On Spiritual Shifts

Tags

change, habits, heart, shift, transition

Brilliant sunshine. It is a welcome and wonderful start to the day, after days of waking up to overcast skies. I have slept in a bit, and the slight shift on this Saturday means that the sun is already streaming its golden rays on the light dusting of snow on the roofs in the distance, as I finish my morning meditation. I crack open the window a bit and the morning song of the birds comes flooding in with the rush of really cold air and the light of the moon that hasn’t set yet.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem like much, and yet, the combination of small shifts in external light and sounds from a mere twenty four hours ago, seems to have a significant effect on me in this waking hour. As I absorb it all, I ask if the small shift in one single aspect of my daily evening practices is having an outsized impact on my inner state the following morning?

From experimentation and observation, the answer seems to be an unqualified yes. My meditation journal tells me that I am currently on an ‘eight day streak’ of ‘evening cleaning’. It is a simple, fifteen minute practice of a ‘wholesale cleaning’ of the accumulated inner detritus of the day, every day. It is akin to brushing your teeth before going to bed at night, so the bacteria doesn’t grow in the warm petri-dish of your mouth while you sleep.

A small shift. Imagine ‘brushing out’ all the thoughts, words and actions that leave ‘crud’ within your heart, during the daily flow of normal life. Imagine doing this every single night, before you got to bed. What would the state of your heart be, when you wake up the next day? A bit cleaner, just like your cleaner teeth, I imagine?

It has taken be the better part of five years, to make this small shift. I have read and heard about the benefits of ‘cleaning’, over and over again, for five long years — and I am finally putting it into some kind of regular practice. And the shift within is noticeable!

Is there some small shift that you have been meaning or planning to make in your life, but for whatever reason, haven’t made yet? What is it that will inspire you to take action, make that change? For me, it was the realization that I had perhaps ‘plateaued’ in my inner growth, that made me ask – what is missing in my practice? It was sitting there, staring at me, right in front of my face. Evening cleaning – yes, of the teeth and if the heart.

I invite you to find your small shift within, whatever it may be, and then take action. Know that there is no such thing as a ‘small action’. Let not another evening (or year) go by, without making the shift that whispers to you. Start today, build up a streak, keep track of the effects, and observe how the small shift is creating big course corrections for you.

Who knows. You may discover that it doesn’t take much of a shift for the heart to open just a bit wider and the light to flow brighter.

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat, Sunday Jan 23 at 9amET / 730pm India with the #SpiritChat community. We will share about our inner and outer shifts. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

A small shift in light helps bloom this flower (Brazil)

On Inner Conditions

Tags

awareness, heart, spiritual practice, spirituality

Snowflakes! I am waking up to snowflakes! This was my first thought as I emerged from the stillness and peace that has enveloped me in today’s hour of meditation — a habit that has sustained me well for the past few years, and greatly helped improve my overall inner condition.

Meditation has inspired an attitude that distracts me from pessimism and orients me towards the unfettered beauty of the inner and outer world that I live in. It inspires me to be mindful of, and mind my ‘inner condition’, as reflected by the state of my heart. Meditation has guided me to love those who are easy to love, and be patient with those who aren’t so easy to love.

With sustained practice, it’s easy to be in a condition of equanimity when we are by ourselves. And yet, we live and engage with a world of people with hugely varying states of ‘inner conditions’. My inner condition can thus change quickly, with worldly ‘triggers’. Sometimes , this happens as soon as I step out of my meditative state. So why even meditate, I used to ask? This, in turn, led me to ask more questions.

What are the sources of these triggers that disrupt my peaceful inner condition attained during meditation? Do these triggers repeat themselves? What additional work can I do, to preserve my meditative condition of lightness, as I traverse my daily worldly life?

As is often the case, the answers come from the heart’s being in a receptive, loving, observing condition. Be easy to love, and love with a light touch. Bring joy from a distance, and embrace lightly in connection. Celebrate your uniqueness as you delight in your travels. Dance in the wind, let it twist and twirl you along the way.

