the backyard and share that with all of you.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday Sep 18 at 9amET / 1pmGMT. We will discuss the perceptions of our weekly walks, and I welcome you all to join in. Namaste. – AjmaniK

Ref. ‘Five layers of being,’ Taittiriya Upanishad, Chapter 2

The last(?) of summer’s roses blooms in the backyard…

Paths of Openness

Tags

awareness, fear, lightness, openness, vibration

Rarely, if ever have I not felt better after walking in Nature’s embrace. I have often wondered during my walks – how does this happen every single time? Is it the stillness and the silence and the vastness and the constantly changing variety of the path? Or is it something more, something that logic and intellect are unable to adequately explain?

Perhaps what fills the heart and soul when we get out of our own heads and walk the open path, beyond the limitations of our knowledge and even our knowing, is beyond mere reason and words to explain?

And yet, having experienced the heart-affirming outcome of every single past walk in vast openness, there are days when I hesitate to walk… why is this? The world and its seeming urgencies and pressures of time and space create mental barriers.

How do I overcome the barriers to openness? I remember the light, the flow, the radiance, the glow, the energy transfer that creates temporal transformation that lightens the heart and points me upwards. The gravitational pull of the final destination, the path to it, winds through openness, does it not?

The open path often finds us walking alone. This doesn’t mean that we need to stop living in the world, isolate ourselves from feelings and emotions. Being open can help increase our awareness of the feelings and emotions that are creating excess and imbalance within us. Our ‘practices’ are ‘working’ when they open us, orient us towards equilibrium, and harmony with the world. Over time, openness can teach us how to conserve energy, so that we can do our best work while moving in the direction of our heart’s destiny.

The alternative to openness is closedness, driven by fear. What does the path to closedness create? Perhaps more fear? The first law of thermodynamics states that ‘an isolated system cannot change its internal energy, and hence do no work’. The corollary is that the work done by us depends on how we un-isolate ourselves, connect with energy sources around us, and allow for change in the level of our internal energy.

Maybe that’s the answer to the original question. Why does Nature, and by extension, some people, raise our internal energy and vibration when we associate with them? Is it because we allow for them to do so, by being open to them? If yes, then the choice becomes – what kind of path and what kind of energy association will we open ourselves to, to get closer to our destination?

Sunflowers on the open path by the river… some thrive, and some…

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter gathering and open conversation, Sunday Sep 4 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India in #SpiritChat. Namaste ~ AjmaniK

On Living Transitions

Tags

awareness, change, transformation, transition

It begins with a silent, almost imperceptible drizzle… maybe a leaf or two from every other tree 🌲 or so, as their soundlessness matched the sun filtering through the leaves on its ascent upwards in the morning hours, creating infinite patterns of yellow and gold with the multitudes of shapes and sizes still very much present on the branches…

The overcast nature of the morning creates even more variations as the transitioning clouds modulate the light intensity that comes through the forest… you look up from your pause near the vintage house and notice the tallness that you have been waking amidst…

The mosquitoes trailing you have finally left you alone… have you ever noticed how a single mosquito will bite you multiple times even before you realize the bumps on your neck, your jaw and your ear? Someone had once asked me – what purpose do mosquitoes even serve? I said then that I’d get back to them. Today, I realized that they perhaps exist to teach us persistence? And yet I digress…

Let me get back to transitions. They are everywhere, they appear in all forms, and we would be dead in no time without them. And yet we often resist them, because we either aren’t ready for the unexpected ones or we take the routine ones for granted…

We may resist transitions because we may associate them with turbulent experiences in our lives. While that may be our past, it doesn’t have to be our present. For one, we can choose a different past, in the sense that we can ask – what did we learn from that previous transition, inspire of the turbulence that it brought our way?

In Vedic practice, the times of nature’s daily transitions, turbulence and all, are considered to be optimal times to pause, rest, reflect and prepare for the next phase of the day. You may recognize them as sunrise and sunset, dawn and dusk, and such. The rate of energy transfer between the layers of existence is said to be highest during these times…

And just as I finish my walk, jotting down my thoughts for this post, a gust of breeze brings down a multitude or so leaves. I look up and the Sun is still at play with its backlighting of the trees. Now that I am fully awake, I am aware that I better not stand still too long or else the mosquitoes will find me, the lone human in a quarter mile radius around the lake which is partly covered with thick algae. It’s a living lake – the algae will be taken care of by the next big rainstorm…

Living Transitions. How do we best do that? Perhaps we can be more aware of them, accept them, find joy in them and live our best life amid them. Need some hints?

