• About #SpiritChat
  • abundance
  • balance
  • choices

The #SpiritChat Community

~ Transforming the spirit with conversations in social media

The #SpiritChat Community

Tag Archives: dignity

On Life and Dignity

24 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by AjmaniK in energy, identity, life and living, practice

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

compassion, dignity, justice, kindness, purity, simplicity, spring, walking

What is dignity, and why is it important to us as human beings and our human experience? Rather than try to define dignity in physical terms, I feel it easier for me to define its experience. One such experience was the soft spoken-ness of my grandmother, which was inherited by her children, and perhaps by me to some extent. By lowering their voices and weighing their words, particularly in times of great stress, all my elders showed me that dignity can flow from speaking softly, kindly and with deliberation.

Why may we need dignity in speech? Perhaps because it isn’t even possible to have dignity in our actions if our speech is corrupted by indignities of the mind.

How may one develop dignity of thought? One way is to purify the heart, whence the mind’s layers of dirt get flushed with silence, beauty and awareness of the truth that we are.

Yes. We are back to the work of the heart’s purity. One way to purity is to work with an attitude of loving service, as we remind ourselves, and those we may be privileged to serve, of our shared human dignity. Every verdict that “bends the long arc of the moral universe a bit more toward justice”, every invitation by someone to break bread with them, every softly spoken word whispered to us in the hour of our awareness, seeds dignity within us.

It is with these new seeds of dignity that we find the courage to rise yet again, and continue our walk towards that permanent love and grace which is available to all. Our walk need not be complete or complex. In fact the simpler the better, the more dignified it usually is.

This reminds me. It’s time for a cup of tea. One join me. Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join in our weekly chat on Twitter, Sunday April 25 at 9amET / 630pm India as we share some tea, fruit, flowers and cookies. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The simplicity, purity and dignity of Spring

Dignity and the ‘Can Do’ Spirit

15 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by AjmaniK in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

dignity, healing, olympics, perseverance, spirituality

At first, I thought I had stumbled on to the documentary by ‘accident’. I was drawn to the title because it had the words ‘legacy’ and ‘can do’ in the title. How could I resist?! 🙂

A half hour later, my perspective on a lot of things – victory, defeat, dignity, pain, healing, conventional ‘wisdom’, overcoming, love, friendship – I can go on and on, had changed for good. But let me not get ahead of myself. Let me take you back to 1964, and the Winter Olympics of Innsbruck, Austria.

Until that Olympics, the US Ski team had never won any kind of medal in Alpine skiing. Some were hard pressed to say that the ‘team’ was even a team at all. In the years and competitions leading up to those Olympics, a few young athletes, including Jimmy Heuga and Billy Kid, decided to ignore history and train the hardest they possibly could. Jimmy, at 15, was the youngest member ever to be included on the US ski team, and perhaps the shortest of them all. But he had a spark, a will, a desire to work hard, that caught the eye of his coaches – and they persisted with him on the team.

What happened in 1964, almost fifty years ago to the day, on February 9th, is history. Jimmy Heuga won Olympic bronze, and his soon to become lifelong friend, Billy Kidd, won Olympic silver in the slalom. But I don’t tell you this story to talk about their victories… It was what happened a few years later, to Jimmy Heuga, that this story, his story, is really about. At the age of 27, Jimmy was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis – a condition of the nervous system which disrupts the signals that travel from the brain to different parts of our body.

Jimmy heuga cando

And so it began. All the life principles that Jimmy had applied to the Outer Olympics, came to the fore in his Inner Olympics. An Olympics that lasted over forty years for Jimmy Heuga. An Inner Olympics in which mind, heart and spirit overcame conventional medical wisdom. His courage inspired his former teammates and ‘competitors’ to join him in his journey, to convince the medical community that they were wrong about how they were treating his ‘disease’.

For most people, being an Olympian, being an Olympic medalist, being the best skier in the world, even for a day, would be enough. But not for Jimmie. Jimmie went beyond the sport. – Billy Kidd

In the final analysis, his greatest contribution to the world, beyond what he achieved in the 1964 Olympics, was that he restored dignity and a “can do” attitude to those facing their own challenges. And that is something we can all learn from, as we engage in our own Inner Olympics. His legacy carries on, in the form of the “Can Do MS” foundation and the Jimmy Heuga Center Endowment.

Drawing inspiration from this story, I invite you to join me and the #SpiritChat community in a twitter conversation on February 16th 2014 at 9amET. I also invite you to share your favorite “Can Do” stories in the comments below, or in our Facebook group. Namaste!

Resources:

  • Jimmy Heuga on Wikipedia
  • Jimmy Heuga – an Eulogy by Billy Kidd

Here are the questions asked during the live chat. The answers are compiled in the storify summary. A full, complete transcript is also available at the hashtracking site (1517 tweets, 231 contributors, 21.5M timeline deliveries, 1.2M reach). Enjoy!

Ready? Q1. Let us reflect on the "Can Do" spirit. What sound(s)/image(s) does that evoke for you? #spiritchat

On to Q2. Think of a life event that eroded your "Can Do" spirit. How did you recover? Did you? #SpiritChat

Q3. For our Inner Olympics, what practice(s) can help us strengthen our "Can Do" spirit? #SpiritChat

Q4. Focusing on Dignity. What is the role of personal #dignity in our Inner growth? #SpiritChat

Q5. How can our "Can Do" spirit "heal" others, restore their dignity? Or can it?  #SpiritChat

Q6. “Dignity doesn't consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” - Agree or disagree? Why? #SpiritChat

Q7. What is the connection between inner humility and dignity? Or is there one? #SpiritChat

Q8. To those who have a "Can Do" attitude, yet seem to be 'struggling,  you would say.... #SpiritChat

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow The #SpiritChat Community on WordPress.com

Delivery by Feedburner

Subscribe to The #SpiritChat Community by Email

Search Spiritchat

Twitter

My Tweets

Spiritchat on FB

Spiritchat on FB

Archives

Monthly Archives

Categories

  • education
  • energy
  • Guest Hosts
  • identity
  • life and living
  • meditation
  • nature
  • practice
  • Spiriflections
  • Uncategorized
  • yoga

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The #SpiritChat Community
    • Join 233 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The #SpiritChat Community
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy