HOPE by @AwakeningTrue

Tags

choices, hope, love, virtues

HOPE by Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino

In many conversations over the past three weeks, I have felt the need and the responsibility to be hopeful, and to share messages of hope with others. This caused me to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about hope and exploring its power relative to one of my favorite topics – love. At the beginning of this exploration, hope seemed more ephemeral than love, more like a flickering flame that, when the wind blew, persisted only if it was protected by sheer will and determination.

Why, I wondered, did I see love as more steadfast, more permanent than hope? Why did I view love as the strongest sibling in the family of these virtues, along with other virtues, that so many of us are committed to demonstrating in our thoughts, our words, and our actions?

We speak about unconditional love – love without conditions, without expectations or requirements. When we choose to love someone unconditionally, when we commit to loving unconditionally, our love is unwavering. Why, then, does hope feel more conditional? What is unconditional hope?

I know how to remain loving when someone says or does something hurtful. I know how to remain compassionate when tempted to judge rather than forgive. But I must admit that during these past three weeks, there have been days when I did not know HOW to remain hopeful. Meditation and journaling helped me understand that hope, like love, is a choice. This obvious conclusion had not been obvious to me on those days when hope seemed so elusive. Today, though, I better understand that conclusion and I choose hope. I choose to be hopeful and hope-filled, reminded that this is how we are able to move through the most challenging hours or days or weeks of our lives.  

Some of us live in places where Spring is now arriving. The crocuses and daffodils that survived the snowstorm and icy weather near my home last weekend are symbols of hope for me as I commit to choosing unconditional HOPE, unwavering hope, from this moment on.

I very much look forward to discussing hope in this Sunday’s #SpiritChat, and to learning from this hopeful and hope-filled community.   

Thank you all very much, and many thanks to Kumud for the opportunity!!  

Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino — @SharonDAgostino, @AwakeningTrue and @SayItForwardNow

Author’s bio: I believe in the power of love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, gratitude, and…hope! And I believe that each of us has an important role in shaping a kinder, gentler, more compassionate world for all.

Kumud’s note: I am delighted that Sharon @AwakeningTrue will be hosting #SpiritChat on Sunday, March 20 at 9amEDT / 1pmUTC / 630pm India on twitter. I am so looking forward to all the hope and love that emerges from her leading the conversation on this topic. Thank you, Sharon!

 

 

Photo: Daffodils by Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Power of Introspection

Tags

accountability, blame, choices, freedom, guilt, hatred, healing, shame, yoga

And I’m back. After two days of missing my morning meditation, it’s good to be back. It took a concerted effort to get back, and now I know why I missed the light, the lightness, the peace of the condition of the heart that is often established, and more. There is no reason to feel shame, or even guilt for being derailed, as long as I learnt from the experience, recover, re-heart and reset.

I had to ask for all the masters for help, and then wait. I didn’t have to wait long, for the help did come, and it came quickly. The bonus was that there was additional help from my beloveds who have passed, and the loved ones who are present.

The shame receded, I worked through the guilt, I decided to abjure blame, which inspired accountability. It was only after transitioning through the shame, blame, guilt and accountability, that I felt ready to acknowledge what derailed me, and then make a renewed commitment to my practice, with a revised plan of action.

After all of that groundwork, came the invitation to healing, and moving on towards growth. I paused to introspect and ask. What if I had bypassed all the intermediate work and jumped straight from shame and to try and effect healing, even growth?

I believe it would have been a lost opportunity for engaging in deep introspection. I would have buried the guilt, taken no accountability, and forgotten that I had ignored the warning flags being waved by the station masters of the stations that my freight train of the mind filled with anger had passed through on my way to derailment.

The unprocessed anger would have led to more guilt, perhaps even rage and bitterness, and I would have left myself vulnerable to being even more easily derailed the next time around. In the words of the great Ramakrishna Parmahansa,

“The three things that we have to get rid of in spiritual life are shame, hatred and fear.”