Ah. The lessons in observing the life and conditions of a snowflake!

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday January 16 at 9amET / 730pm India. There will be questions, tea and coffee, and yes, even some cake! – @AjmaniK

Snowflakes… teachers about our inner condition…

On Giving and Fragrance

Tags

fragrance, giving, heart, learning, lifestyle, light

It had been an exhausting day and a half of work as I was trying to wrap up the technical paper and presentation that was to accompany it. Finally, after what seemed like a really long day by the time it came three o’clock, I made some time for afternoon tea. I could tell that it was a brisk day outside what with the almost leaf-shorn trees standing still against the clear blue sky and the brilliant sunshine quickly fading to the south east.

Walking upstairs to “close up the office”, I noticed that the sun had created hundreds of spot-lights off of the stained-glass-like lamp sitting by the window. The reading chair called to me, and I walked over with the cup of tea, pulled the “Rumi” book off of the shelf and let the sunshine soak into my soul.

The next half hour felt like I must have traveled into a different universe where the silence becomes you. The sunlight lit up each page as I read poems about love without rules, the nature of what we are given when a loved one holds us to their chest, true silence that makes you feel like the soul’s belonging, and how spring awakens autumn from its slumber. Who says you can’t stumble into spring in the middle of a late afternoon on a late November day in autumn?

And so it went as I faded in and out of what seemed like forever. My tea sat on the small round table by me, slowly exhausting its warmth like the setting sun as it was fading quickly behind the rooflines of the homes in the distance. The thirty minutes of warmth felt like the fourteen years that I had spent being raised with love by my Aunt who had been born on this day ninety two years ago. The divine had blessed her with the ability to share her light. She gave of it freely to her kids, to strangers, to the fruit and vegetable sellers, to the part-time maids who came to do myriad home tasks, and so on. I was fortunate to bear witness to a lot of her giving.

Giving and its lessons can come to us from any direction at any time. The nature of giving is such that we often do not not know what we have been given until it comes our turn to give in a similar way. She would often remark that I would understand why she acted in the ways that she did, even when exacting discipline, when I would become a parent myself. When that day came, my understanding began to dawn, but it happened in an unexpected way. The medium was the giving nature of the one who gave birth to our child.

And so my slow learning continues. Now, our child teaches me through her peace and her gentility and her passion for social justice. The spiritual masters teach me by about limitless giving by their transmission of spiritual energy to all those who are willing to receive. And so on it goes.

Some of you may say that I look at life through rose-colored glasses. And that is okay. For one, I like roses. The rose keeps on spreading its fragrance, regardless of how many thorns are nearby. The rose knows who it is, and what its purpose is. Is that not a great example of the nature of giving? In addition, I can use the same rose-colored glasses to look at myself with love, kindness and compassion. If I only look at my own thorns, what is the world going to see when they look at me?

Yes. The spiritual path can be long, arduous, daunting, and even seem futile for the seeming lack of progress. There seems so much more work to do. Tagore says in his translation of one of Kabirdas’s poems:

“So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;

And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;

And when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain;

When the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to the letter.

Kabîr says, “Listen to me, dear Seeker! the true path is rarely found.”

So what is a practitioner to do? ‘Rarely’ does not mean ‘never’. One solution is to keep on practicing our nature of giving. Sustained practice improves our inner state, which enables us to create tangible changes in our outer state, create a new lifestyle. If we embrace giving by fully engaging our heart, we can find ourselves in oneness with the rose, whence the petals and thorns are indeed one flower. The fragrance of our giving than shall then know no limits.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly Twitter conversation, Sunday Nov 28 at 9amET / 730pm India in #SpiritChat ~ come share your fragrance with the community. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Fragrance of the rose… attracts morning dew

The Heart of Relaxation

Tags

heart, relaxation, rest, self-care, slowing down

The sun is shining brightly today as I walk out on to the deck with my morning tea and sit on my perch at the top of the six steps that lead down to the grass still covered with last night’s dew. A pigeon and a cardinal are sitting on the fence, waiting patiently for me to fill the bird feeders. The younger puppy has followed me out and nuzzled against me as she watches the morning unfold with me as she wonders when I’m going to go back inside and fetch her one of her favorite treats from the pantry.

