Our Spiritual Quest

Tags

awareness, december, journey, light, spirituality, winter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kumud

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

Nature’s gifts… for December’s quests…

On Purity and Joy

Tags

december, happiness, joy, purity

The theme and the idea of Joy seems to pervade our consciousness as the Holiday season comes upon us. There is something about the month of December that brings about a subtle transformation, a renewed focus on Joy. In their wonderful book, “The Book of Joy”, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama focus on this subject in their week long conversations with each other. How do we sustainably create Joy for ourselves in troubled and challenging times – this is a question that occupies the heart and mind of these two luminaries…

We often hear the adage – ‘do whatever makes you happy’. At face value, this indeed seems like a reasonably simple attitude with which to live our lives. The implication seems to be that if we are happy within, then we have a good chance at creating happiness for others. The corollary is that the converse is also true. Unhappy people tend to make others around them unhappy.

There is a certain purity in the internal energy of happy people. This purity comes about because they have made a continuous effort to attain, maintain and remain connected to a reservoir of elevated, pure energy – no matter what.
For them, Joy is not merely a December thing. It cannot be. If it were, it would be transient, like the weather, and their reaction to it. It’s warm and sunny, they are happy. It’s cold and rainy, they are unhappy. Their drive through order or online order is messed up – they are unhappy. Their team wins – they are happy. The team that they don’t want to win, wins – they are unhappy. Surely, when it changes from moment to moment, it cannot be Joy, can it?

So, how does one attain the purity and permanence of Joy? One way to answer the question is to imagine a state of Joy. Have you ever experienced it? Or observed it in another person? A pianist or violinist in full flight, an opera singer immersed in their song, a painter or sculptor covered from head to toe with paint and plaster, a chef in the midst of conjuring up a new creation… Joy can indeed be that simple.

Joy can be that moment where we are where we truly want to be, doing what we want to be doing, with the people that we want to be doing it with. There is a certain purity about that moment, yes?

What if we were to string together a few moments of pure Joy every day? What would our string of pure Joy look like in a week, a month, a year from now? Maybe we will discover that the choice to experience a more permament Joy has to be made by us alone. May it will be revealed to us that Joy is a personal journey of the heart. Maybe we will rediscover the purity of purpose that we were all born with.

I invite you to experience Joy through purity with the #SpiritChat community – Sunday, December 11th at 9amET/2pmUTC in our weekly twitter chat. Bring your pearls. We will bring the thread. Together we shall string…

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK