On EnLightening the Heart

Tags

faith, leaders, leadership, light, lightness, restoration, trust

From the very beginning on Saturday morning, I sat with colorless tears in my eyes that sealed my eyelids shut at the edges — perhaps not wanting to see any more darkness, perhaps mourning the state of a country ravaged by disease, death, destruction, despair, discrimination and disintegration.

And yet, after relaxation and prayer, there was the ever-present invitation to focus on the light within the heart…

After a few minutes, lightness came as a reminder of what many of us may need to do to cross the street safely – blinded as we may be right now by anger and despair and helplessness or even rage. What we may need to do is to hold on to the person in front of us… just like I would see the kids do at the school for the blind  which was virtually across the street from my high school in New Delhi, India. In a show of great trust, they would each put a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. In a show of great hope that the person leading the line could actually see where they were going, they would safely cross the road towards light. 

Enlightened, emboldened, encouraged and empowered, I closed my eyes even tighter. Another thought came to lighter the heart. Perhaps all we need to do to walk the lighted path, to lighten the heart, is to be like toddlers holding on to the hem of the divine mother’s garment as we navigate these new worlds around us. By having child-like faith that the divine knows what’s best for us, and is lighting the heart path that is best for us, we can take another light step.

We take a step forward in a faith that has stood us well through previous trials and dark times. We take a step towards light and lightness, even though that path may occasionally lead us through some seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We take another step forward, even though the path may be filled with the thorns of divisiveness.  And yet, we need not despair, for we know from previous direct experience, that within all of us is planted the reservoir of love and light.

And if the reservoir of love, light, lightness is within us, then it is within them too. They may be unaware of the reservoir, but it is there — for its absence in them would violate the natural law of existence, of fairness, of divine justice. There is the existence of  love within, so that we may learn to lead with it. There is the light within, so that we can turn inward towards it in those dark nights when there are no stars or moons to guide us as the storm rages around us and within us…

Light and lightness within the heart grow trust and faith. They are good defenses against the heaviness of cruelty and injustice. When we add the personal practices of mercy, empathy and kindness, we become the blooming flowers that give light and soil and water to the next generation of leaders. With our example of an enlightened heart, we encourage a new generation of youth  to lead with a sense of fairness, empathy and justice. We construct a brand new world with a brand new generation of heart-centered leadership.

As a gardener, I know that it is often with the dregs of past growth, often called ‘organic matter’, that a brand new lawn or garden can be created. We spread soil mixed with organic matter over a barren land. We use good, enlightened seeds infused with great heart potential, fertilize them with hope, water them with trust and let them be warmed by the sunshine of divine grace. Then we step back and watch a new, kinder and gentler individual, family, community, society, and nation emerge.

It all begins with one heart full of light. An EnLightened heart. One heart that upholds truth, fairness, and yes, even justice — particularly justice. A heart that understands, respects, even reveres natural laws. How can I be so sure that a new lawn of leaders can be seeded? It has been said that “The divine is no respecter of persons”. My interpretation of this is that if it has been done by person, one set of people in space and time before, then it can surely be done by another person and another set of people again.

With that sense of faith and hope, let us heed the call to EnLighten our own heart. Our lighted heart full of warmth is needed to create a new landscape where flowers of truth and justice can bloom again. The woods may be dark now, but we need to keep waking and walking. “We have promises to keep” to those of the next generation holding on to us, as we lead them cross the street to light, just like we held on to the generation of light-bearers before us.

Raise the banner of love. Arise, awake, and stop not until the goal is achieved! – Swami Vivekananda

Kumud

Saturday, May 30 2020. 640am. 

P.S. I invite you to join our weekly conversation in #SpiritChat on twitter, held together by the glue of love and light. This week, we will gather at our usual hour of 9am ET / 1pm UTC / 630pm India. Come and share some practices, some stories, that help you EnLighten your heart. Namaste – Kumud. 