How do we begin to get rid of them? Introspection is part of the process. According to step five Patanjali’s eightfold path of Yoga, pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses helps quieten the mind, which then opens the door to dharana (concentration) and then comes dhyana (meditation). Very often, we want to bypass the first six steps, and go straight to meditation. We run into all kinds of obstacles, we get derailed, we tell ourselves we failed, we start believing we are failures, and plant seeds of self-blame, guilt, and even shame.

We then get well-intentioned advice like, “if you don’t succeed at first, try again” or “get over it and move on.” I say that if you’ve tried enough times and are stuck in a whirlpool of shame, hatred and fear – then consider pausing your freight train at the next station and refueling for some Introspection. Ask some questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What do I stand for? What won’t I stand for? What do I want my inner life to be like? What are the strengths and weaknesses of my plans and actions? What resources do I have to accomplish my purpose? Do I need help? If I ask for help, and I am offered it, will I receive it with good attitudes? Add your own questions.

As answers emerge, Introspection helps us polish the mirror within. We may even see some dark, ugly truths that we don’t like. Acknowledgement of those long buried truths is the invitation to excoriate shame, fear, and hatred.

Or we can simply keep driving our freight train, ignore all the warning signs, and get derailed again. To introspect or not, is our choice. There is great power in our choices. The consequences are often greater. Your move.

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly chat on Twitter with the #SpiritChat community. We will introspect through some questions as we pause for some tea and cookies. All are welcome. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The eightfold flower of Yoga. Introspection is a vital petal

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

Paths and Directions

Tags

career, choices, direction, path

Hi Kumud – 

  When I was in ninth grade, I filled out a form for the school counseling center with the title that approximated to “What I want to do when I grow up.” It was a one page document and I filled in What I enjoyed doing, What I felt were my gifts, What I wanted to do for recreation, and What I wanted to do for a potential career.

  I recall very little about my replies except that somewhere on the page I wrote the words “Writer”. Now being a writer is a challenging career path and I’m not sure if I would recommend that path for my children. My parents certainly didn’t recommend that path for me. I ended up in Engineering and when it didn’t work out, I transferred to a major called Communications.

  For the past 3 months, I have been looking for a new career job. My recent titles have been Project Assistant, Project Manager, and Business Analyst and I consider myself a very seasoned technical communicator. This past Monday I received a phone call and I was offered a permanent position with the same enterprise that paid me as a contractor a few months ago. The problem was that this was the second job offer within a week and I was already entertaining the other position. I was in the humbling position of having two positions “on the table”.

   The world is full of choices and paths. Late yesterday I wrote the hiring manager at the enterprise where I worked as a contractor last year and turned down her job offer. The hiring manager wished me well on my journey. I enjoyed seeing that word, “journey”. We are all on a journey. I selected a career role with a very visible government agency that I consider perfect. Maybe that journey will be 15 or more years or maybe the journey will have twists and turns before then.

   Each year I am surprised and grateful that my wife and I have enough (income) for food, shelter, and a modest bit of entertainment. While I am not fond of job transitions, it always works out. I am grateful the path led me to an incredible opportunity where I will enjoy growing and contributing in areas very closely aligned with my technical communications ability. I am grateful that I had two offers at one time and in a small way, the universe allowed me to evaluate and confirm “Yes, position A is the perfect fit”. When presented with multiple choices, we are able to confirm that a selection is not arbitrary or just good enough. And that’s what makes me thrive – trusting there is a perfect fit – and it certainly happened this time.

Best,

David Tumbarello

Today listening to Forest Birdsong 2.

David Tumbarello is a technical communicator with over 50 years in the growth industry, with 49 of those years communicative and on two feet. When he is not technically communicating, he enjoys hiking, biking, and writing. Feel free to connect with David on LinkedIn.

On Choosing and Celebrating Light

Tags

celebration, choices, light

Some days, light chooses us. On other days, our choices lead to light.

