Realms of Friendship

Tags

awareness, friendship, nature walk, spirituality, summer

You can hear the frogs but can’t see them, no matter how hard you look.

You can see the baby turtles but can’t hear them for they bask in the sunlight in silence.

You can feel the embrace of the overgrowth that has narrowed the already narrow trail, and has softened the stone laid path with its soft leaves and branches that you now walk on.

You pause to take a breath and you notice the almost perfectly camouflaged ducks taking a late afternoon rest on a fallen tree trunk sprawled halfway across the width of the lagoon.

The lilies have come fully abloom since you last visited the newly built bridge that stands firmly where you once had to venture to cross the channel by lightly dance-stepping over just long enough logs laid down by the park rangers.

A young man walking his beautiful dog who wants to greet you with a friendly sniff, mildly apologizes as he says “he’s friendly”; and you smile back and say, “I can tell, for I have two at home” — and he breaks out into a huge smile as he walks away…

A Dad gives softball batting practice to his daughter with a bucket of plastic balls that are slowly filling up the Diamond behind them.

I exit the lagoon trail, look back, take a final photo for the evening, as I say thanks for being a trusted friend to me all these years in my walks of solitude, long before it was popular for people to be able to walk all around you on the newly built walkways.

I walk across the parkway to the other side, to visit and sit for a short meditation with my other best friend, the river, whose small waterfall is gushing after the recent rains. It seems to say, “welcome back; you should visit more often – the blue heron was here earlier – you just missed it.” Ah, my friendship with the blue heron over the years, who always seems to see me before I arrive, and takes off in their shyness.

There are times when we feel like we could use deeper friendships in our lives. And yet, if we examine all the possible realms of friendship available to us, we already have so many, don’t we? There is nature’s flora realm in its ever-welcoming energy. There is the realm of animals and birds that shares its friendships with us. There are of course humans, some of us who we may have long-term friendships and shared experiences with.

Last but not least, there is the realm of friendship with the divine energy, always open and available to us, if and when we choose to connect with it. In fact, all the other realms of friendship are contained within It, for It wouldn’t be the Infinite realm otherwise, would It?

As I walk back along the river to return home, I pause for a moment, gaze out at the peaceful flow which has given me so much unconditional healing, comfort and joy over the years, a question comes to my heart — Can a friendship with eternity ever grow old?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat, Sunday July 17 at 9amET / 1pmGMT/ 630pm India in #SpiritChat. We will explore realms of friendship, and who knows, maybe you will make a new friend or two… Namaste – @Ajmanik

The crimson-eyed rosemallow (a hibiscus variety) blooms in the wild in Rocky River Reservation…

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…

 

Our Spiritual Foundations

Tags

awareness, foundattion, friendship, joy, truth

Many a great structure can be built upon, if it has been built upon a strong foundation. Conversely, if the foundation is weak, many a great-looking structure can easily crumble when subject to even a small tremor.  One may posit that the long-term health and viability of families, friendships, communities, societies, countries and planets depends on the quality of their foundations.

From a spiritual perspective, the strength of our foundation can be equated to the sum (or product?) of our values, beliefs and practices.

Our foundational values are often formed by those actions which have ‘risen to the top’ of our attention pyramid over time. These are the actions that attract the best investments of our time and energy. We often look forward to opportunities to sharing time and space with those who strengthen our core values. Conversely, we may find ourselves walking or drifting away from those who negatively affect the health of our foundation. This concept forms the foundation of the idea of  sangha or togetherness. Commonality of values infuses joy in our walk together. We learn to find joy in their joy, and they in ours. 

The second basis of a strong foundation is an awareness of truth. Where does this awareness come from? It comes from (spiritual) practice. If I regularly walk a particular path in the forest and I see the same white flowers bloom in the same culvert at the same time every year, my direct experience would plant a seed of truth in me. My practice will have thus informed my awareness, which would in turn have established a foundational truth for me.

The beauty of the blooming flower of awareness is that it need not be unique to me. When someone else has the same direct experience of the flower blooming in the forest, it plants a seed of truth in them too. When their seed of truth grows, it attracts my truth, it becomes stronger, and begins to matter. When two people share an awareness that the truth matters, it becomes the foundation for friendship.  