After the rainstorm – light and lightness of raindrops on flowers

Streaming the Heart’s Light

Tags

heart, heart matters, light, lightness, streaming

 

We have come a long way from the time when our televisions and radios had rabbit ears and antennas that reached out to receive their signals. In this always-connected age of WiFi and cellular service, where cell phones, tablets and laptops can ‘stream’ almost any type of audio and video at the touch of a button or the click of a mouse, our works is inundated with the concept of “streaming.” Corporations like NetFlix, YouTube, Disney and Apple are all in competition for our audio and visual awareness and our dollars.

What does all this “streaming” mean for our spiritual practices and awareness? How are we to develop, maintain and sustain the health of our mind and our heart when we are seemingly immersed in this Alphabet soup of marketing, advertising and ‘news cycles’? What are we to learn and teach from this upheaval that is causing many of us to question our values and beliefs in things like trust, honesty, integrity, service and the like?

One possible solution to the unknown of massive change created by digital “streaming” is to apply it to what we already know. We know our heart is the repository of love and light. We know our heart is the seedbed of softness and kindness. We know our heart is the source of silence and stillness. What if we were to condition and train our heart to constantly stream love, light, softness, kindness, silence and stillness?

In all of my forest walks this autumn, I am yet to undertake a journey that has not infused me with hope and elevation. The subtle changes of color, the falling of a leaf as it spins towards the earth, the rustling of the forest floor as I step gently, the sun emerging from behind clouds and streaming light from behind tall trees — I could go on and on. Observing and being in Nature is frequently my external antidote to the digital stream.

And yet, we need an internal antidote to the digital soup that we often find ourselves boiling in. A four-part practice has served me well in creating my own portable stream. It consists of cleaning the vessel of the day’s digital stream, universal prayer, physical relaxation, and sitting with a gentle focus on the source of light within the heart. It may seem like a lot of work, but I find these four actions harmonize the four quadrants of the heart. The heart’s light flows with clarity again, and the stream of joy and silence is available to immerse in wherever and whenever I need reconnecting to source.

No internet connection required.

 

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly stream on Twitter in #SpiritChat — a gathering of folks “streaming their heart’s light” with enthusiasm — Sunday, Oct 20 at 9amET / 630pm India. Namaste – @AjmaniK

On Celebrating Nothing(ness)

Tags

action, celebration, healing, lightness, nothingness

The daily nightsong that begins in the pre-dusk hour with great earnest, has been particularly persistent this season. Over the past few days, I have found myself trying to identify the player(s) of this orchestra through online searches of bird songs, Audubon societies, and more. Truth be told, I have not yielded much, if anything. It is more like a whole lot of nothing.

And then, one night last week, after another round of futile googling of the source(s), I was reminded of Winnie the Pooh…

My favorite thing is to do a whole lot of nothing – for something good often comes out of nothing.

I paused, and asked myself – what is so wrong with not knowing the source(s) of the nightsongs? How about I simply do nothing more than embrace the beauty of the orchestra, without trying to assign name, cause or reason to the sounds and harmonies? What if I were to simply choose to enjoy, even celebrate the gift of spring’s songs, without trying to analyze them?

And so, for the past few nights, the night’s songs that last from dusk to dawn, have taken on new tones, new rhythms, new colors for me. It is as if they have been reborn. I have been opening the windows a bit more, drinking a bit more tea, and simply been sitting in open surrender to the all and the nothing.

The result? The allness and the nothingness have often flooded me, occasionally stopped my breath, flitted a not-knowing smile across my face, and filled me with the very same orange-peach glow that sunset often spreads across the sky at spring’s twilight. I have stopped my wandering and wondering in those few moments, to allow for something good to happen as a result of my celebration of nothing(ness).

