On Sustainable Living

Tags

compassion, discipline, ethics, giving, sacrifice, self control, sustainability

Sustainability. It was the central theme of the annual Aerospace conference called SciTech that happened this week. I attended virtually, along with thousands of other professionals, academics, students, policy makers and more. Five days of new ideas and conversations about how to create sustainable solutions for earthly aviation and beyond-earth exploration.

New technologies, new vehicles, new fuels, new investments. These were all proposed, to meet the challenges that climate change presents to the (aerospace) world. It did not take long for me to ask the question – what sustains, what creates sustainability for the humans creating the sustainable solutions?

I had to wait till Friday evening for the answers to emerge. As is often my wont, I return to the library upstairs, pick a book from the ‘spiritual’ section, and open it to a random page. I landed in the middle of a chapter titled ‘Ethics’, and the author was speaking to the three core virtues of a life of value.

Self-control (or dama) is the first virtue that sustains us. It is when we offer resistance to our desires that we develop strength, discipline and resilience. Each act of resistance adds another layer of sustainability to our spirit. Solitude and silence are two practices to develop self-control. “Progress in silence is progress to realization by connecting us to the creative power of the divine.”

Self-sacrifice by letting go (or daana) is the second virtue that sustains us. Letting go is the practice of giving or providing assistance to those in need, and also freedom from greed. What is the sustainable way of letting go? “Give with faith, do not give without faith, give liberally, with modesty, with sympathy.”

Compassion (or dayaa) is the third virtue of sustainable living. Compassion is the practice of being at peace, of forgiveness, of avoiding ill-will and cruelty. “It is through compassion that we can overcome selfishness and develop patience and forbearance.” If we can tune into the extent of suffering in the world, we can remember to live a compassion-first lifestyle.

Self-control, self-sacrifice through letting go, and compassion — three sustainability keys given to me — and I share them with you. Sustainable and simple habits are easier to integrate into our lifestyle, aren’t they? With sustained practice, we can transform our heart to a kinder, gentler, lighter, quieter, and healthier version of itself. With a transformed heart, we can discover a well-spring of love to create a brighter world for our life here on earth and beyond.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat, Sunday January 9 at 9amET / 730pm India in #SpiritChat. We will gather and talk about sustainability on our journey ahead. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Ref for the ‘three keys’: ‘Ethics – An Idealist View of Life,’ by S. Radhakrishnan, The Hibbert Lectures, 1929.

Harmony with the elements… a key to sustainability

SpiritChat – On Slowing Down (Again)

Tags

discipline, freedom, oneness, prosperity, unity

As the month of July comes to a close and I look over the discussions over the past four Sundays, we seem to have covered a wide range of topics – freedom, prosperity, self-discipline and oneness (unity). For those of you who have been with the #SpiritChat community for more than a month, you know that the final Sunday of the month is when we “slow down” a bit. We “slow down” to review the month gone by, and try to tie together the threads of conversations from our weekly Sunday chats. We “slow down” to reflect, and plan our actions for the new month coming ahead.

So, this final Sunday of July will be not be much different. We will “slow down” to reflect on July, plan for August. We will reflect on the connections between freedom and prosperity. We will talk about the role of self-discipline in creating prosperity. We may also talk about freedom and the spirit of Oneness and unity. Above all, we will gather for an hour and say hello, listen to each other’s heart and spirit, build on our friendships and relationships.

For that is what #SpiritChat is all about. The camaraderie. The Alohas. The Mahalos. The Namastes. The Smiles. The “hello, how was your week”. The “it’s great to see you”. The “oh, it’s so wonderful to hear that”. The “enjoy your Sunday”. The “have a great week ahead”. It is about the knowing that there are real people, from across the world, with diverse social and ethnic backgrounds, different beliefs and religions – who can gather in a space and have a meaningful conversation about any spiritual topic.

It is the spirit of connection, with heart and spirit.

Perhaps that is why, as we complete our first year and I look back to July 31st 2011, the date of the first weekly #SpiritChat – it is perhaps appropriate that the topic was – “On Slowing Down”. I want to take the opportunity and express my gratitude to every single person who has slowed down to support #SpiritChat over the past year – you all know who you are. I hope that you have made some new friends and grown in spirit with all of us. I know for sure that I have gained tremendously in many areas of my life – so, I thank you all.

Join us in our weekly twitter chat (with hashtag #SpiritChat) at our regular hour of 9am ET on Sunday July 29th and share your thoughts about July, and plans for August. I invite you to come and “slow down” with us. Namahalo!

Kumud

Self-Discipline and the Spirit

Tags

discipline, spirit, spiritchat

The subject of discipline is perhaps not a very popular one among adults (and perhaps even children for that matter) because one of the definitions of discipline is

the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience (noun)

In addition, discipline may invoke a feeling of being under someone else’s control and being subject to rules and conditioning by authority figures like parents, teachers or our bosses in the work environment. As a parent, I am often conflicted about how much and when to impose discipline, as there seems to be all kind of contradictory advice on what is best for a growing child.

However, we can reframe the connotation of discipline. Once we add the single word, “self” in front of the word “discipline”, we perhaps view it differently, for it becomes “self-discipline”. It is perhaps a sign of a state of maturity in our lives that we enter the domain of self-discipline. One definition of self-discipline is

the ability to control one’s feelings and overcome one’s weaknesses; the ability to pursue what one thinks is right despite temptations to abandon it.

Indeed, self-discipline seems much more appealing, because it gives control back to us, and a sense of empowerment and choice. We are now in charge of our own growth and responsible for our own success and failure in all areas of our lives. As we move from childhood to our teenage years, go through our rebellious phase (against discipline imposed on us by others), we eventually move into a phase of life where we come face to face with self-discipline. Our emotional, financial, physical and spiritual health – all of them, to a great degree, are affected by self-discipline.

“Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It require you to connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s results. There’s a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” – Gary Ryan Blair

We may have very good self-discipline in some areas of our lives as compared to other areas – which area of your life do you have the best self-discipline in? Which area is your greatest challenge? What character qualities are pre-requisites for self-discipline? What external or internal factors affect or disturb our self-discipline? How does self-discipline affect our spiritual practice(s) and spiritual growth?

I invite you to come and share your thoughts on self-discipline with the #SpiritChat community. We will have a live tweetchat discussion on twitter on Sunday July 15th at 9am EDT / 2pm UK / 6:30pm IST. You can “join” the open chat by tweeting with hashtag #SpiritChat or join us via the web.

Kumud

P.S. I invite you to also connect with us on our new Facebook page for more discussion during the week. In addition, feel free to share your thoughts on self-discipline in the comment area below. I always learn a lot from your feedback – thank you!

Update: Here are the questions that were asked during the live chat on Sunday July 15th from 9-10am ET. SpiritChat Transcript on Discipline (in html format) and condensed, downloadable pdf version  (note that all time-stamps in transcripts are ET +4 i.e. GMT) – Enjoy!

Q1. What is your first reaction to the word discipline? Positive? Negative? Neutral? #SpiritChat 

Q2. Why is self-discipline important? How do we develop it? #SpiritChat 

Q3. What factors hinder our practice of self-discipline? How do we overcome them? #SpiritChat 

Q4. For you, what is the most challenging area of self-discipline - mind, body or spirit? Why? #SpiritChat

Q5. What is the connection between temptation, restraint and self-discipline? #SpiritChat 

Q6. How does self-discipline influence our spiritual growth? #SpiritChat 

Q7. Who is a role model of spiritual self-discipline for you? Why? #SpiritChat 

Final. Q8. What area of self-discipline will you focus on most this week? How? #SpiritChat