On Giving and Grace

Tags

giving, grace, gratitude, poetry

It is mid November. The tall trees slowly shed their leaves in an act of seasonal giving. The forest floor cradles the precious gift of glorious colors with autumnal grace. The winds seem to shift from their warm hue to a coooler shade of blue. There is much talk of the upcoming ‘holidays’ in the air, and ‘thanksgiving’ is less than a week away.

It is perhaps time to reflect on how our practice of ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ has evolved over the years. How can we make this ‘thanksgiving’ more filled with purpose than the ones of years past? It is relatively easy for us to be graceful and thankful in our acts of giving. How can we attach the same level of grace to our receiving? Can we become like the forest floor in autumn and let our hearts be wide open in our receiving?

As the wind whooshes through in the ‘wind tunnel’ between my home and the forest behind it, I clutch my cup of warm tea a little bit more firmly. It is as if I am trying to hold on to the sliver of summer’s residual warmth, before the onset of winter takes it away from me. The open book of Rumi’s poetry in front of me reminds me of grace…

Who is this with his hand out
saying, please, give just a little,
so I can give you a kingdom.

A little further on, I am reminded of eternity…

He makes this dying world eternal
His greatest alchemy
is how he does the unbinding
that keeps love from breathing deep.

And the value of patience…

Every second he changes cruelty
to loyal friendship.

We think of ourselves as ‘givers’ and ‘receivers’, and then there is this reminder…

Out of unconditioned emptiness
comes this planet with all its qualities.

And then, a nudge towards the grace of silence, of being, of becoming…

Be silent now.
Say fewer and fewer praise poems.
Let yourself become living poetry.
– Rumi in ‘Soul Houses’

Ever so slightly, I loosen my clasp on the warm cup of tea. I walk over to the tightly shut window, and loosen the latch to crack it open a little bit. The whooshing wind rushes in. Ever so slightly, in small actions performed with love, I yield. I am going to greet winter with grace. For it, I shall be thankful. Let me receive it with the same heart-filled-with-joy that I received summer, spring and autumn.

I may be excessive with my giveaway impulses,
but I still have what you gave
when you held my head against your chest
– Rumi in ‘What You Gave’

Let me take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to every single one of you in the #SpiritChat community… Thank you for adding your grace to my life.

I will be silent now…

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join me and the #SpiritChat community as we explore ‘Giving and Grace’ – Sunday, November 19th at 9amEST / 2pm UTC / 7:30pm IST on twitter.

On Spiritual Serendipity

Tags

grace, serendipity, spiritchat, spirituality

What is serendipity? This word has always intrigued me as it carries a sense of magic, a sense of discovery, a sense of finding something when one least expects it… According to Wikipedia,

Serendipity means a “fortunate happenstance” or “pleasant surprise”… in reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”.

When we are on the journey, for the joy of the journey, we often happen upon ‘things which we were not in quest of’, don’t we? We set out to ‘help’ someone and find that we end up helping ourselves as much, if not more, than we helped the other person. We set out to buy a ‘gift’ for someone, visit a bookstore to find something for them, and stumble upon a book that we needed to really read. We decide to mentor someone, with the intent of ‘giving back’ in our personal or professional lives, and discover the ‘sagacity of the young’. Can you think of a recent moment or occurrence of serendipity in your life, a ‘fortunate happenstance’ that changed the course of your spiritual practice?

For me, one such serendipity happened a few weeks back, in the course of my “Walk with Sheila”. I did not even know it at the time, but the guided nature walk with Sheila, planted a seed in my heart and consciousness, which led to multiple serendipities in the weeks to follow. A visit to the local library a week after the guided walk, led me to a tiny treasure of a book by Thich Nhat Hanh titled “How to Walk”. My seed intention of walking (as a spiritual practice) grew into a seedling as I drew inspiration from the truths and tools about walking expounded in this book.