It was one of those Friday mornings when I would have rather rolled over than rolled out. After a cold, wet autumn day when it seemed to have rained, monsoon like, all day and night long, the birds in the backyard woods were silent as summer sheep grazing on a meadow. From the corner of a half-opened eye, I could tell, even amid the pre-dawn darkness, that the cloud cover was still heavy outside.

And yet, reluctantly, I did roll out, for the morning hour called to meditation and the routine of school and work. But I was determined to get that haircut before I got to work today. And so, I made a seemingly innocuous choice of stopping at the neighborhood “Barber Shop” instead of the national chain I usually stop at to get sheared every other month or so.

At first, I thought I had made the wrong choice. The lady hair-dresser was already busy, and the other employee, who looked seemed engrossed with a tablet-like device. My choice was validated though, as soon as he put away his ‘device’ and greeted me with a smile as broad as the the sunshine still hiding beyond the clouds outside. Over the next twenty minutes, my propensity towards asking questions led to me finding out that his daughter just got an internship at NASA, that he had just moved into the neighborhood with his family, that he was studying to be a nurse, and that he would have loved to be an aerospace engineer!

My seemingly innocuous choice to try something different had led to the brightening of the morning. It was like the day had been turned inside out, and I was now fully awake to the possibilities of the rest of this still rainy day. Except that it did not feel cold, dank and dreary any more. I had walked into the company of one of those people who radiate so much light just by being who they are – open-hearted fountains living life to make other people’s life brighter. They are like the cool side of the pillow that is within your reach – you just have to choose to flip it over.

So, what does all this have to spirituality? Thank you for wondering, for asking. I propose that it isn’t always our BIG choices that lead us to light. Sometimes, if not often, it is our choice to make different small, everyday choices that create light for us. Serendipity that brings unexpected joy and restores our faith in the goodness of human beings and the human spirit, is often a product of small, simple choices.

Even if that choice is to walk into the local barber shop that you have been driving by for months and let an ex-football-player who still holds the dream of building a kit airplane some day after he has put his four kids through college.

Who knows? You may get the best haircut you have had for a while. And, your heart will be so full of light that you can’t help but share it with all who ask – what’s with YOU today?!

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just excited to celebrate all those who make (new) choices to create light. Or maybe I’m just excited to celebrate the annual Indian ‘festival of lights’ (Diwali) this week. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a great celebration of light, of the victory of truth and goodness.

Join me. Choose light. Celebrate.

Kumud @AjmaniK

Choosing and Celebrating Light…

Join us in our weekly chat on twitter, Sunday Nov 4th at 9amEDT / 730pm India in #SpiritChat ~ we will celebrate our choices of light. Note that the chat may be an hour later than usual in your time-zone as we switch back to “standard time” (choosing morning light!) in my region. Namaste – Kumud

Life’s Facets and Challenges

Tags

challenges, choices, practice

The final event for this year for our small (yet growing) group of folks (Vedanta Center of Cleveland) was a Thursday evening conversation titled “Facing Life’s Challenges” by Swami Sarvadevananda of Southern California. His message about ‘challenges’ was conveyed with remarkable directness, humor, strength of spirit and practical advice that I share with you below.

1. Acceptance. We are best served by accepting the challenge head on – whatever we may perceive it to be. Acceptance empowers us to use our energy to deal with the challenge instead of wasting energy in fighting its existence. Once we accept that challenges are inevitable, and that they are signs that we are alive, we can put our best energies forward in facing them. This is the first facet.

2. Identification. Is the challenge at a physical level, a mental level, or at both levels? Yes, there are challenges that come our way beyond the physical and mental, but let us talk about these two levels for now. If it is a purely physical challenge, say injury or disease, are we making it worse by adding inordinate suffering to pain? We often transfer the pain of a physical challenge to the mental level, and recovery takes much longer than necessary. This is the second facet.

3. Perspective. When faced with a new challenge, our tendency is to believe that this temporary challenge is somehow permanent. We tend to forget all the previous, more daunting challenges that we may have overcome. We may even compound or exaggeratedly ‘advertise’ our adversity in order to perhaps attract immediate sympathy. How does such an attitude – a loss of perspective or a distorted view of the challenge – really help us face the challenge? So, we need to ‘keep our head about us’ and keep our perspective. This is the third facet.

