On Life and Simplicity

Tags

acceptance, friendliness, joy, kindness, simplicity

As I sit here on the first morning of the New Year, watching and hearing a new flock of geese landing in the lake to rest for the day, I cannot help but marvel at the simplicity of it all. My awareness of the simple things has been heightened over the final two weeks of December in various ways.

The first of the two weeks led me to vacation with the family in the Caribbean among sunrises, ocean tides, sandcastles, the full moon and much more. There were many hours of one on one time with family members, family conversations over dinner, and simply sitting around in each others energies while doing nothing.

I had the opportunity to experience some deeper-than-usual meditations, read some books, learn bits of Spanish, and immerse in the peace of the locals. And yes, there were the extraordinary long walks on the beach, some moments of which I shared through photos with all of you.

I did not bring back a single souvenir other than the sense of how deeply we are connected to the elements — a connection that often tends to gets lost in rush and noise of our daily lives. It is difficult to describe what happens within you when you watch the sunrises over the sea for seven straight mornings while the ocean roars at your feet, as you walk the beach watching the seagulls and pelicans gliding over the water, and the glistening of the reflections cast by the sun and the full moon.

Words cannot do simplicity justice for they can only attempt to describe the mind’s construct of thoughts and rarely capture the imprints on the heart. Perhaps there is a better way to preserve and grow such beautiful and rare moments of connection with nature, even when we are not in its presence on the beaches of the world?

This was the question that I asked myself in the final week of the year when time seemed to be passing in ultra-slow-motion. One answer that emerged was from the Yoga Sutras of  Patanjali, which describes four practices that can help to simplify our life by purifying our mind and heart.

Be kind to those suffering – practice Karuna or kindness.

Be joyful in the joy of others – practice Mudita  or joyfulness.

Be friendly to those who are friendly towards you – practice Maitri  or friendliness.

Be accepting towards those with malicious intent – practice Upeksha or acceptance.

These four simple practices can become the guideposts for our life’s journey. And yet, so often, we run into challenges with one or more of them on a daily basis, don’t we? Can you relate to any of these practices that are a challenge for you?

The invitation of simplicity is simple, but the acceptance and practice of it is often made complex by our mind-thought-word-action system of living. We know that simplicity can be as simple as giving free reign to the heart, and yet we often walk away from it as we stay entangled with the mind and its complexities.

Perhaps the advent of the New Year can help bring us closer to simplicity, as we accept its invitation, one day at a time. Maybe we can say yes to four simple practices – to kindness, to joyfulness, to friendliness, and to acceptance.

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly gathering with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday January 2 2022 at 9amET / 730pm India. We will consider the invitation of simplicity as we step into the New Year. Namaste – @AjmaniK

A flower’s simplicity… in December

An Attitude of Friendliness

Tags

friendliness, friendship, maitri, relationship, spirituality

Some would have been first seeded forty years ago next July. Others would have been planted thirty five years ago this fall. They have become strong, healthy, long-term trees that have endured the winds of time and stood the droughts of distance across continents. And then, there was the ‘online world’ of twitter, where a totally different garden of friendships was seeded over the past ten years.

Some years, it seemed like I would talk with my twitter friends much more regularly – at least weekly during our hourly Sunday morning chats – than I would with my ‘real-life’ friends. Somewhere along the way, I dropped the distinction between ‘online’ and ‘real-life’, because all the friendships had a human quality about them. If the heart is engaged, then the medium is simply a conduit. If there is no heart-engagement, then no medium is going to help develop a friendship, is it?

So, where does it all begin?

It is when we exclaim ‘you too!’ that the friendship seed can find common ground. You lived in that part of Delhi? You’ve been to Kashmir too? You are also a middle child? You had a tough time with thermodynamics in engineering school too? Oh, you’re looking for a roommate too in this small college town, seven thousand miles away from home?

That’s the ‘birds of a feather’ metaphor of the beginnings of friendships.

There is also the ‘opposites attract’ metaphor.

This happens when two people are brought together in time and space, and they are so totally different that their natural curiosity leads them to take baby steps towards each other. A half-dozen or so American friendships in graduate school began this way for me. They taught me about baseball, white-water rafting, late-night pizza, football, thanksgiving, living and thriving in small-town America.

More importantly, the gentle inquiries of my American friends about Indian society, religion and customs also encouraged me to delve deeper into my own culture. In trying to answer their questions, I begin to realize how little I knew about my own country and myself. Their questions got me started on the path to asking questions – my journey into inquiry was prompted by them. 

What makes for a life-impacting friendship? Does the impact depend on the stage in our life that the friendship begins? Is it the ‘birds of a feather’ or the ‘opposites attract’ type that is more impactful?  How many friendships can we meaningfully sustain? What makes a friendship sustainable in the long run? Let me try and answer that last question on sustainability. 

Some shared experiences, some commonality of life experience, some diversity of cultural background, some openness of heart  towards forgiveness. These are some basic ingredients for sustaining healthy, long-term friendships. Is there an indispensable  ingredient for sustainability? To quote the Yoga sage Patanjali, an attitude of friendliness towards those who are friendly towards us, also called maitri, is vital. In other words, our attitude of Maitri is the essential sun, the seed, the soil, the wind and the water of all friendship.

As we grow our attitude of friendliness, we grow our heart through joyous experiences of deep friendships. Eventually, we see no stranger because we become aware of our sustainable friendship with the One who is the friend to all. 

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly conversation with the #SpiritChat community this Sunday, July 18 at 9amET / 630pm India on twitter. We will kickoff an informal “Friendship week” and invite you to (re)connect with a friend or few, either online or offline, or within. Help us spread the attitude of friendliness. In maitri, Namaste – @AjmaniK

An attitude of friendliness makes space in the heart for the friendly…