The serendipities related to walking did not end there. The growth of the seedling intent to walk has taken flight in the most unexpected of ways. On my way to work one day, I realized that I literaly work nextdoor to, and often drive right by a parkway that has many miles of walking trails. Over the past three weeks, I have been exploring different sections of the parkway every single (working) day, walking its trails, following the bends of the river that flows within, discovering bridges, finding new rock for my daily meditations, and more. The trees and the flowers and the river seem to change character every single day, and every walk brings a wealth of serendipity. My biggest challenge is to absorb it all, as some days the inner container seems to overflow with the flood of nature’s bounty.

My practice and my intent continues to grow with every walk, and the serenedipitous experiences of joyous transcendence continue to grow within. Walking and sitting in mindfulness does take an investment of time, but the return on investment is difficult to wrap a metric around. Many of you who have experienced the joy of serendipity know what I am alluding to. My example of ‘walking’ is just a mere illustration of what lies in store for all of us when we conduct our spiritual walk with openness to receive and use the gifts that our serendipities bring to us to grow the seeds of greatness that we all carry within us.

For all of you who have read this far, I invite you to join us in our ‘community walk’ ~ Sunday September 13th at 9amET/1pmUTC/6:30pm India on twitter in #SpiritChat. Share your views us as we walk together to grow inner peace, and learn how we can invite serendipity into our lives with intention.

As always, I wish you all, the best that this moment has to offer,

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. I am researching the best platform to share some of the photos I am taking during my walks… suggestions welcome 🙂 stay tuned 🙂

Valley Parkway – A Lagoon after the Rain

Creating Space for Inviting Grace

Tags

grace, space, spirituality

Some notes on “Creating Space, Inviting Grace” – the #SpiritChat conversation on twitter on Sunday, February 23rd, drew heavily from these notes…

Grace is not part of consciousness; it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason. -Pope Francis

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace. -Paul Theroux

“Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider” -St Augustine

Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected. -Jonathan Edwards

The law condemns the best of us; but grace saves the worst of us. -Joseph Prince

“Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes” – Martin Luther

“If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible” – Winston Churchill

“Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.” – William Hazlitt

“Grace is to the body, what good manners are to the mind” – Rochefoucauld

“Grace is available for each of us every day – our spiritual daily bread – but we’ve got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach

“Grace was in all her steps, Heav’n in her Eye, In every gesture dignity and love” – John Milton

“The graces once made up their mind – A shrine inviolate to find: And thus they found, and that with ease, The soul of Aristophanes” – Plato

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

“You are so weak. Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.” – Rumi

I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace. -Mahatma Gandhi

“Grace is a power that comes in and transforms a moment into something better” ― Caroline Myss

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times. – Martin Luther

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom. -Friedrich Schiller

The meaning of life. The wasted years of life. The poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: ‘grace.’ -Max Lucado

“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Grace has to be the loveliest word in the English language. It embodies almost every attractive quality we hope to find in others. Grace is a gift of the humble to the humiliated. Grace acknowledges the ugliness of sin by choosing to see beyond it. Grace accepts a person as someone worthy of kindness despite whatever grime or hard-shell casing keeps him or her separated from the rest of the world. Grace is a gift of tender mercy when it makes the least sense.” ― Charles R. Swindoll

Here are the questions asked during the live chat. The answers are compiled in the #storify summary at http://storify.com/ajmanik/creating-space-for-grace-spiritchat. A full, complete transcript is also available at https://www.hashtracking.com/reports/spiritchat/spiritchat/grace (1542 tweets, 163 contributors, 12.4M timeline deliveries, 1.0M reach). Enjoy!

Here goes. Q1. “Creating space” – in what life-context does that phrase most impact you today? #SpiritChat

On to Q2. How can we create space in our lives to receive…? Can we? What if we don’t? #SpiritChat

Q3. Does our “creating space” eventually “invite grace”? What is Grace anyway? #SpiritChat

Q4. This feeling of “Divine Grace” – have you ever felt it in a significant way? How? #SpiritChat

Q5. “Divine Grace and Free Will compete with each other”. Agree or Disagree? Why or why not? #SpiritChat

Q6. We work. We give. We serve. We may even pray… So, why do we need Grace on our spiritual journey? #SpiritChat

Q7. What is the connection between Grace and Giving… How can we give it to others? #SpiritChat

Final Q8. To invite others to “create space for grace”, what three things would you suggest? #SpiritChat