4. Blame and Change. We often find great solace in assigning blame – our friends, our family, neighbors, co-workers, politicians, religious leaders… the list is long. Somehow, our challenge is ‘their’ fault. If only That person would change Their behavior or actions or thoughts, we would not be facing this challenge. How often it is that we are quick to forget from our heart all the good things they may have done for us or said about us! And how often it is that we hold for inordinately long periods of time in our heart the smallest of slights or perceived insults? What if we were to reduce blame and change our own selves? This is the fourth facet.

5. Service. Is our current challenge really that big? How does it compare with the challenges of others in the world around us? How about we take the focus off of our (often petty) challenges and use that very same energy to serve those who are much worse off than ourselves? This is one of the easiest ways to forget about our own pain – serve those less fortunate than us. This is the fifth facet.

6. Faith. We accept, do our best, with a good attitude and perspective, stop blaming, change ourselves, serve others – and yet, the challenge remains. Now what? We may need to humble ourselves to the fact that there are some challenges beyond our physical, mental (and other) capabilities. We may need to ask for help to deal with the challenge. We may need to surrender our excessive reliance on the I. This is the sixth facet.

I share the above facets with you in the hope that one or more of them will come in handy as you face your next challenge. As we polish each facet, the inner diamond becomes more luminous, more radiant. And the next big challenge will be met by us with a brilliant sparkle!

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us in #SpiritChat on twitter – Sunday, October 29th at 9amET/1pmUTC. Share some facets of your challenges, and your tools and techniques in dealing with them. Thank you!

Chat Summary: https://storify.com/ajmanik/life-s-facets-and-challenges

I AM Choosing Love – A Life Changing Choice by @Joan_Kappes

Tags

choices, choosing love, spiritchat, spirituality

I invite you to join our weekly #SpiritChat conversation on Sunday, February 19th 2017 at 9amET/2pmUTC with a special guest, Joan Kappes. Joan will share with us as co-host, and I am excited to be hosting her in our live weekly hour on twitter. Please join in and share your thoughts in a unique discussion in #SpiritChat to celebrate ‘heart month’ with the founder of #IAmChoosingLove. Do read and enjoy Joan’s post below on ‘making a life-changing choice’. Thank You! – Kumud (@AjmaniK)

I AM Choosing Love – A Life Changing Choice

These times invite us to ‘be’ different. They invite us to look inward to hear the still, small Voice that calls us to ‘be’ Love and choose Love. We may feel the invitation, yet how do we make it ‘real’ in our day to day living?

As a jumping off place, let’s play with four commonly used sentences.  Spend a moment ‘feeling’ the energy contained within each:

• I want Love
• I desire Love
• I intend Love
• I choose Love

Notice the distinctions?  Each energy offers the potential for expansion and growth.

Today, let’s focus upon the most energetically powerful word of the four, choose/choosing; it has much to offer us as we navigate these topsy turvy days.

choose; choosing – Verb

1. to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference:

2. to prefer or decide (to do something)

Per the above definition, choosing is a verb, an action word.  It is intentional.  The individual is aware of their choice. 

‘Choosing’, then is the most valuable, proactive tool we possess for answering the invitation to ‘be’ Love.  Via our free choice, we call into being the channel through which Love can flow. 

Enter “I AM Choosing Love.” The four most powerful action words I know.  Simply, yet profoundly, #IAMChoosingLove is an invitation, a life altering awareness, choice (and habit) that no matter the situation, we always have a choice to Love. 

Pragmatically, how do we choose Love?  The answers lie in the following intentional steps: 

Step 1:  Discover the reality that you always have a choice to Love. How? Become familiar with the phrase, ‘I AM Choosing Love’. Plaster it everywhere-on sticky notes, reminders on your phone, your mirrors, your fridge, in your car – everywhere you go. Become so familiar with #IAMChoosingLove that it repeats in your mind over and over, just like a song that gets ‘stuck’ in your head.  Allow it to flow from your heart, into your mind.  In a very short amount of time you will begin noticing countless opportunities for choosing Love!