Deep breath as the breeze picks up a bit, the geese at the far end of the lake slide gently into the water with their young ones, and the top of the tall grasses and the wild-growing willows that have thrived in July’s rains start swaying slowly in the same cadence as the ripples form on the waters.

Deeper breath as I let all the inputs flow through my eyes, ears, nose and skin, and watch them all merge towards the heart, like the tributaries converge into the rivers. I am using as little effort as possible, so as to keep my mind and its adjectives disengaged from the process of observing what is unfolding before and within me.

Slowly, the veil lifts. The heaviness of the heart, such as it was, turns to lightness and seems to melt away. This is perhaps the reward for just being and allowing the streams to do their work within. It’s perhaps no different than watching the sun dance with the morning dew every day, or diffuse the fog on the lake on some heavier mornings.

It seems that I have found the heart of relaxation yet again. All I needed to do was to accept the invitation to be still and observe without qualification or classification. I have danced this dance of observation so many times now that I can actually call upon the scene even when I am away from it. It’s like nature has given me a portable conditioning tool for relaxing the heart.

The cup of tea is still sitting on the deck. The birds and the puppy are still waiting for their meal. The heat rising on my back as the Sun ascends behind me, interrupts the reverie. It’s also time to write the blog post for the week.

I imagine that it will read a bit better than before, now that I can share a bit of my direct experience with a relaxed heart. Perhaps I can even ask some questions to remind me to do a self-examination.

What are some experiences after which you find your heart fully relaxed? Do you know the ‘repeat offenders’ that tend to disrupt your heart’s condition? Are there ways that you check-in on the heart’s state “on the go” and quickly relax it if need be?

Take a few moments to observe and reflect. You may even help your heart relax into clarity, which may give you confidence to create the courage to say Yes to yourSelf.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering on Twitter with the #SpiritChat community on Sunday, Aug 1 2021. We will slow down in the 9amET / 630pm India hour to relax over tea and conversation. Join us if you can. Namaste. – @AjmaniK

Different states of the heart’s core may need different levels of relaxation…

The Heart of Bliss

Tags

bliss, heart, heart matters, heartmonth, joy

There is a certain clarity about those winter mornings where the sun finally breaks through the grey gloom which has been seemingly hanging around for weeks. You look out at the sprinkling of snow that has turned into a film of scattered ice on the driveway, crystals shining in the sunlight cresting over the homes across the street. You want to take a walk, but you know that it is better to wait because the brilliance is deceptive. The temperature is still in the single digits and there won’t be enough layers to keep you warm. 

Such is the majesty of a winter morning where the sun is now fully streaming onto your face as you have pulled back the last bit of curtain from the front window where the puppy has claimed the one warm spot on the bench along the split windows. You sit cross legged on the divan, just as you had sat on the floor a bit earlier for morning meditation where the waves of light from your connection to the earth and sky had filled you with the same warmth that you had felt when you last walked the beach at sunset on a Caribbean island.

Your heart is quieting as you keep writing, taking an occasional sip from the coffee mug which has “baby it’s cold outside” inscribed in a half circle around a snowflake. You can taste that special taste of fresh ground beans from a freshly opened bag of coffee seeping through your tongue, combining with your next breath, as it sends a unique sense of aliveness into the deeper layers of your awareness. More sunshine, more stillness comes your way as the puppy is now transitioned into an early morning snooze while she waits with me for the rest of the household to come awake.