Look within the moment. What’s transitioning? What’s remaining still? What’s lightening you? What’s enlivening you?

Until next time. Be well.

Kumud

Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat, Sunday Aug 28 at 9amET / 1pmGMT in #SpiritChat ~ we welcome all of you to share with us. Namaste – AjmaniK

One hydrangea cluster continues living its best life… amid the transition to autumn

Focusing on Abundance

Tags

abundance, awareness, focus, opposites, spirituality

Abundance is often only a few feet away… we may have to get off the carefully laid out trails, follow the ones running narrow and winding that trace the rivers’ curves and bends, teeming with greenery of all shapes and sizes…

And then you come at the resting spots where the silence and stillness invites you to be part of it all of its resplendence on a late summer afternoon. It is beginning to feel like autumn beneath cloudless blue skies where the only filter for the streaming sun are the leaves still in fullness of green and the cicadas let off some accumulated heat by tuning up their orchestra…

The ‘lack’ that was following you intermittently all week long seems to vaporize with the gentle breeze that takes it all away. The energy of anger at the lack of civility and decency, the weight of heavy memories that you thought were long gone, the struggle between being and doing – are all replaced with a calm, confident and clear sense of simplicity and abundance, an assurance that all becomes well when we focus on the fields of wellness within us.

We aren’t often aware of or give expression to abundance because, like breathing, it is one of our natural states. We instead tend to feel and give words and voice to pain and lack and hunger and thirst. Why? Perhaps because we have been deluded into believing that we are ‘more alive’ when we feel those things which remind us of what we lack? How do we refocus on abundance?

It takes a certain effort, a certain attitude, a certain commitment to going beyond happiness towards joy and bliss, and the willingness to even surrender those when the time is ripe for realization. Then, we can be aware of the ocean of abundances that we live and breathe and see and taste and smell and hear in every single moment of living.

The question isn’t whether abundance is present. The question is how much of our energy and awareness is attuned to it, focused on it, from moment to moment. Yes, we have access to infinite energy, but we surely aren’t in any position to harness more than our heart and mind can handle in any given moment. We surely aren’t going to be given freedom for the asking when we aren’t ready for the abundance that comes with it, are we?

It is said that in order to know the abundance of the ocean, we have to be willing to get wet, to be able to be at peace with the rising and the falling of the waves, to be accepting of the times of happiness and misery alike. And yet there is more. In order to truly know the ocean, we perhaps have to be willing to be one with the ocean – “to be like the salt which dissolves our i into the I – and then, abundance will be us.” – Osho

No reminders will then be necessary. We will be beyond all opposites of arrivals and departures, life and death, truth and untruth, higher and lower, light and darkness, and all that separates us in name and form from permanent abundance.

Are we willing to focus on what we truly want, nay, what we already are and have?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter conversation in #SpiritChat on Sunday, Aug 14 2022 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India. Yes, we have abundant space to welcome you all… Namaste.

Focusing on Abundance… on the trail…

Realms of Friendship

Tags

awareness, friendship, nature walk, spirituality, summer

You can hear the frogs but can’t see them, no matter how hard you look.

You can see the baby turtles but can’t hear them for they bask in the sunlight in silence.

You can feel the embrace of the overgrowth that has narrowed the already narrow trail, and has softened the stone laid path with its soft leaves and branches that you now walk on.

You pause to take a breath and you notice the almost perfectly camouflaged ducks taking a late afternoon rest on a fallen tree trunk sprawled halfway across the width of the lagoon.

The lilies have come fully abloom since you last visited the newly built bridge that stands firmly where you once had to venture to cross the channel by lightly dance-stepping over just long enough logs laid down by the park rangers.

A young man walking his beautiful dog who wants to greet you with a friendly sniff, mildly apologizes as he says “he’s friendly”; and you smile back and say, “I can tell, for I have two at home” — and he breaks out into a huge smile as he walks away…

A Dad gives softball batting practice to his daughter with a bucket of plastic balls that are slowly filling up the Diamond behind them.

I exit the lagoon trail, look back, take a final photo for the evening, as I say thanks for being a trusted friend to me all these years in my walks of solitude, long before it was popular for people to be able to walk all around you on the newly built walkways.

I walk across the parkway to the other side, to visit and sit for a short meditation with my other best friend, the river, whose small waterfall is gushing after the recent rains. It seems to say, “welcome back; you should visit more often – the blue heron was here earlier – you just missed it.” Ah, my friendship with the blue heron over the years, who always seems to see me before I arrive, and takes off in their shyness.