Step 2:  Focus:  Focus is a required tool, essential for choosing and living a life of Love.

Step 2 contains two steps:

• Notice the thoughts you are thinking and focused upon regarding the topic or situation at hand, then decide if those thoughts feel either ‘loving’ or ‘fearful’.
• Actively choose either the love-filled thought or the best thought you can find that feels in the direction of a loving thought.

 Step 3: Use and choose: Use the words (silently and aloud) ‘I AM Choosing Love’ then choose the loving thought or action

Examples:

• ‘I AM Choosing Love right now’
• ‘I have a choice in this situation and I AM Choosing Love’
• ‘This person is driving me crazy right now, and I have a choice as to how I perceive them. In this moment, ‘I AM Choosing Love’ instead of (fear, anger, self-righteousness, judgement, etc.)
• ‘I am not feeling very good about myself right now. I could have done this and I should have done that, but instead I AM Choosing Love.  I AM Choosing to Love Me.

The power of #IAMChoosingLove lies in intention and practice.  You are internalizing and creating a transformational habit, so frequency is essential.

These times invite us to look inward to hear the still, small Voice that calls us to ‘be’ Love and choose Love. We can want, desire and intend Love, but the ‘real deal’, the real fun, the real expansion for you and for all of us is to choose Love!  We possess the freedom to choose, so let us choose Love.

– Joan Kappes (@Joan_Kappes on twitter)

__________________________________________________________

About Joan

Joan Kappes is a lover of life and adventure, living each day with joy and intention.  Joan is a certified Life Coach specializing in uncovering limiting beliefs.  She is also a retreat designer and creator of the interactive coaching site, “Come to the Edge Today!” and the online project, #IAMChoosingLove.  Joan is committed to helping people rediscover and reclaim who they really are so they can live their natural life of joy.  Her motto: ‘The destination is great, but it’s the journey we came for…it’s the joy-filled journey that IS life!’  http://cometotheedgetoday.com

Additional links for choosing Love:

#IAMChoosingLove  – The Birth of a Movement       

#IAMChoosingLove — Pt 1: ‘How’ to Choose Love…Every Day 

#IAMChoosingLove —Pt 2: Stories of Transformation      

The Ultimate Gift – The Ultimate Freedom 

 

 

 

 

 

On Choices and Gratitude

Tags

choices, gratitude, spiritchat, thankfulness

Novemeber is the month when the focus of many in the USA shifts to giving and gratitude. It is perhaps brought on by the anticipation of the Thanksgiving season and the holidays that follow in the month of December. In order to honor giving (of thanks) and (the attitude of) gratitude, our four Sunday conversations in November will focus on four aspects of gratitude – the choices, the preparation, the expression, and the giving.

We begin with choices, and choosing gratitude. As I see it, our ability to choose is a wonderful freedom which we may often take for granted. In fact, the extent of how much inner freedom we experience may be directly correlated to the choices that we truly have. Beyond the number of choices, the quality of the choices that we are afforded is also important to our well-being. In order to dig a bit deeper, I came up with the following four classifications for our choices. I posit that true gratitude results from an optimal combination of one attribute from each class.

Class 1. The time-frame that the choice affects. It may be short (immediate), medium, or long. Of course, these are all ‘relative’ in nature – a ‘short’ time for us humans is an entire lifetime for a butterfly. But, sticking to humanity, the weight and consideration that we give to short-term choices is often much less than we give to our long-term ones. What we choose to eat for dinner is often an easy choice as compared to where we are going for vacation or what we choose as a career. Short. Medium. Long.