Oy. Stop already. When are you going to talk about the heart of bliss? Ahem. What do you imagine I’ve been doing in the last three paragraphs? I’ve been trying to put my stream of thoughts into words. You can’t really plan this stuff, can you? You can practice to move your heart and its awareness towards silence, stillness, and warmth. You can practice to quieten the noise and filter out more of the daily perturbations. You can practice to be open to the remembrance that you have been through the glooms and storms  before.

What does the practice yield? You wake up to days like this when the Universe and its energy transports you from the walk along the shore to a deep dive into the ocean and whispers to you…

You are truth. You are awareness. And above all. You are the heart of Bliss. You belong. 

Remember That. 

Kumud

P.S. February is “heart” month. We will celebrate the heart every Sunday this month. Please join our kickoff celebration by joining our weekly chat with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday Feb 7 at 9am ET / 730pm India. Bring some #MomentsOfBliss to share. Namaste. ~ @AjmaniK

The heart of a rose, no matter its name is defined by bliss…

A Spiritual Homecoming

Tags

awareness, heart, home, homecoming, journey, travel

When he pushed his two suitcases through the sliding glass doors after the security guard had lazily glanced at his passport and matched the name on it with his Lufthansa paper ticket, he had no idea what kind of welcome, if any, awaited him on the other side of the Atlantic. He had just said goodbye – a very long goodbye as goodbyes in India on airports where a family member is headed into unknown and uncharted tend to be – to about two dozen friends and family. Some of them managed to smile, while others made valiant but unsuccessful attempts to hold back tears. 

They stood outside the glass wall which encased the terminal, cheeks pressed against the window, hands raised in goodbye and blessings for as long as they could see him as he finally passed out of sight through the Customs check-point (yes, there is a Customs check on departure in India). He had no idea how long it would be before he would see any of them again, so he waited till the final call for departing passengers to leave their sight. There was no way for him to know how long it was going to be between departure and the homecoming, because when you leave the safety of the shore and surrender to the flow, life happens. 

He landed in New York city’s JFK on a crisp autumn morning, took a bus to switch airports to catch a Piedmont flight to Roanoke, where he was received by some volunteers of the Indian Students’ Association. What a wonderful act of kindness that was, which brought much relief to a weary traveler after thirty six hours of traveling. It felt like a bit of a homecoming, to be surrounded by people who spoke your language. During orientation, half of which he had missed because he was late getting to the USA because of a visa delay, he ran into a very good friend who he had known since third grade! Another mini homecoming. And then, another friend from Delhi, who spoke his grandmother’s native tongue. An even bigger homecoming. 

Fast forward. 

In his excellent TED talk titled “Where is Home”, Pico Iyer says that “Home is where you Stand”. By that measure, I have had a lot of homes across the world. From the easternmost parts of Assam to some of the northernmost parts of Kashmir, I have stood and felt a connection to people who have extended great love with a welcoming heart. Criss-crossing the Northern states of India several times on multi-day train trips, I made an attempt to get off the train at every single station. Now that I think about it, it was as if I was trying to feel at home at every single pause of the journey as I felt my feet touch the platform. It was as if I was feeling the flow of the earth under my feet at every opportunity I would get. 

So, what does all this story-telling have to do with homecoming and spirituality? I had never heard of the word until I first came across it in the context of alumni returning ‘home’ to Virginia Tech during football Saturdays in the fall. Such a beautiful word. Homecoming. It creates a vision of those who have graduated from a station in life and traveled on to explore new frontiers returning home. A bit like the splashdown of the two American astronauts a few weeks ago after they had spent a few weeks on the Space Station. Or a bit like those who spend weeks preparing for, and then climbing some of the highest mountain peaks, returning home weary and falling into the arms of their beloveds and getting some well-deserved rest. Homecoming is thus a time for renewal, of sharing stories about our travels, and then setting out again on another new journey.