Impossible to do, you say? Well. Consider another Winnie the Pooh gem of living wisdom:

They say that nothing is impossible. But I do a bit of nothing every day…

Embrace the impossible moment. I invite you to create time and space, where you do a bit of nothing every day with loving effortlessness. Maybe something good will be created as a result. Maybe, in embracing nothingness, time and space will cease to exist, and be reborn as love. Maybe we will discover that our inner black holes are in fact filled with the allness of light, and that nothingness is simply a portal to That something, which is in fact, everything.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us Sunday April 14 at 9amET, as we embrace nothingness while listening to each others’ songs, drinking tea, and sharing light. Namaste – Kumud

Sunset and twilight – an invitation to celebrate nothing(ness)

Making Light Of Obstacles

Tags

festivals, ganesha, lightness, obstacles, sweetness

The fourth day of the brightening lunar fortnight in September marks the beginning of a ten day festival honoring the divinity named Ganesha in India. If you have been to an Indian household or temple, you may have seen his image prominently displayed in entryways. Ganesha is only one his (one thousand and one) names, and he holds the unique distinction of being the first deity to be invoked in any Vedic prayer service.

The festival begins with a “(re)establishment” of Ganesha in the home or the temple, and in temporary celebratory pavilions set up by communities for the ten days of the festival. Small and large figurines of various degrees of ornateness are created by artisans in the form of paintings and sculptures. The festival begins with an elaborate welcome to Ganesha by the celebrating communities, which is appropriate as he is considered to be the “chief of community groups”.

The popularity of Ganesha’s festival is perhaps because of his status as a “remover of obstacles”. His assistance is deemed particularly useful when embarking on new beginnings or during significant life-events. One distinguishing characteristic of Ganesha is his propensity towards a lightness of spirit, an attitude of playfulness and airiness. The proof of this propensity is that his vehicle of choice for his heavy physical frame is a mouse!

If you have read this far, and this is your first introduction to Ganesha, you are probably wondering – what does all of this have to do with (non-denominational) spirituality? I am glad you asked. Ganesha can be viewed as a representation, a metaphor for our intrinsic joy and lightness. His love for food (particularly, sweet stuff!) is a metaphor for adding sweetness to our lives at every opportunity. His elephant head and human body is a metaphor for the Oneness of all living beings.

Is it possible that by (re)establishing one or more of Ganesha’s qualities within us, that we may learn to make light of our own obstacles in life? When weighed down with our own struggles, do we often lose perspective and forget our heart’s intrinsic lightness? When anger turned to bitterness invades us, do we tend to forget our own inherent sweetness? When our own obstacles starve for our attention, do we tend to lose appetite for empathy towards the problems facing others?

The combination of Ganesha’s qualities of lightness of heart, love of sweetness and insatiable appetite for the offerings (of obstacles) made to him, are perhaps a prescription for us. A prescription to make light of our obstacles, and to help others make light of their own.

And then, like the revered figurines of Ganesha that are taken in grand procession and immersed in waters on the tenth and final day of the festival, we shall celebrate the letting go of, the immersion of our own (revered) obstacle(s) in the waters of lightness…

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us Sunday, September 16 at 9amET / 630pm India for our weekly community gathering on twitter in #SpiritChat. I will bring the sweetness of questions. You can bring the lightness of answers. Namaste. (Wikipedia article about Ganesha’s Festival).

Bees at work – making light of obstacles!

From my home to yours – remover of obstacles…

On Flowering Lightness

Tags

flowers, lightness, spring, summer, walking

It had been a busy spring, and an even busier summer. Family. Work. Travel. Family Travel. Work Travel. And I had slowly gotten away from my regular, almost daily walks on the trails that rarely faired to inspired me to pause, write, take photos, and much more. However, as had often happened before, I knew from personal experience that Nature is patient. And that she would be waiting for me with wide open arms whenever I returned.

And return I did, over the past two weeks. Slowly but surely, like a caterpillar seeded with the knowledge that its truth is to be a butterfly, I emerged into the forest again. The trails welcomed me back with open arms, especially the small ones that were now camouflaged by the overgrowth of summer. As I walked the narrowest ones closest to the river’s edge, the embrace of the tall shrubs forming archways on both sides of me was unmistakable. And with every walk, my heart felt a little lighter, as it found its way away from the heaviness of the world.