There are times when we feel like we could use deeper friendships in our lives. And yet, if we examine all the possible realms of friendship available to us, we already have so many, don’t we? There is nature’s flora realm in its ever-welcoming energy. There is the realm of animals and birds that shares its friendships with us. There are of course humans, some of us who we may have long-term friendships and shared experiences with.

Last but not least, there is the realm of friendship with the divine energy, always open and available to us, if and when we choose to connect with it. In fact, all the other realms of friendship are contained within It, for It wouldn’t be the Infinite realm otherwise, would It?

As I walk back along the river to return home, I pause for a moment, gaze out at the peaceful flow which has given me so much unconditional healing, comfort and joy over the years, a question comes to my heart — Can a friendship with eternity ever grow old?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat, Sunday July 17 at 9amET / 1pmGMT/ 630pm India in #SpiritChat. We will explore realms of friendship, and who knows, maybe you will make a new friend or two… Namaste – @Ajmanik

The crimson-eyed rosemallow (a hibiscus variety) blooms in the wild in Rocky River Reservation…

On Spiritual Alignment

Tags

alignment, awareness, gratitude, spirituality, turbulence

It was a somewhat unusual week of ups and downs, of great calm and turbulence in the inner world for me. It began particularly well in that I used the Monday holiday to read a new book from cover to cover – something I hadn’t done on a long, long time. It felt really good to get back to ‘deep reading’, and prompted me to make a summer reading list of spiritual biographies. That was the high-point of the week, and I was only the first day in.

The next couple of days was where the outer world started seeping in, and it turned into a bit of a flood by Thursday morning. The morning meditation practice was unable to restore calm and stillness, because the mind was highly perturbed and the usual heart-focusing techniques weren’t working. Something was surely out of alignment. I looked in my ‘toolbox’ to see – what was I to do next to reset my alignment?

The first step to realignment was to return to the weekly walk in the reservation, which I did Thursday evening after work. The forest immersion worked really well to do an inner reset, as the familiar trails, the waters of the river and lagoon, the clear blue skies — all submerged me in their warm embrace. The exclamation point was the blue heron that I observed sitting in perfect stillness across the river, for the entire final ten minutes of my walk. Typically, a heron will take off as soon as it sees humans, but today was different. The realignment was going well.

Friday morning meditation was a bit of a test of how well the realignment was going. Things were better, but not quite fully restored yet. It wasn’t till late Friday evening, after seeing my daughter again after a week, overlapping with a long dinner meeting with a very good friend’s mother, Carol, whom we hadn’t seen in almost three years, that the realignment felt almost complete. It must have been Carol’s beautiful, pure, in the moment, loving energy, deep hugs, and childhood stories of living and growing up in the small town of Longport on the Atlantic shore, that helped clear away a large part of the dust of the week.

As I write this post, I find myself asking some questions. How do we know that we are in alignment, and out of alignment in our inner world? What are the happenings in our outer world that shift us out of inner alignment? How often do we lose alignment, and how quickly is it restored? What tools do we have for restoration, and how well do they really work?

I was tested this week in a way that was perhaps not so unique to me. Hence, I shared my experiences with you. The alignment testing helped me identify some weaknesses in my spiritual practices. One result of the week’s testing is that I am grateful for the opportunity to learn, adjust and develop greater awareness on the journey towards answering — Who am I? What am I truly aligned to, and why?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday June 26 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India. I will bring some alignment gauges in the form of questions, and a pot of tea. You bring the cookies! Namaste – AjmaniK

The hydrangeas finally bloom in the garden… helping to restore alignment!

On Paths of Union

Tags

awareness, spiritual practice, union, walking

There is an instant affinity and connection when stepping into the trail. A distinct sense of being welcomed with joy, even by the mosquitoes! A sense of delight in the meeting, in the coolness of the slate-lined river bank and the breeze and the ocean of green come ashore. A sense of peace in the silent flow of the river whose bottom can be clearly seen in this late afternoon in the light of the filtered sun that remove all your troubles so that you can focus on the expanse of the invitation that lies in front of you…

And then, after you have spent at least a half hour playing among the stones of the river bed, weaving in the trails and bathing in the foliage of the forest, the river-side offers you a place to pause and rest. You gratefully accept. As you sit on the trail bench, there is something about the slant of sunlight on the trees, and the river’s peace, that prompts you to do a first-time-ever evening meditation in that space. The path has unfolded before you.

You are sitting amid the noise of the traffic and people walking on the trail behind you… and yet, after a while, all you hear primarily is the river rustling by and the wind whispering among the trees. The sun filters through the trees behind you and sends warm currents up and down your spine. And then, after what seems like an eternity, and yet is actually less than a dozen minutes, it happens.