In a spiritual context, homecoming can be viewed as a return to source. It isn’t connected to a particular age or a particular physical place. It is connected to a return to the source that resides in our heart – not just the physical heart, by the spiritual heart that is our consciousness beyond the mind-matter complex. In fact, one could posit that in the spiritual context, there is actually no Homecoming, because we never really left. We may spend our entire life being unaware of who we are, and yet, the consciousness, the spiritual heart is always with us. At any given moment, when our awareness shifts to It, we are aware that we are home.

Home is where we stand in awareness.

Fast rewind.

It was twenty seven months before he returned. In the interim, there were short phone calls (they had to be short at almost two dollars a minute), long hand-written letters, bouts of home-sickness, regular instances of culture shock, many new friendships formed with Virginia natives, and an awareness that it was beginning to feel a little bit like a new home. He was beginning to enjoy the New River, the new flow, the new awareness of floating and letting be. 

Present moment.

What is your story of homecoming? What does the word mean to you, remind you of? What emotions or memories or awareness does it invite? Do reflect, and then share if you are so led to do so. 

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly gathering with the #SpiritChat community on twitter to share some thoughts on Homecoming. We will meet Sunday September 6 at 9amET (almost to the day when I first landed in JFK all those years back). I will bring some questions that will act as place holders for the real conversation that will happen in the many tributaries of the main flow. Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

One of my favorite bridges — I instantly feel welcomed, at home, a sense of Homecoming every time I stand on it…

On Time and Heart Space

Tags

family, heart, letting go, patience, reason, space, time

A few months ago, I started hearing the word in fragments of mother-daughter conversations in my home. She had been physically out of school since spring break this year, and we had been mostly self-quarantined for several months until school officially ended towards the end of May. No summer camp. No meeting up with friends. No getting together with cousins. I guess, somewhere along the line, she decided that the home – or rather she, wanted another dog to give her and our seven year old puppy some company.

And so her search started with online portals, spreading the word among her friends, calling local shelters and so on. Her  requirements were fairly stringent and that shortened the list of possibilities considerably. Almost every other day, Mom would help her put in adoption applications when there was a “match” online. A few days later the email would come, saying that the “match” had already been adopted. Week after week, I could see her getting more and more disheartened. 

“Give it some time, honey. Be patient, and it will happen. The puppy you are supposed to get will show up.” Supposedly comforting words from a Dad who had tried to discourage her from the idea from the very beginning. I wasn’t sure that she was “ready” for another dog in the house. More like I was the one who wasn’t ready. So, after eight weeks of this roller coaster of applying and being denied, it seemed like she let the idea go for a few weeks. Mom kept making phone calls, leaving messages for folks.

Then, one lady from Indiana called back on July 1st afternoon and said – yes, there is availability. Possibility. Hope. 

So, we decided that we were going to make an eight hour roundtrip to see if things would work out. A few hours later, another phone call. A lady whom my wife had called six weeks ago was on the phone. She said that one of her puppies was ready to be re-homed. In the course of the conversation, we came to know that our current seven year old had the same bloodline as the one that she was trying to get re-homed. Not only that, she lived two hours away and she could bring the puppy to our home the next day as she was going to be passing through Cleveland on a road-trip to north-west Ohio. 

Too good to be true, yes? If I hadn’t been witness to all of it myself, I would have said “no way” too. The combination of yielding time and space to a heart set on a love-driven desire can allow for the universe to work in our favor. On July 3rd 2020, virtually seven years to the day that we adopted “Tucker” ( who was renamed “Bubbles”), we received his sister “Flower” (who was renamed “Bindi”). Unfettered joy, some tears, a lot of broken sleep patterns, and a huge rearranging of our lives has happened in the past week. 