Our shared values, beliefs and practices can thus create a basis for joy (ananda), and a shared awareness (chitta) of truth (satya). When we walk in truth, awareness and joy, we can have direct experience of the Oneness that is the foundation of the Universe. 

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering, Sunday January 26th at 9amET / 730pm India. We will share on foundations, friendships and the truths discovered on our walks. Namaste – @AjmaniK

On Healing Friendships

Tags

friendship, healing, health, thankfulness

There is much that can change in the friendship landscape for an eighth-grader over the ten week summer break from school. The departure of a few old friends and the arrival of new students tests the resilience of the cliques and leads to a re-examination of the questions: who are my ‘real’ friends? what is the difference between being ‘friendly’ and being a ‘friend’? what makes some so ‘popular’ that everyone wants to be ‘friends’ with them? How did some of my ‘friends’ change so much over the summer?

Yes. School has been in session for less than a week and some of these questions have led to conversations in my home. Over the past few days, it has caused me to pause and ask some questions about the nature of friendship in general, and reflect on my own ‘good’ friends from the past few the decades.

The Indian sage Patanjali (author of the Yoga Sutras) penned an aphorism which offered advice on ‘friendship’. When asked, whom should we consider for friendship, he simply said — “be friendly towards those who are friendly towards you”. Sounds like a simple attitude to practice, right? However, it is often our prejudices, our past hurts and skepticism towards new connections that can stop us from adopting this attitude. My personal experience has been that “being friendly towards the friendly” has seeded many acorns of friendship for me, some of which have grown into big oaks.

The shade and shelter of these oaks has helped me weather many a storm and even healed me of my many of my hurts and sorrows. It is not to say that a vast majority of those ‘friendly acorns’ never grew to become strong, healing oaks. Some fell on hard rocks, some took root but only grew for a season or two, and some did become healthy trees that eventually became disease with neglect, mis-communication and mis-aligned expectations.

Such is the nature of the acorns of friendships, or for that matter, most relationships. If we don’t grow them, or at least maintain them with adequate warmth of the sunshine of caring, the balanced nutrition of sharing our joys and sorrows, they tend to shrivel away. If we aren’t vested enough in the friendship or its growth, we will be unwilling to do the tough work of pruning the deadwood from our minds and pulling the weeds from our hearts.

For me to develop healing friendships that sustain me and my friends, I often have to choose to be a willing vessel that can effect healing. If one of my best friends that is Mother Nature is to heal me, I have to be willing to walk her way with my friendship shoes on. It is when my healing friendship with her is strong, and I am in good health because of her grace, that I can be a good friend to others.

So, I asked myself over the past few days – who are some of my very good friends over the long term? What makes them so? One answer that came to me was that my good friends are those who send a warm current through my heart. Thinking of my healing friendships, even for a fraction of a moment, brings a smile to my face, a sense of playfulness, a flash of joy.

And among them all, there is That One healing friendship which is omnipresent, permanent, and the harbinger of light and lightness. I am grateful for its presence in my heart, and a willing traveler among its path full of oak trees and acorns.

May we heal each other and “walk each other home” in friendship,

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join our friendly, healing community of #SpiritChat for our weekly twitter chat – Sunday, Sep 1 at 9amET. Namaste – @AjmaniK

On Seeding Friendships

Tags

celebration, creativity, energy, friendship, unity

At 5pm on Friday evening, a dozen or so folks gathered online in a multi-dimensional meeting which included sound, video, and much laughter. Lots of laughter. Many ideas were exchanged about how to best use such meetings in the future. But this first meeting was primarily about getting to know each other a bit better through the spoken word, through smiles and favorite quotes and prayers. It was about planting new seeds of friendship and growing the friendships that have formed through #SpiritChat over the years.

The Sanskrit word for ‘friendship’ is maitri. It is also referred to as <a href=”https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettā“>Mettā</a> in the Pali language. How and where does a friendship first come to life? There is usually some common ground necessary for two (or more) people to decide to sit with one another. The sitting can be in silence, a primarily one-way communication (lecture), a two-way conversation, or even a multi-way exchange facilitated by a desire to be in each other’s presence.

