On Life and Simplicity

Tags

acceptance, friendliness, joy, kindness, simplicity

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be kind to those suffering – practice Karuna or kindness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kumud

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

A flower’s simplicity… in December

On Life and Dignity

Tags

compassion, dignity, justice, kindness, purity, simplicity, spring, walking

What is dignity, and why is it important to us as human beings and our human experience? Rather than try to define dignity in physical terms, I feel it easier for me to define its experience. One such experience was the soft spoken-ness of my grandmother, which was inherited by her children, and perhaps by me to some extent. By lowering their voices and weighing their words, particularly in times of great stress, all my elders showed me that dignity can flow from speaking softly, kindly and with deliberation.

Why may we need dignity in speech? Perhaps because it isn’t even possible to have dignity in our actions if our speech is corrupted by indignities of the mind.

How may one develop dignity of thought? One way is to purify the heart, whence the mind’s layers of dirt get flushed with silence, beauty and awareness of the truth that we are.

Yes. We are back to the work of the heart’s purity. One way to purity is to work with an attitude of loving service, as we remind ourselves, and those we may be privileged to serve, of our shared human dignity. Every verdict that “bends the long arc of the moral universe a bit more toward justice”, every invitation by someone to break bread with them, every softly spoken word whispered to us in the hour of our awareness, seeds dignity within us.

It is with these new seeds of dignity that we find the courage to rise yet again, and continue our walk towards that permanent love and grace which is available to all. Our walk need not be complete or complex. In fact the simpler the better, the more dignified it usually is.

This reminds me. It’s time for a cup of tea. One join me. Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join in our weekly chat on Twitter, Sunday April 25 at 9amET / 630pm India as we share some tea, fruit, flowers and cookies. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The simplicity, purity and dignity of Spring

On Sowing Seeds of Kindness

Tags

character, kindness, sowing

Growing up in India, the primary source of protein for our primarily vegetarian diet was a regular supply of lentils. They came in all kinds of colors – red, green, yellow, orange, black, and more. There were the split lentils and the whole bean variety like the black-eyed peas, red kidney beans and the white and red garbanzo beans. The first step to cooking dry lentils is to sift through them to find any stray pieces of rocks that may have come with them. Once sifted, you soak them – sometimes overnight – and then cook them with spices suitable for the particular lentil. Without the sifting, the rocks end up cracking your teeth when you bite down on them while eating the soft, cooked lentils.

She was a wonderful cook and the kindest soul I have probably ever known. No one – friend, family, or stranger – could visit her simple home and not be treated like the most important person that they were. She lived the axiom that every “guest” is a messenger of the divine. I asked my maternal grandmother one day – what is your secret? How is it that you can be so kind to everyone who comes into contact with you?

She sat me down on the coir mat in her kitchen and made me my favorite flatbread on her griddle, drizzled it with a bit of clarified butter and sprinkled some brown sugar on top. “Eat first”, see said. “Then we will talk”. Once I was done eating, she asked – “will you have some tea”. All I wanted was the answer to my question. What I got instead was sweetness and kindness. After we were both done drinking a bit of tea in small glass cups, she gave me the answer. 

“Every person in the world is like a bowl of uncooked lentils,” she said. “If each piece of lentil in the bowl is a character trait, then  every person is bound to have some ‘rocks’ or flaws. You have to learn to ‘sift’ out these ‘rocks’ when you engage with them. Then  you are engaging only with the goodness within them. In essence, you are doing them a great kindness. The benefit of this practice  is that you end up sowing seeds of kindness within your own heart.”

Kindness, empathy, dignity, compassion, inclusion, dignity, faith, resilience, humility and joy. These are all seeds that are ready and waiting for us to plant in the fields of common ground, for the betterment of all. Kindness is the first seed. When we begin with kindness, then all the other seeds can germinate well and eventually yield a new, healthy crop of seeds for the next generation. My grandmother would be so happy today to see her namesake, Kamala, getting ready to sow seeds of kindness, unity and healing for the growth of a new world.

Will we exhibit leadership by taking their cue and plant a few new seeds of kindness of our own today, and every day from here on out? 

Kumud

P.S. Join our weekly twitter chat, Sunday Nov 8 at 9amET / 730pm India. We will sow some new seeds of kindness together for health, healing and harmony in our world. Namaste – @AjmaniK

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