But where were all the flowers? The ones who with their sudden appearance around familiar bends, would create a surge of joy and elevate the heart? The yellows surrounding blacks on tall sunflower stems, the whites and blues on short stems staying close to ground? I must have missed their comings and goings as I was busy with the outer world, I thought. Or maybe there were some new surprises in store for me, I surmised. Unfazed, I kept walking in the faith that lightness would bloom in other, yet to be revealed ways.

One of the “trails” forms a figure eight. One loop goes three-fourths of the way, around the river and the other loop, forms the inner arc of a kidney-bean shaped lagoon. A roadway forms part of both the loops, in the form of a long border. I usually walk both loops on any given day, on the advice of a #SpiritChat friend who told me a while back that “walking figure eights energizes the heart” (thank you, @SarahsEnergy). On this day, I first walked the river loop, and then crossed over to the lagoon.

As I approached the lagoon and its still waters to my right, I happened to glance left as a flash of pink and purple caught my eye. It was a single hibiscus plant, with blooms opened towards the sun, hosting some tiny visitors. Aha, I thought. A new flower. I knew that there would be at least one new bloom somewhere that would lighten my heart. As is my wont, I paused to record my ‘discovery’ and take a few photos. But that was merely the preview of what was to come. As if on cue, around the next bend that first arched towards the lagoon and then away from it, was an entire ‘field’ of hibiscus flowers. Hundreds of them, forming a ring around a pond out of which arose tall, branchless, trees (roots of trees?).

A heart-lightening, healing, inspiring sight if there ever was one. And as I kept walking, there were hundreds more. One pond after another. It was as if their seeds might have rained down from the skies in spring, and now they all bloomed in unison at mid-summer. The ‘discovery’ reminded me of what happens sometimes on the inner path. We develop a practice (walking), we get energized by some ‘results’ (flowers), and then we fade away from the practice when we feel that our ‘progress’ has stalled. The outer world squeezes our space, our time and our commitment.

And yet, we know from having personally experienced lightness and joy, that the practice can lighten us again. So, with grace and with remembrance, we return and we recommit. We renew our walk, our practice, by reclaiming a small fraction of space and time. We commit to simply walking in lightness in every step, lightness of heart, for the simple joy of being on our path. We learn to surrender our search for the flowers and the fruits, and let the path embrace us.

It is perhaps in our commitment to simply walk, that the fields of flowers bloom without, unbidden, to remind us of the lightness that can flower within us.

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us Sunday, July 22nd at 9amET / 630pm India on twitter for our weekly conversation with the #SpiritChat community. Many of us love flowers and are flowering in the company of each other. Come join us. Namaste.

The first hibiscus…

A hibiscus “field” rings the pond

On Developing Forgetfulness

Tags

forgetfulness, habits, lightness, remembrance

Forgetfulness can be a funny thing. We often joke and laugh about our forgetfulness as we grow older. What did I walk into this room for? Where did I put my keys? What did I eat for lunch yesterday? And so on. There are also things (events) that we would like to forget. However, that is easier said than done. The things we want to forget tend to stick to us like algae on rocks. The river of time flows over the rocks, trying to dislodge the algae, but often to no avail. The harder the river tries, the faster the algae seems to want to cling. Such can be the nature of our attempts at developing “voluntary” forgetfulness.

From a mental health perspective, forgetfulness isn’t funny at all. The growth of memory related diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia, poses serious challenges to our health systems, to families and to communities as a whole. The financial costs related to the treatments of these disease is conservatively estimated in the billions of dollars in the USA alone. The nature of “involuntary” forgetfulness is that it leads to memory and cognitive loss, which, in most cases, is irreversible.

The classification of forgetfulness as “voluntary” and “involuntary” is perhaps arbitrary. From a spiritual health perspective, what is perhaps important to ask is – how skilled are we at forgetting what we need to forget? Once we have learnt what we needed to learn from a particular event, how long do we keep it around in our awareness? In many instances, our brain helps us out by deciding what to immediately discard. The rest of the ‘life-stuff’ then gets filed into short-term, medium-term or long-term storage. The challenge is that we forget what got filed where.