When friendship takes on the energy of @maggiemistal, the expression of ‘loving kindness’ (@sageandsavvy), or is simply steeped in love (@AwakeningYourTrueSelf) or is a simple yet heart-felt expression of gratitude (@tomarciamae), it transmits the energy of the heart to all present. When it takes on the expression of ‘watching, waiting, working’ (thank you, @mscator), the gentle sharing by @wonderpix, the energy of @maggiemistal, the creativity of @heiddiz, it breathes new life into the sitting. When it is expressed through the Mettā prayer of @intuitiveheal, the wisdom of @southbaysome and the grace of @garygruber, one knows and feels that they are in a special space and time.

And so, the seeds of friendship are nurtured. One question, one answer, one chat, one conversation, one smile, one kind gesture, one zoom meeting at a time.

It is tough to say what will come next, but for today, the heart feels filled with maitri – the benevolence and radiance of those who shared with all of their heart.

The sage Patanjali said in his yoga sutras (aphorisms) – “be friendly towards those who are friendly towards you.” It sounds simple enough, but it isn’t always easy to do (why is that person being friendly? what do they want from me?) However, it is safe to say that we are largely “friendly to all” in the #SpiritChat community, and we extended on that principle in today’s sitting.

As I sat watching the radiant colors of the sun, the sky and the clouds merge into the lake waters, it reminded me of the ease with which we all converged on the common ground of friendship today. We came a bit closer to the essence of maitri, of Mettā, of meditation.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. What is (or was) the greatest friendship you have experienced? How were its seeds sown? How did its roots develop, its flowers bloom? And those friendships that withered away – what was their life cycle? Share with us, Sunday April 7 at 9amET / 1pm UTC / 630pm India in our weekly #spiritchat on Twitter. Namaste – Kumud

The Heart’s Revival and Revitalization

Tags

family, friendship, healing, heart, revitalization, revival

The Amazing Race

Five airports, four flights, three airlines and two days later, the heart that began its journey on a pre-dawn, cold, rainy morning in NorthEast Ohio reached its destination in a sunny, warm, humid, sleepy hamlet of Kumarakom, south of the city of Kochi, in the southernmost state, Kerala, of India.

It felt like we had been in an episode of “The Amazing Race” over the past forty eight hours of traveling. Except that this was a one-team episode, and so we were the first to arrive at the destination…

The Hole in the Heart

It had been over two years, actually closer to three, that I had been back to India. The passing of my Mom in February 2016, the last of my two sets of parents (birth and sustenance), had created a small hole in my heart that had grown slowly bigger as the weeks turned to months, quarters and then years. After the two year mark, I had begun to wonder, when the road back home would open up to my heart again. The longer I stayed away, the weaker the pull to go back became.

My wife must have felt my fading away. In mid July, the visionary that she is of great intuition, made the decision. It was time to return. In a whirlwind of messages between close family and friends on WhatsApp, a location was found, advance deposits were made, plane tickets were bought, and seven families committed to two separate reunions. The stage was set for the heart.

A Resurgence Story

After having read all the reports of the massive flooding which had happened in August, I had expected Kochi city and her surroundings to show signs of damage everywhere. I was to learn from the local cab drivers that the shiny, gleaming airport terminal we had arrived in had been three feet underwater, and had to be shut down for four weeks. Everywhere we went, whether by auto-rickshaw, car or boat – not a single person complained about what had befallen them. You could see and feel that they were happy that we were visiting and investing in their recovery.

As we took multiple boat trips through the backwaters and on the massive lake, more stories of overcoming and resurgence filtered through. I asked questions of everyone on the lake house that we were staying in – the cleaning lady Asha, the cooking lady Jinu, the manager Aarokya, the boat guides. I asked questions of a mix of Hindus, Muslims and Christians, for Kerala is a state where they all blend together.

All of them would speak of their beautiful families, how much they were grateful for what (little) they had, and of how the floods – and their subsequent recovery from them – had brought them closer as communities.

Family Foundation – Revival Begins

As the long languid days of sitting by the pool unfolded, entranced by the lake as boats of all shapes and sizes slowly slid by like a knife through slightly warmed butter, I felt a warm glow beginning to heal my heart’s hole. The heart started to feel a revival, an increase in functional and emotional capacity. The first reunion, with my brother and sister’s family, laid the foundation for the revival. The feelings of disconnection that had grown with time and distance after my Mother’s passing, were rearranged and reframed like the floating hyacinths that constantly reconfigure themselves on the lake surface.

