The Energy of Presence

Tags

gifts, invitation, meditation, spirituality

The late after thunderstorm that brought monsoon-level rain and added humidity to the heat was finally tapering off as I got ready to wind up the work day. I figured I would at perhaps only drive through the parkway on my home, as the trails would be really wet, and the clouds were still lingering.

At the bottom of the hill where the East and west branches of the river merge, sitting at the stop sign, deciding to turn left or right, I hear the invitation of the roar of the river. My resistance to walking melts away as quickly as fresh rain tends to cleanse the landscape. I reason that I am already present, in the middle of it all, so why would a threat of rain or some wet trails stop me from a journey that I know is going to hold some wonderful gifts?

A few minutes later, with the car parked in an almost empty lot which would typically be filled at this hour, I am crossing one of the bridges across the merged branches whose flow has been fueled by the hour of heavy rain. On the other side, in its widening and bending and slowing down as it heads towards Lake Erie, I am suddenly in the presence of bunches of sunflowers on its shores.

Presence can create a beautiful energy about it, if our attitude towards being present is open and joyful. The trails that run around the merging of the river’s branches have been my playground for years, and their presence has lifted me and my heart on every single occasion that I visit with them. I can’t ever remember walking away from the river’s spaces with a lighter heart than that which I entered them with. Today was no different.

Yes, I stayed on the main, wide trails and walked even more slowly than usual. The evening sun was starting to now peak out, and the backlighting show among the trees was getting started. There was not a single other person on the trail, and it felt like all the energy of the day’s transitioning was being bestowed upon me. On my way back, I slowed down even more to let the leaves from the forest canopy sprinkle me with the water that they were holding from the rain. I felt even more present. During one long pause, the sun filtered through the trees and lit up the forest floor and the entire expanse of leaves in a bright yellow. It was like getting a sneak preview of autumn. I am now in a different space altogether. And yet, how does this all come together.

Let me retrace the steps. In accepting the invitation to be present to the journey and the spaces, one opens the doorway to the energy of presence. The energy works by first cleansing our thoughts, which helps to relax us and be receptive. We then slow down enough so we can absorb new energy, and finally walk away with a heart-state that sustains until we accept the next invitation to be present. Sounds a bit like your meditation practice, does it?

I use Nature to describe a medium through which the energy of presence creates gifts for us. I am sure you can think of many moments or spaces or people or activities that create similar gifts for you. May we often accept their invitation to be present, for they are perhaps as much seeking the energy of your gifts as you are seeking theirs?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community, Sunday Aug 7 at 9amET / 630pm India. I will be present with questions and gifts of tea and cookies. What gifts will you bring?! – AjmaniK

Sunflowers share their energy after a thunderstorm…

On Knowledge and Knowing

Tags

acceptance, awareness, choices, healing, invitation, knowing, knowledge, remembrance

It’s good to be welcomed back home again

— where all the stress that you brought with you is instantly dissipated by the first few steps of immersion in the stillness of the forest where the leaves are turning orange

— where all the energy that the trees have accumulated in your absence is seemingly showered on you in the falling of a single leaf

— as if you had walked into the ocean whose waves instantly wet every corner of your body – no matter how long you might have been away

— the ocean and the forest does not ask – where have you been? What did you accomplish there? Why have you been gone so long? How come you never wrote or called?

Maybe the ocean or the forest don’t ask these questions because of their state of being. Or maybe they won’t ask those questions because those answers would be from knowledge – whereas they are immersed in their own knowing.

Their own awareness, and their existence is not really influenced by our comings and goings — to them, all our knowledge is of no matter. Our knowing? That is a different matter.

I had been gone for six months. The fisherman’s trail off of the entrance path into the forest was welcoming as always, with the murmuring of the river inviting me to go left or right – or maybe straight down the middle to the bank where the trees overhang the water in suspended animation amid the stillness, and the mosquitoes immediately find you unless you find a spot with the slightest of breezes, whence they will leave you alone.

The crushed rock of millennia still holds the bank in place for those days when the river will rage – but not today, certainly not today. Today, the invitation is to walk into the middle of the river as the invisible force guides me with one hand and holds the flowing waters at bay with the other . And so, I accept the stillness and the gentility and the whisperings and the noontime birds speaking sweet nothings, stepping gently on one flat rock at a time, some of them barely big enough to hold all of my toes — and as soon as I can go no further into the river, the breeze that comes around the huge bend upstream greets me with an embrace that turns my heart into the wings of the monarch that has long gone South.

And yet, no matter all of that. You are here, You are home, in the center — maybe slightly left or right of it, but the center holds you— and you stand still. And then, an unprecedented invitation, to sit on the dry part of the river bed beneath your feet. You hesitate, but then you decide, that this is the moment for you to surrender to knowing.

So, you sit on the rock in the middle of the stream and absorb all the energy flowing upwards into you from the earth, flowing downwards into you from the overcast sky, from the waters flowing on either side of you, a bit faster on your left because it is devoid of the cluster of rocks that form eddies and lagoons on your right — so much peace, feeling the universe holding you in its knowing — and all you had to do was to accept the invitation.

In his book on Zen, Osho talked about the difference between knowledge and knowing. They are both limitless, and yet, knowledge binds us and knowing frees us. Knowledge creates desire to know even more, whereas knowing releases us from desire. The wave that surges from the ocean to touch the sky of knowledge, falls back into the ocean and is home again — in the ocean’s acceptance is the wave’s knowing of peace, love, joy, serenity, tranquility, silence, stillness, truth and kindness.