When I moved into my previous home, I brought boxes full of stuff with me that ended up in the basement. There must have been at least two or three dozen of them, of various sizes. I had attempted to label them as best I could, so that I would know what was in them without having to open them. Fourteen years later, at least half of those unopened boxes ended up in a storage unit, in preparation for my next move. I had forgotten that I had filed away my “life-stuff”. My rationale was – maybe, someday, I may need what’s in them.

Some memories are like that. Their impression on us, our clinging to them, runs deep. The deeper the impressions, whether from pain or happiness, the harder it is for us to forget. Their depths become our comfort spaces, the valleys in which we go to hide from the world. And the more we (re)visit those spaces, the deeper they become with our fresh treads. So, how do we break the cycle? How do we make sure that the unopened boxes don’t make it into the basement of our next home?

We may have to make a decision to lighten our load, to develop voluntary forgetfulness towards certain ‘things’. Our decision may create room for other ‘things’, preferably those which leave a lighter imprint than the ones they replace. How may we do this? Any current practice, which is ‘working’ for us, can help us. For example, in meditation, we can decide to ‘forget’ the outer world and our river of ‘problems’. If we can commit to this for even for a few (tens of) minutes a day, we can create space — for remembrance in our inner world.

One unopened box at a time, we can choose to develop forgetfulness and empty our storage unit. Our new home’s basement will be grateful.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat in #SpiritChat – Sunday, July 8th at 9amET / 630pm India. I will make sure not to forget the tea and snacks, and questions. Looking forward to ‘seeing’ you. Namaste.

The hydrangea finally blooms… when it has (perhaps) finally forgotten about what winter was like…

On Traveling Light

Tags

journey, lightness, travel

The metaphor of traveling is often used to describe our passage through daily living, and our lives in general. Some folks take naturally to traveling, and even have a strong affinity and liking to it, while others are more ‘meh’ about the whole idea. Regardless of our preferences for travel itself, our experiences have taught us that ‘traveling light’ is much easier than traveling with ‘excess baggage’.

In the life-metaphor context, traveling light takes much practice. A lot of it. We tend to accumulate, to collect, to even hoard things like feelings, experiences, judgements, rejections and much more. Every so often, even on a single day that might have started off on a ‘light-hearted’ and upbeat mode for us, we find ourselves ‘weighed down’ by the end of the day. Sometimes we barely reach mid-morning and we are already ‘traveling heavy’. Have you ever had this experience? Have you ever wondered why?

It is easy to assign blame to the external world when we feel ‘weighed down’. Then again, the world is relatively agnostic to our inner state, i.e. our traveling preferences. The outer world provides us with all kinds of opportunities – both positive and negative – that can help us subtract from or add to our cumulative traveling weight. For example, the choice to take a short, brisk walk outside at some point in our day is as much available to most of us, as is the choice not to take that walk. In this case, our choice will determine whether we lighten our load or not.

What are some other daily life choices that can ehlp us lighten our load and travel light? Here are a few choices to consider…

1. Invoke Joy. When the world begins to weigh heavy on us with its demands, we can remind ourselves to invoke Joy in our heart. “I choose to do this with Joy” can instantly lighten our load.

2. Grow your Peace. When the world swamps us with its heaviness through discord and dissonance, we can choose to continue to plant seeds of peace within. This is where our commitment to our daily (spiritual) practice(s) can play a significant part.

3. Observe your patterns. Our thoughts, our food intake, our media consumption, our spending habits and more. They can all reveal the ‘traveling habits’ of our lives. Are our patterns trending towards increasing or decreasing complexity? Heaviness or Lightness?

4. Choose your energy footprint. Are we brightening or darkening the space that we enter? Does our presence weigh heavy or light on those we connect with on a daily basis? A quick self-check of our heart-state can often inform us if it is light or heavy. Rest assured that it is that very heart-state that becomes our energy footprint.