The heart felt closure, it felt rooted and anchored again. It was a bit like the houseboats that anchor themselves overnight on the lake, and whose solitary lights could be seen like a string of pearls in the distance every night – an entourage of twinkling stars brought down from the heavens onto the waters.

Reunion with Friends – Heart Revival

And as if the revival with the family reunion wasn’t enough, what followed during the reunion with four friends from undergraduate engineering school (and their families) was an even greater closure of the heart’s hole. The five of us have a friendship, a kinship that goes back over thirty years. It has sustained the test of time and space, grown through our weddings, our children’s births, our travels across the world with our businesses and careers.

When you gather the energy of five families, in a five-bedroom lake house, where there is not much else to do but to sit around and swim in the energy of each other, a healing synergy surges through every heart. The five of us are like the five elements, and every time they come together, the limits to our creativity seem to be transcended.

For those of you who have read this far, I am grateful to you for coming along on this journey with me. I share with you with the intent that somewhere in this retelling of my personal revival, you find inspiration to be led to a heart’s revival of your own. I also hope, that when your heart’s hole does close, that you will share a bit of your revival journey with us.

For we shall all be grateful to draw inspiration from the resurgence of your submerged heart, your resilience, your heart’s revival.

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter conversation with the #spiritchat community on twitter – Sunday, January 13th at 9amET / 730pm India. I will step up to host, and I look forward to hearing stories about your heart’s revival. I will bring the tea and the questions… your presence is much looked forward to 🙂 – Kumud

Permalink: https://spiritchat140.wordpress.com/2019/01/12/the-hearts-revival/

On Friendship and Freedom

Tags

freedom, friendship, spirituality

Friendship is a many splendored flower that blooms when hearts connect. Regardless of their origin, their depth or their breadth, friendships have roots in connection. Wherever there is more than one gathered, the potential for friendship exists. Two may create interdependence, codependence or independence, depending on the health of the friendship and the interactions.

From a spiritual perspective, the Indian sage Patanjali (said to be the organizer of Yoga principles), refers to friendship in the precept of maitri. In one of his oft-quoted aphorisms, maitri inculcates the ’attitude of friendliness to increase the level of happiness in our world’. In particular, we can raise our awareness to be friendly towards those who are friendly towards us – reciprocity with a friendly attitude waters the seeds of friendship. The more we develop this attitude within us, the more our heart consciousness grows.

As I look to some of my own personal friendships over the years, some key characteristics seem to emerge among the ones that have sustained the passage of time and space. Mutual respect and an unwritten agreement to ‘live and let live’ is one key. Commonality of values, ethics and principles – even though their implementation may be different – is another key. The ability to speak our heart and mind to each other, particularly when we disagree, is another key. The celebration of each others’ successes, and the sharing of lessons learned from our ‘failures’, is yet another. What are some ‘key’ characterestics of your enduring friendships?

In all of the keys listed above, one common theme seems to be that my friends and I let each other ‘just be’. I am free to be myself among them, whether they be in the physical world or the virtual. A corollary is that the ones whom I do not feel free with, fall off the friendship realm. It does not mean that I abandon my attitude of friendliness towards them (unless they are openly hostile towards me and mean me harm) – it is just that the depth and breadth of the actual friendship changes over time and space. Have you ever had a really ‘good’ friendship unravel quickly? How did that happen and what did you learn from the experience?

As we enter the final week of July, I reflect on some of the friendships that have formed within the #SpiritChat community online. Some of these have ‘graduated’ to wonderful offline friends who value, support and communicate with each other on a regular basis. It should come as no surprise that folks who share their hearts in an open forum on topics of interest to them would form friendships that enhance each others’ freedom. As we approach the end of our fifth year online, I propose that the week between July 24th and July 31st be celebrated as ‘friendship week’ – both online and offline.

Join me. Let us reach out and grow our attitude of friendliness and raise the vibration of happiness in the world.

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join me as I host #SpiritChat on July 24th 2016 at 9amET/1pmUTC on twitter – ‘Friendship and Freedom’. Next week, July 31st – Celebration! Thank you for all your support – whether you have just joined our community, or you have been us for months and maybe, years.