You remember Dad and his ability to submerge into stillness and silence in the midst of it all. You realize that That is what he was communicating to you all that time, on all those days-long train trips across India, the road trips in the far reaches of the Himalayas, when as a child you wished that he would speak more words of wisdom into you. He was showing you that the path to a higher Union, the path to awareness, truth and bliss, goes through the deep silence and stillness that quietens the waves created by the “mind stuff” — the path that Patanjali defines as the practice of Yoga.

Pay attention. Do your workings in and for the world, but also do the work needed to walk your path towards higher Union. That has been the message filtering into my heart over the past week or so, and re-iterated in Friday evening’s walk. I am grateful to be sharing the loving message with you. Namaste.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat, Sunday June 19 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India. I will bring some tea, fruit and questions – you bring your favorite walking shoes 🙂 – AjmaniK

P.P.S To all who are celebrating, Happy Father’s Day and Happy Juneteenth on June 19. International Yoga Day and Summer Solstice is June 21. Get ready 🙂

The walk is rarely easy… and yet, always worth it! (Rocky River Reservation, Ohio)

On New Realities

Tags

awareness, illusion, permanent, reality, Tran sformation

I have to admit that I wasn’t ready to face the reality of returning to in-person work on a full-time basis this week. After two years of remote work, I didn’t know if I even remembered how to function in an office among people. However, rather than stress about it, I decided that I was going to take it one day at a time, and no matter what, inject some lightness and fun into each in-person work-day.

On the third day, which was Friday, I ended the day by returning to the trails in the Metro-parks near work which I used to walk regularly before the two year pandemic hiatus. An hour or so in the reservation helped me process the new realities, and reminded me of some old ones that I had forgotten.

The first reality is that Nature doesn’t forget, even when we often do. The hidden entrance to one of the trails, the welcoming oaks, the river almost covering the embankment, the lightest of light blue flowers – they were all still there. I had forgotten their soothing nature, but it all came flooding back in the first few minutes, once I chose to be present to them. Their welcoming embrace was complete, the sense of familiar joy was full, and it was as if two years of absence had collapsed into a single moment. I experienced the reality of nature’s power over time and space.

The second reality was about Nature’s beauty. It is in full display, but we often close our eyes and ears to it. One section of the trail, about a quarter of a mile long, was resplendent with white on both sides. It was as if someone had taken canvases of green, sprayed them with white flowers in all kinds of random patterns from head to toe, and then spread them on both sides of the trail to create a tunnel. Why had I never noticed these when I walked this same trail dozens of times before in years past? Maybe I had developed a new awareness, a sense of slowing down after two years of being away? Was this my new reality?

The third experience of reality was a heady mix of the new superimposed on the old. After emerging from the tunnel of flowers, I was going to bypass circling the lagoon. I thought that some sections of the perimeter would be impassable, as used to be the case in the past after heavy rains. I walked by the first entrance with the intent of visiting one of my favorite benches that overlooked the other end of the crescent-moon shaped lagoon. As I got closer to this other end, I noticed that the trail entrance at this end looked a bit different. Where did all the gravel on the trail come from?

This deserved some exploration, and what followed was an amazing walk along the lagoon after all! I met with new wooden bridges and walkways constructed over all the previously impassable parts of the water. I simply couldn’t believe the brilliance of the newness of it all. I admit that I did miss the unpredictable nature of the natural paths which used to often abruptly end, and have me turn around at random points on the three-quarter-circle trail.

New realities of bridges and walkways had made the beauty of the lagoon accessible to so many more people, as evidenced by the people fishing, dog-walking and bird-watching on the trail. Time will tell how the increased human activity bears out for the lagoon’s waters and its wildlife, but so far so good.

As I drove back home after the work-day that ended with my heart and mind full of new realities, I slowly absorbed the new conditions I had experienced over the week. Nature exists to remind us of what is permanent and what isn’t so — what we do with such reminders depends on our inner state. Is it perhaps true that we have the ability to create our own realities by choosing the degrees of awareness, bliss, truth and attitude that we bring to any given moment? If yes, then we can be creators of our own destiny connected to permanence, can’t we? If no, then how do we get out of being immersed in the state of our mind’s illusions?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat in #SpiritChat, Sunday June 5 at 9amET / 1pmGMT as we explore reality and such. I will bring some questions and banana bread. Do visit. Namaste – AjmaniK

A steel and wood bridge over the East branch of the Rocky River…