I am sure that you can think of many more choices that put you in a ‘light’ state of travel. The more aware we are of these choices, the better our odds of ‘traveling light’. And when we choose to travel light, those around us appreciate us more, we enjoy the journey more, and we arrive rested and relaxed!

Namaste, and happy travels!

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Please join me and the #SpiritChat community as we explore ‘Traveling Light’ – Sunday, December 3rd at 9amEST / 2pm UTC / 7:30pm IST on twitter. Thank you!

‘Traveling Light’ on a walk through the local Metroparks…

Abundance in Spirituality

Tags

abundance, lightness, spirtuality

What can an attitude of abundance bring to our daily life? This question is perhaps best answered when we are knee deep in a lack of abundance. It is often easy for us to get into the “lack” mode when life isn’t quite going the way we expect it to. It is when we reach for the peanut-butter jar – and end up scraping the bottom – that we appreciate the abundance of the full-to-the-brimness that we had enjoyed recently. How easily we take all the wonderfully abundant ‘things’ for granted in our life, don’t we?

If we have an abundance of clean air to breathe or fresh water to drink and shower with or nourishing food to eat – we can be grateful. If we have an abundance of all three, we are perhaps in a small minority on this earth. If we have an aboundance of healthy relationships (friends, family, neighbors) or good personal health and energy levels or vocations that afford us a good standard of living, we can be grateful. If we have an abundance of all three, we are perhaps in a small minority considered super-abundant. Yet, we are often unaware of these simple abundances, aren’t we?

There is something unique about a self-awareness of abundance. It provides lightness to the heart. The more that we become aware of our simple abundances, the less we tend to focus on what we lack. The less we focus on our lack, the more our heart attracts Joy. Abundance helps us become like the flower that revels in the Joy of its own color and fragrance. It is this Joy that eventually attracts Grace. The bees come visiting, sit lightly with our lightness, and create and spread even more abundance.

It all begins by celebrating the abundance that we already have in our life right now. We can then experience lightness in our heart and soundness of mind. Lightness of heart helps make available valuable emotional energy that we can direct towards creativity. Have you ever noticed that when your heart is heavy, in emotional churn, that your productivity drops off drmatically? I know that mine does. The quicker I return my heart to abundance, the easier it is for me to get out of my own way and start walking in Joy again.

I invite you to join me in a self-test. Let us ask these questions, everyday for the next seven days. In what area(s) of my life do I feel most abundant? Did I share lack or did I share abundance with others? What actions made my heart feel light, abundant? How can I include more of abundance-creating activities in my daily routine? Let us observe our answers, and watch if our daily actions change to create more abundance for us, and those around us.

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join me as I host the #SpiritChat weekly chat on twitter, Sunday August 27th at 9amET/1pmUTC. We shall celebrate the small abundance(s) in our life, and share some cheer and lightness with each other.

A Butterfly Enjoys Simple Abundance…

A Spirit of Reunion

Tags

lightness, poetry, reunion, spirituality, summer

I had been so busy with writing the technical paper and then putting the presentation together for the upcoming Aerospace conference that I had not walked the forest in almost two weeks. As I waited at the light at the bottom of the hill where I would normally go up the other side towards the West Gate and in to work, I glanced to my right and saw the bridge gleaming in the sunshine. Something tugged at my heart and said, come visit. We miss you.

So, I turned left at the light, parked in the first available space, and crossed over to the other side. On to the bridge, where now the clouds were playing hide and seek with the trusses. The lack of rain over the past few weeks had almost run the river aground, but not quite. I decided to turn right immediately after the bridge, with the idea of climbing the steep hill to walk the trail on the plateau above. But, it was not to be. The river had other plans for me. Ever so imperceptibly, she slowed down my walk, and brought me to a standstill.

And then, the flow of words began. I paid attention, listened, and wrote… I share a few of them with you.

The river runs so shallow
Yet the hill still rises steep
In walking these old trails
What new promises do I keep?