In the small, last minute Zoom meeting on Friday, I asked Lucille – so, what’s new with you? I hadn’t told them any of this story yet. She said, “I just got finished reading the book – ‘When the Heart Waits’ – by Sue Monk Kidd. She talks about giving yourself the ‘chrysalis time’ in your life – time to let the caterpillar develop into the butterfly (of creativity).” How appropriate, I thought. Giving yourself time, allowing the universe to work in harmony with you when you sometimes feel as if the whole world is conspiring against you, your heart and your goals and dreams…

Chrysalis time for the heart and its space, the heartspace that is our constant companion. I dug up an Osho essay where he spoke about time, reason (the mind), and the heart:

Time exists only for the mind, for reason. For the heart there is no time; the heart exists in timelessness. So, the mind insists on haste, hurry, urgency – and the mind becomes tense. Things should happen instantly – such is the insistence of reason. But the heart knows no time, there are no clocks for it. That is why the heart exists timelessly and it can wait — infinitely. — Osho in Vedanta – The Art of Dying

So, here we are. Life teaches us so many lessons. It invites us to listen with the heart, to allow for our heartspace to simply be timeless. Timelessness invites us to disengage from the daily conflict of opposites. In timelessness, the heart of the caterpillar learns to rest in, allow for chrysalis time.

Kumud

P.S. After a few days, Bubbles and Bindi are starting to play together. His heart has accepted that Bindi is here to stay, that she is part of the family. All of us look forward to their football-like scrimmages at all hours of the day. He may outweigh here by a factor of five (that won’t last long!), but that doesn’t deter her from taking him on with the youthful heart and dynamic energy of one who knows not much about reason, time or space. 

P.P.S I invite you to join our weekly twitter conversation on Sunday, July 12 at 9amET in #SpiritChat. I may share a puppy photo or two with you, and give you the daily update of puppy mayhem. Yes, there will be questions and tea and cookies. It will be good to see some of you after a week’s hiatus… – @AjmaniK

Bubbles – the result, so far, of seven years of all-heart

The Heart of Truth

Tags

celebration, conversation, heart, truth

She was sitting on the bathroom floor in the basement, cleaning the concrete in preparation to replace the flooring which had been damaged by a water leak. As is often the case, she is really good at “walking and chewing gum”, and so she was listening to an NPR podcast on her phone. “This is a really good one”, she said as I came downstairs to check on her progress. “They are having a really good conversation about truth”, she added in a matter-of-fact way. I wanted to listen, but her “guard dog” knew that Dad was home from work, which meant it was time to be walked.

I picked up a broom to help out a bit by sweeping the work area and to delay the walk, so that I could listen to a bit of the stream. I heard them talking about the history of truth, how it used to be communicated in the past (hint: poetry!), and the attempts of truth seekers and truth tellers in answering the seminal question – what IS truth? I only swept the floor for a few minutes before the puppy sensed my delay tactics and rushed me upstairs and straight to the front door. 

It was only Tuesday, and yet, the seed for Sunday’s conversation had been planted. As most weeks go, this was a welcome early start for me, because I usually don’t figure out the week’s #SpiritChat topic until Friday or Saturday. Over the next few days, I mulled upon the topic of “truth” and the role that it plays in our lives. It wasn’t until Friday night that I had a chance to search for the complete podcast, and to my delight, I found that NPR’s ‘On Point’ has recorded a four-part series on truth (starting Feb 24) – I even found the ‘study notes’ for their first conversation. 

History has a way of returning us to the beginning. If we choose to learn from history, we have an opportunity to not repeat it. History can inform individuals, communities and nations about the pathways that can move them to a higher level of awareness about the truth. History has some definitions of truth for us…

Truth is evidence-based knowledge

Knowledge can come to us through various sources, our senses being one of them. And yet, our senses can often lead us us astray, can they not? Senses can misinform us when only one of the many are engaged in information gathering and processing. Sensory information and facts need to be able to be independently validated and verified, so that they can lead us to the truth. Revelation and reason, just like spirituality and science, both have great value in defining the truth for us – what do your heart-mind think about that? How can we engage multiple senses at the same time, through multiple sources, to arrive at evidence-based knowledge?