Class 2. The space-frame that the choice influences. These may be personal, local, or global. I could choose to sleep the extra fifteen minutes and lose my ‘window’ for morning meditation. The effect of that choice is mostly personal. Although, if said choice influences my attitude negatively, it could affect the locals around me. An example of a choice that (in)directly affects the local community, town or city around me is my decision at the voting booth. I would at least like to believe that it does. Examples of global influences of my choices would be ‘paper or plastic’, ‘GMO or non-GMO’, ‘gasoline or electric’ and so on. And then, of course, to weave the spaces all together is the ‘butterfly effect’. Not so cut and dry, is it?

Class 3. The domain that the choice impacts. Mind, Body or Spirit. What we choose to input into our mind (through our senses) is a qualified choice that we make in every moment. As I write this post, there are a lot of external inputs competing for my mindspace. I am choosing to actively filter out a lot of the inessential ones. I hope I am choosing well for the sake of some degree of coherence. The body and its well-being is largely dependent on the quality of our food and air and water choices. And what about our spirit? How do we make choices that will be helpful and healthful for the heart and spirit? We may have to make choices that address the health and healing of our mind and body. Then, within a sound, healthy mind and body, gratitude will flourish, and our spiritual choices will be most impactful to us and those around us.

Class 4. Our choices affect our attitudes. According to Sage Patanjali, these are – compassion (towards suffering), joy (in their joy), friendship (to those friendly to us), and indifference (to those of wicked intent). It is when our choices grow these four attitudes in a positive way, that inner gratitude manifests fully. Our peace becomes unshakable and has a permanence about it. In such choosing, we are not anxious or fearful that our choices are going to be negated by those made by others. We have made our choice in the highest awareness possible to us in the current state of our mind, body and spirit.

There are a lot of possibilities for us in our choices, particularly when we view them in the four-class framework presented above. In fact, there are one hundred and eight of them. As we live our lives, and make our conscious, sub-conscious and super-conscious choices, we can use this classification to help guide us. If the classes seem arbitrary or incomplete to you, I invite and welcome you to extend, modify and edit them. Create your own choice framework. Play with it. Evaluate it from time to time.

Above all, I know that our freedom to choose, even if others consider us to be making a mistaken choice, is our greatest freedom (Mahatma Gandhi). And for that, we can be grateful. Isn’t that wonderful?

Kumud @AjmaniK

Join us in our weekly #SpiritChat on twitter – Sunday, November 6th 2016 at 9amET/2pmUTC/7:30pm India. Let us discuss our choice framework with a sense of gratitude. Namaste 🙂 (Note that the USA reverts to ‘Standard Time’ this Sunday, so adjust your clocks if you are in the USA. For other countries, the chat will happen an hour later than usual – unless you are choosing to push back your clocks by an hour too!)

Choosing Love Over Fear by Sharon @AwakeningTrue

Tags

choices, choosing love, fear, love

I am delighted to introduce Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino as my co-host for our Sunday, August 14th 2016 conversation on twitter in #SpiritChat (9amET/1pmUTC). Please join us so we can explore this beautiful topic that Sharon has chosen for us. Do read her thoughts below, and connect with her through her many empowering projects listed in her brief bio below. Thank you! – @AjmaniK

Choosing Love Over Fear

Every minute of every day, we are faced with choices that shape our lives. There are big choices related to our relationships, our beliefs, our work… and smaller choices (or so they seem) about what we will do with our day, with whom we will speak, how we will invest our time and energy. Our days might look very different if we consistently asked this question: “Am I making this choice from a place of love, or a place of fear?” If we began asking this question throughout the day, we might be surprised by how pervasive fear is in our lives.

A beloved relative recently told me, “The world is a scary place.” I smiled and carefully considered my reply. “I think the world is a beautiful place. And as I talk with you, I think about all the people who love you. Nature loves you. Look at those magnificent trees waving their leaves at you, listen to those birds singing for you. It is true that some people live in genuinely scary places, but you live here. Try not to focus on fear.”

We cannot and should not minimize the fears of those who struggle to survive. Very fortunately, for most of us, this is not our experience. The fears that haunt us are more likely to be fear of failure, of disappointment, of loss, or, surprisingly, of our brilliance that we hide from the world. I LOVE this Marianne Williamson quote “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.”