Friendship – Passionflowers (photo by Marcia Nelson Pedde ~ @tomarciamae – My friendship with Marcia and her husband, Mike goes back a long way on twitter. Check out their beautiful blog at M&M Musings 🙂 )

A Spirit of Kinship

Tags

friendship, kindness, kinship, spiritchat, spirituality

As the calendar turns towards spring (in the Northern Hemisphere), and I start to dream about warmth which will melt the snow and show me glimpses of summer, the festival of colors (Holi) that is celebrated in my native India brings the energy of spring into my heart. The joy of dousing family and friends in various shades of dry powder (called gulaal and spraying each other with colored water and more is tough to put into words on a black and white piece of paper…

One of the hallmarks of this festival of colors, at least as experienced by me as a kid, was the camaraderie and kinship that would bring people of all hues and colors, regardless of language or ethnic background, together into a celebration of color. The festival was also marked by various arts and music festivals, where religious boundaries would be crossed, and folks would gather in friendly poetry contests, art exhibitions and more. The idea was to celebrate the existence of color in our lives, and the kinship that comes from the knowing that we all have each and every color of the rainbow within us ~ it just manifests in different amplitudes in different people.

Once the festival and the celebrations are over, this notion and rekindling of kinship need not be put away, to be dutifully revived the next year. This kinship can be embraced and extended ~ to beyond a mere celebration of colors. What if we were to establish kinship in thought with others? This can and does happen when we have kinship with those we may have never physically, met but have been regularly communicating with through social media. What if we were to establish kinship in speech with others? This can and does happen when we pause to pay attention, with our quietude and silence, and respect the speech and words of others. What if we were to establish kinship in action with others? This can and does happen, when we extend our arms and join hands with others to strengthen their efforts to effect change in the world.

While kinship in thought, words and actions is a vision that can create victory for truth and justice in our inner and outer worlds, there are four practical attitudes (according to #yoga) that can help us achieve this vision:

1. An attitude of friendliness (maitri) (the seed of kinship!) to their friendliness
2. An attitude of empathy (karuna) towards the weak
3. An attitude of happiness (mudita) in their success
4. An attitude of indifference (upeksha) towards the wicked

Do you notice a pattern in the practice of ths above four attitudes? It appears that they are in somewhat increasing order of difficulty for us to develop, isn’t it? Can we have kinship without friendliness or empathy? How much kinship do we truly have, in thoughts, words and actions, if we cannot celebrate their successes with them? And what about this notion of an “attitude of indifference”? How can “indifference”, even if it is towards the wicked, possibly create any kinship at all?

If you have read this far, I invite you to reflect on kinship, the workings of kinship, and the attitudes that lead to kinship. I invite you to reflect on color, its role in your lives, and how it creates kinship for you with your family, friends and commnuities. I invite you to join us in kinship in our weekly hour on twitter, at 9amEDT/1pmGMT/6:30pmIST (check you local time) on Sunday, March 8th 2015, as we explore and discuss this topic some more, and throw some color on each other 🙂

In color and kinship,

Namaste,

Kumud

SpiritChat – June Conversations

Tags

fatherhood, forgiveness, friendship

The month of June has been an incredible month for our SpiritChat discussions on Sunday mornings. We discussed three significant topics – forgiveness, friendship and fathers (and paternal relationships). In the first week, we discussed the spirit of forgiveness – what it means to us, how we practice it, why it is important for spiritual growth, how we can continue to be mindful of forgiveness.

The second topic for June was the spirit of friendship. This topic addressed the importance of us developing an attitude of friendship towards all, and how that influences our spiritual growth. One takeaway question from this discussion was:

How do we develop an attitude of friendship towards those who may have hurt us?

The third Sunday of June is celebrated as Father’s Day in the USA and some other countries. So, we discussed the role of fathers – as birth parents, as paternal influences, as spiritual influences – in our lives. I learnt from our Mother’s day discussion that any discussion about parental figures is always a tough one for many folks, and the spirit of Fathers discussion was no different. A lot of folks shared openly, and I believe that many folks learnt that sharing their experiences helped others deal with their own experiences with their paternal figures.