Truth is often based on our narrative – we ignore that which does not fit our narrative because our brains understand causality (cause and effect)…

There is ring of truth to that, isn’t there? In our often busy lives, amid a pandemic of mis-trust, it is so much easier for our heart-mind complex to stay engaged with the sources that feed our current narrative. We dig deeper and deeper trenches with our rhetoric as we cherry-pick from among the truth-based facts, to stay safe within our stories. How do we get back to reason and create a new narrative based on some eternal truths? 

One way to return to some eternal (truths) is to ask questions of our biased narratives. How can we engage in dialogue with those who have a diagonally opposite narrative from our our own? Further yet, how can be bring together people with diverse heart-views and mind-sets to have a fair and balanced conversation about the facts to arrive at some common truths? Maybe it is too much to ask. Maybe not. And yet, let us not stop from engaging in dialogue, regardless of what we believe in.

We can ask — what is the permanence that we we truly believe in? The answer to that question can inform our heart’s truth, guide us to the heart of truth, inspire us in our personal practice. It is in the heart’s search for permanence that the truth is often brought to light — and, like the sun, That is a light which we can freely share — even with the ones who choose to walk a different path than ours. 

Kumud

P.S. The basement project is currently on hold, as we try to decide on the type of flooring amid our celebrations. Meanwhile, our search for the heart of truth continues, individually and as a family. Join us on Sunday, March 1st 2020, as we celebrate some of each others’ truths in our weekly twitter chat at 9am ET / 7:30pm India. We will multilogue in #SpiritChat over tea and cookies, and maybe even some cake! Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every time I walk the path, sit on this bench, I see, hear, smell, feel, sometimes even taste something different – I view it as gathering new evidence of the truth… or is it?

The Heart’s Quadrants

Tags

agape, heart, heart matters, love

I am not much of a sport’s watcher any more, perhaps because I’m not much of a TV watcher any more. However, this year, I found myself tuning into the Super Bowl because – actually, I’m not quite sure why, but it just happened. More than the game itself, I was actually paying a bit of attention to the ads. I have to admit, I was totally taken by the story told by the ad that talked about the four types of love… 

While thinking about the topic for this week’s #SpiritChat conversation, I knew that I would end up talking about something heart-related. February is heart-health month, and this year has that extra-special day at the end, for which I have a  special affinity (more about that in two weeks). And then, this morning, reflecting on the heart, I was reminded of the four quadrants of the heart. This made me wonder – is there a connection between the four types of love and the four quadrants of the heart?

What about love? The four types of love are deemed to be philia (love that grows out of friendships), storge (love that is founded on family relationships), eros (the romantic love) and agape (love that comes from acts of service and selfless actions). And what about the heart? The heart’s upper quadrants are the two atriums or atria  – the right, which collects the impure blood through the venous system, and the left, which collects the purified blood from the lungs. The lower quadrants are the two ventricles or the pumps. The right ventricle receives the impure blood from the right atrium, and then pumps it to the lungs for purification. The left receives the purified blood from the left atrium, and pumps it to the organs through the arterial system. 

On the surface, it doesn’t seem like there is any correlation between the four types of love and the heart’s quadrants, is there? Delving a bit deeper, I thought of people whose love resembles the quadrants of the hearts. There are the “receivers” or the atriums – always available and open to us, helping us to lighten our load in any way they can. They do not judge whether our output is “pure” or “impure” – their role is to simply be receivers. “Atrium people” are perhaps primarily engaged in the practice of philia or agape love by their actions of presence and active listening, aren’t they?

Then, there are the “givers” or the ventricles – the ones who “feed” us continuously, whether we are asleep or awake, regardless of our mental and emotional state. The “givers” help us absorb the goodness that every breath brings into our  hearts, and remind us to share that goodness with every cell in our bodies. Our heart’s two ventricles are essential to life and living. The same is true of those who are the ‘givers of love’ in our lives, isn’t it?