The air so still
Yet the singing of birds deep
I take in all the stillness
Into my core does the Joy sink deep; 

I stopped wondering long ago
Who is this muse that comes calling,
Amid the crescendo of the cicadas 
In the silence of the water falling; 

The invitation on some mornings
Is simply too powerful to resist
I try going towards the sun, 
but am imperceptibly lured by the mist; 

I came to walk long trails
Yet she has me rooted, standing still
Sit with me a while and visit she says 
Save for another day, the fragile hill; 

Summer is only here for so long
Like a firefly her light is fleeting
I am so honored that you invited me to stay
You raised my spirits with this brief meeting; 

If you will just stay that little bit longer 
Beneath the waters lie many a great treasure
So many dream of an endless summer
Yet of this moment they take little measure...

On this day, I experienced a beautiful reunion with nature, in a quiet oasis that invited me to be still. I arrived ‘empty handed’, yet left with a great treasure of poetry, peace, and a reminder to not stay away for too long. Have you participated in any reunions lately? Are you planning any in the near future? And how about your inner reunion with Joy, Awareness and Pure Existence? How do you experience That (re)union on a regular, even daily basis? Or have you forgotten…

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

I invite you to reunite with us in #SpiritChat on Sunday, July 16th at 9amET/1pmUTC on twitter – and particularly so if you have been away for a while. We hope you will bring some goodies to share.

The nature trails called, and I answered… only to stand still in reunion

On Light and Levity

Tags

levity, light, lightness, perspective, spirtuality

Two books – “Questions for the Dalai Lama” (library digital edition) and “The Mastery of Love” (library analog edition) merged into a powerful stream this week. “Light and Levity” emerged from reading them concurrently and alternately, interspersed with a few notes from walking among the profusion of Life springing up in some new areas of the local forest…

And then one day we will wake up and decide that we are done with punishing them for their long past mistake(s). We have been carrying this burden of being judge and jury for as long as we can remember. They may no longer even be the person that we think or imagine they were. For all intents and purposes, the person who heaped all that hurt and pain and suffering and grief upon us, all of which was justifiable and (still may be) very real for us – may be long ‘dead’ and gone. Yet, we remain. Transfixed by the past.

We may not admit it, but, to a large extent, we all choose the burdens that we wish to carry – and we have been carrying some of these burdens for so long that they have become part of our identity. We cannot imagine our forward motion or movement without this burden. The burden lowers our center of gravity and may even give us (temporary) added stability, like the sandbags that we throw in the back of our trucks to give us traction on icy pavements. But, is winter not yet over for us? Did we forget that it is spring time, the ice has melted, and that it’s okay to shed those sandbags which do not serve any more purpose?

Yes. Gravity has a purpose, but so does levity. When gravity threatens to whelm us, wash our joys away in an emotional current like the swiftly moving river swollen temporarily with overnight rain carrying away everything in her path – levity and light can be a safe haven for us.

We can choose a different perspective. We can choose to lighten our burden and reframe our vision. Instead of looking down upon ourselves in gravity, or looking behind at the hurts and pains of our past, we can reframe our view. We can bridge the wisdom of levity with the compassion of the future.

A change in perspective is often our friend. It can remind us to be kind to our own selves, to treat our own selves with a bit less gravity and a bit more levity. Consider: if we forget how to occasionally laugh at our own selves and smile at our own infirmities and frailties, how will we find the courage to chose to lighten our dead-weight burdens?

Light and levity beckon to us. They are like the steps leading up to ‘Indian Hill’ that come into view as we round the blind corner on the trail, on a day when we had only planned to ‘walk the flats’ to rest our aching feet from a week of walking the forest…

What is a seeker to do when invited? To climb or not to climb? Is That even a question?! Do I even need to describe the new light and levity gained from walking the forest at the top of That hill?

Kumud

P.S. Join us in #SpiritChat Sunday May 1st at 9amET (USA) / 1pm UTC for our weekly twitter gathering ~ Topic: Light and Levity ~ Hosted by @AjmaniK ~ Light, Levity, Lightness and Perspective will be our themes for May…