As you make decisions today and this week, will you join me in asking this simple question, “Am I making this choice from a place of love, or a place of fear?”

Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino

Bio: I believe in the strength and inherent wisdom of families and communities when they commit to address the opportunities of gender equality, access to education, and financial empowerment of all. In this context, I continue to be a passionate advocate for the health, safety, empowerment, and education of girls, women & children globally.
I believe in the power of love, compassion and kindness, and know that if each of us commits to live these virtues, commits to be grateful, commits to forgive, we can shape a more compassionate world for all.
You can connect with me via Twitter at @SharonDAgostino, @AwakeningTrue and @SayItForwardNow
Blog: http://awakeningyourtrueself.com/blog/

On Spring and Choices

Tags

choices, spirituality, spring

The sky pours its light into our hearts,

We fill the sky with songs in answer.

We pelt the air with our notes

When the air stirs our wings with its madness.

O Flame of the Forest,

All your flower-torches are ablaze;

You have kissed our songs red with the passion of your youth.

In the spring breeze the mango-blossoms launch their messages to the unknown

And the new leaves dream aloud all day.

Excerpt From: Rabindranath Tagore. “The Cycle of Spring.”

As the march of spring continues unabated in the Northern Hemisphere, I return to the fire that is lit in my heart by the above words of India’s favorite son, Tagore. “The sky pours its light into our hearts” – this opening salvo, in and of itself, is enough to describe the pre-dawn light felt by many a backyard bird as their fast asleep eyes sense the onset of sunrise and come awake to “fill the sky with songs in answer”. What a simple yet beautiful exchange this is, do you think not? The choice made by the birds to fill the sky with song in gratitude…

We, of purportedly higher intelligence than birds, may wonder about, even analyze, the nature of this choice, and whether it is a conscious, informed choice by the birds or simply an involuntary response based on millenia of inner conditioning. But does it really matter whether the choice is informed or not? When the birds “pelt the air with their notes”, do we who hear those notes that fall from the sky upon our ears, not rejoice in their choice? Do the sounds of their symphony not possess the power to raise our spirits and elevate us, literally and figuratively, to face the day with joy and vigor?

Do we not make the choice to arise and awake, like the birds do, when the “air stirs our wings with its madness”? There is no amount of early morning caffeine that can create that kind of choice within our heart, is there? The stirring of our wings with a hint of madness sets our energy flowing, so that we can feel human and alive in our creative expression taking flight in the form of art, literature, science, and much more. And as we arise in our potential, and get a bird’s eye view of the world below, soaring over the forest of humanity, we may get a vision of a new and unheralded persepective of the once familiar forest…

In our choice to soar, our new perspective may show us that “all her flower-torches are ablaze…” – not one or two or a few, but all the flower-torches – does nature choose to discriminate between the blooming of one flower over another? Are there too many flowers that can bloom at a given time, on a given morning? Do all the flowers not rejoice in their choice of “…kissing the spring’s songs red with passion…”? If they all do indeed rejoice with equal fervor, then why not we humans make the choice that spring invites us to make… let us pelt the air with our notes, let the air stir our wings, set our heart torches ablaze, and unleash the passion of our youth yet again…

There is time enough yet remaining, for us to make the choices that will “in the spring breeze launch our messages to the unknown”. There is time enough, for us to choose to live this day anew, with the same renewal that is experienced by a new leaf budding on the branch of spring, “to dream aloud all day” to the symphony of the light that fills the sky, the very same sky that is full of new songs carried on the wind, the wind that is stirred so that we may learn to fly, the creative torches that are sparked ablaze by the wind carrying the fragrance of our dreams created with the kisses of mango-blossoms…

Arise. Choose to dream yourself awake. That is the invitation of spring. Will you accept?

Kumud

P.S. Written for the #SpiritChat weekly community chat, Sunday March 13th 2016. Join us on twitter at 9amET (daylight savings in the USA begins March 13th – we set our clocks one hour ahead – the chat will occur one hour earlier than usual in your time zone if you are not in the USA).