What would our lives be without the magic of friendships, the special bonds of family, the incorrigible romantics, or those who are ever-eager to give? Who are our heart’s atriums and ventricles, the ones who teach us about philia, storge, eros and agape? Do we not live our best life when all of the heart’s quadrants work as a unified whole for a single purpose – which is to flow higher love?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly chat, Sunday February 16 at 9am ET / 2pm GMT / 7:30pm India. We will talk about the heart and its giving and receiving of love through all its quadrants. Join us to tea and cookies. Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

The Heart of Holding Space

Tags

community, freedom, heart, space

“Have we ever had a #SpiritChat on the idea of ‘holding space’?”

The minute Lucille asked this question as we were close to wrapping up the hour of the #SpiritChat monthly video get-together, I knew that she had brought forth the topic for the weekly chat. My immediate answer was to say, “no, we haven’t ever discussed that as a topic — but, it is one of my favorite phrases and ideas to practice!”. In fact, I had benefitted from practicing it just the previous day. 

A few weeks ago, I had received an invite to attend a meeting at 8:30am on Thursday morning. My first reaction was to respond  that I wouldn’t be able to attend because of another scheduled meeting. However, when I read the agenda, it was to review the by-laws of the Parents’ Association of my daughter’s school. I thought, this is really important, and maybe the other meeting will get moved. So, I found myself responding with — “I am not sure, but please hold space for me as I am going to do my best to attend”.

Unbeknownst to me, the organizers must have done just that. Thursday morning came and I was running behind because my daughter woke up with a nasty cold. I hadn’t even showered or shaved yet, and it was time to leave, if I was going to make it in time. As I got ready to text the organizer that I wasn’t going to be able to make it, a thought passed across my heart. What if they are actually ‘holding space’ for me, just like I asked them to?

So, I put my phone away, brushed my teeth (yes, this was an IRL meeting, not a twitter chat :)), put some clothes on and drove the short distance through the sleet that was falling quickly and icing up the roads. Four smiling faces, including the broadest of smiles of a little baby girl that one of the Mom’s had brought with her, greeted me with the words – “we are so glad you are here”. 

In that instant, I knew that they were not looking at my unshaven face or my uncoordinated clothes that I had thrown together. It reminded me of something my maternal grandmother used to say and practice — “ बेटा जी, जगह इंसान के लिए दिल में होनी चाहिए – फिर सभी अपने होते हैं, कोई मेहमान नहीं होता।” My dear one, when we learn to make space in the heart for others, then there are no guests — the whole world becomes our family. 

So much truth wisdom in Grandma’s words, don’t you think? How often do we forsake the opportunity of ‘holding space’ or ‘creating space’ for others because of how we think we may be perceived by them? How often do we forsake ‘holding space’ for own selves because of how we think about ourself? And yet, if we take our eyes off of ourselves, we can then embrace the attitude of ‘holding space’.  Our heart can open to the idea that ‘we need to take care of each other, be kind to each other’.

So, here we are. We have some decisions to make, some questions to ponder. What is it that prevents us from ‘holding space’ in our hearts for some, but not for ‘others’? Despite filling ourselves with so much, why do we occasionally feel ‘empty’? What is the spiritual benefit of holding space (and time) for each other and for our own selves?

Here are some possibilities. In ‘holding space’ in our heart, the whole world can become ‘us’, not ‘them’. When there is no separation of us and them, we are in fact creating true freedom, aren’t we? In this freedom, real exploration of the vastness of inner space can truly begin — we may yet discover that the infinite has been forever holding loving space for us.

Kumud

P.S. Thank you, Lucille Fisher (@sageandsavvy) for this week’s grand question, and inspiration for our Sunday Feb 9 twitter chat in #SpiritChat at 9amET / 2pm GMT / 730pm India. I invite all of you to join us in this community that has been holding space for each other for many years. Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

Flowers, in various stages of flowering, held by Nature’s loving space…