I am sure that you have all felt the light and lightness of this knowing in your experience with certain people, places and practices. I hope that you choose to accept their invitation, visit with them, and sit with them for a while in the days ahead.

Kumud

P.S. Join us Sunday, October 11 at 9amET / 630pm India as we gather on twitter for our weekly #SpiritChat in the knowing that we will partake of tea and cookies 🙂 Namaste – @AjmaniK

Author’s note: ‘stream of thought’ written while walking the Rocky River Reservation, October 6 2020.

Sitting… in the knowing that the Universe holds me with Love

The world flowing around me… as I sit in the river bed

On Inviting Peace

Tags

inner peace, invitation, peace

It had been a more than usually stressful drive to work that morning. It seemed like one of those days that folks were determined to do their best to annoy me with their driving antics. The closer I got to my exit, the more my inner temperature and dissonance was rising. And my ride to work is perhaps a walk on the park as compared to some folks who have long commutes in bumper to bumper traffic.

As I headed onto the exit ramp, a thought crossed my mind. What if, I were to experiment with not letting traffic annoy me so much? What if, I were to simply let people flow in and out of my path, and simply be witness to their journey? How much emotional energy would I possibly conserve by choosing to remain on my island – the very same island of peace that I often began my journey to work on?

And hence, I began the process of being a witness to the peaks and valleys that my inner peace traversed on a daily basis.

If I were to ask you – when is the last time that you accepted an invitation from peace – what would you say? Or, when is the last time that you extended an invitation to peace?

There are so many reasons that we get distracted from our Inherent peaceful nature. When we experience a truly restful sleep, it is because we have been in reconnection with this deep inner peace. The mere act of living in the world around us, the daily tugs and pulls of life, of relationships, of expectations, of our emotions, of our to-do lists and our goals and deliverables – can drain our peace. We feel the need to refill and reconnect with peace again.

How do we reconnect and refill?

There is an Inbuilt awareness in each one of us which Informs us that peace Is. Peace Is ours if we decide to accept, yield to Its Invitation. Peace Is in the knowing that in every Instance that It trends away from me, I can Invite It to return. Peace Is like breath. In every breath that leaves me, is Inherent the Invitation to breathe It back within. Peace is hence the thread of Life Itself.

So, let me ask you to consider your response in the next Instant in which you are presented the peace choice…

What will It take for you to Imagine, Invite, Immerse In, Invoke, Inspire and Incentivize peace? Will you decide to make peace Imminent or will you decide to postpone it?

Take your time. I will wait for your answer. But don’t hold your breath (or your answer) for too long.

Peace is your Invitation to receive, yours to receive, and then give away. Breathe deep. Inhale it. Then exhale it.

I invite you to make Peace your IAP – your Individual Action Plan. Will you declare that #IAmPeace?

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. It has been two weeks since I decided to be witness to the peace disrupters of my daily travels. Gradually, I have yielded a bit more space, slowed down or sped up to facilitate easier merging, changed lanes in anticipation, and more. My daily commute is becoming more peaceful by the day. There are trips when my peace island departs and arrives, virtually undisturbed.

What area(s) of your daily activity could benefit from an invitation to peace? Are there any relationships that could use a peace invite? Could you be a third-party agent to invite others to the table of peace?

Join us Sunday, March 31 at 9am EDT / 1pm UTC / 630pm India, to discuss #IAmPeace. A cup of tea and some cookies await you. Namaste – Kumud.

The sunset’s daily “invitation to peace”

On Invitations and Wonder

Tags

invitation, practice, wonder

Some mornings, often on weekends and holidays, the temptation to get a few minutes of extra sleep is strong. Even though I rarely set a ‘wake-up’ alarm any more, my internal clock wakes me up fairly reliably at the appointed time every day. No extra sleep for me, as the bell for the hour of morning #meditation is sounded. It is an “invitation to wonder” that has become difficult to resist over time… the more I accept it every morning, the easier it gets to accept it the next day. It’s a much rewarding acceptance.

The invitation isn’t unlike that leftover pumpkin pie from the thanksgiving holiday that ‘invites me’ to partake of a sliver, every time I open the refrigerator door… more on that later.

Yes. There are many invitations that come into our lives during the holiday season. Thanksgiving invitations to family get-togethers. Then comes ‘Black Friday’ – an invitation (actually, hundreds of them!), an urgency, to ‘buy stuff now’. Small business Saturday (a wonderful initiative)! Cyber Monday. Giving Tuesday (I actually love this particular invitation)! And many more to follow as we step into December. For me, every ‘invitation’ is an opportunity to wonder – how will my acceptance or denial affect my quality of life? Will acceptance provide me an opportunity to enhance my sense of wonder, of exploration?

The world’s noise, it’s invitations, it’s distractions are unabated.

What is to become of our inner peace and joy, our sense of wonder, if we do not have a daily practice, and a plan to devote time and space to that practice?

Without a practice or a plan, we expose our Self to the risk of inner and outer overwhelm. So yes – let us examine the next invitation that comes our way. The invitation could come via the virtual space or the physical space. Or even the spiritual space. Take a moment to pause and wonder. You never know.

In that moment of wonder, you may discover something new about your own Self.

And that is perhaps the best gift that and invitation to wonder can bring to us.

But, I digress. The last sliver of pumpkin pie calls. I think I shall accept…

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. In this holiday week (in the US), many are on travel, spending special time with family. We have a special family in the #SpiritChat community too – so, I hope that some of you will join us Sunday, November 26th at 9amET / 2pmUTC / 730pmIST on twitter to explore and wonder… Thank you.

The Forest in Autumn – An Invitation to Wonder!