So, that brings us to the final Sunday in June – a Sunday that finds me back home after being traveling on a family vacation with my brother and his family who were visiting from India. It was a wonderful time – a whirlwind of sightseeing in multiple cities on the East Coast – before spending a few days back at my home. I learnt a lot about forgiveness, friendship and paternal roles (and many other things) during this wonderful time together with my immediate family 🙂 We will talk more about family and freedom in July.

As has become sort of a tradition, the final Sunday of the month is when we look back at the month’s discussions, weave them together, and lay the ground-work to look forward to the month to come. So, I invite you to join us in SpiritChat on Sunday, June 23rd at 9am ET / 1pm GMT / 2pm UK / 6:30pm IST to reflect on the month of June and plan for the month of July.

Be well. Be love. Be still.

Kumud

P.S. If you have topic suggestions for July, or suggestions for a guest to appear on the chat, or would like to write a guest blog post, please leave a comment. Thank you!

Update: Here is the html transcript http://bit.ly/sc-tr-0624 (8am to 11am ET) and questions – thank you to all who shared in the review of June topics! Some stats – 1602 tweets and 215 contributors. Thank you all!

Q1. Why is the practice of forgiveness essential for spiritual growth? Good #SpiritChat

Q2. Why is it easy to forgive some and difficult to forgive others? #SpiritChat 

Q3. What is the connection between forgiveness and friendship? #SpiritChat

Q4. What kind of shared spiritual values are the foundations for a great friendship? #SpiritChat

Q5. Fathers are our first friends - agree or disagree? Was it true in your childhood? #SpiritChat

Review Q6. What has been the area(s) of your biggest spiritual advance(s) in the first half of 2012? #SpiritChat

Final Q7. What action steps will you take in July to keep moving forward on your spiritual path? #SpiritChat

The Spirit of Friendship

Tags

friendship

One of the most famous books on Yoga, written by the sage Patanjali recommends that we need to develop four attitudes in our lives in order to make progress in our spiritual journey. These four attitudes are – a spirit of compassion, a spirit of joy, a spirit of friendship or friendliness and a spirit of equanimity.

We have discussed the spirit of compassion and the spirit of joy in earlier #SpiritChat live discussions. This week, we will talk about developing the spirit of friendship and friendliness within us. The word “friend” is so commonly used these days to describe even casual acquaintances, that it is perhaps losing it’s original intent or meaning. There are lot of definitions and quotes for friends and friendship, and some qualities of friendship include – sympathy, honesty, understanding, shared joy, trust and many more.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
– Thomas Jefferson

Different people may have different views on friendship because of their current or past experiences with friends – both positive and negative. I have had the privilege of having some very long-term friendships over they years – some spanning over twenty-five years – some still going strong while some have weakened over time, but are ready to be strengthened at any given moment. While long-term friendships form the foundation, short-term friendships often are also vital in our day to day lives.

Developing a spirit of friendliness is essentially a return to our original, new-born selves. A return to pure love. – Osho

So, what is connection between spirituality and a spirit of friendship? Is it perhaps that we have to be friendly to ourselves first, and then we can be friendly to others? How about having an attitude of friendliness towards those who have hurt us in the past, or may even be hurting us in the present? Is it realistic or practical to be friendly to our apparent (or real) enemies? What does it take to develop a long-term attitude of friendliness?

I invite you to come and share with us about friendship and friendliness in our weekly meeting on Sunday, June 10th 2012 at 9am ET/1pm GMT with hashtag #SpiritChat.

May we well find the friendship and understanding we are looking for.

Kumud

Update: Here is the html transcript http://bit.ly/sc-tr-0610 and questions – thank you to all who shared in the discussion on Friendship! Some stats – 1587 tweets and 220 contributors. Thank you all!

Q1. What feelings does the word friendship invoke within you? #SpiritChat

Q2. What are some special characteristics of your long-term friendships? #SpiritChat

Q3. How does "being friendly" differ from "being a friend"? #SpiritChat 

Q4. How do we know when our spirit isn't along the path of friendliness? How do we correct it? #SpiritChat 

Q5. How do we develop an attitude of friendliness towards those may have hurt us or don't like us? #SpiritChat

Q6. How is social media engagement affecting our friendliness in the offline world? #SpiritChat

Q7. Do we need a spiritual guide to help us develop universal friendliness? Why or why not? #SpiritChat 

Q8. What is the one thing you can do going forward to focus on friendliness - your own and in others? #SpiritChat