Celebrating New Energy

Tags

awareness, celebration, journey, lightness

We are down to the last but one day of the year and after a week of fiendishly cold weather and ice-storms and travel havoc over the Christmas weekend a few days ago, it seems borderline criminal that I am walking the dogs in sixty degree weather. The skies are getting overcast and heavy enough with the promise of imminent rain, but it isn’t lost on me that the rate of change of the weather has been anything but dramatic over the past few days.

I would say that these patterns are abnormal, and would even dare say that I would prefer a ‘normal’ winter with its energy of snow and some icy days — but perhaps this is the ‘new’ normal — and we better adapt to it, and fast. The human body does have the ability to adapt quickly, but it has its limits to withstand environmental shocks and such, as we found out during the pandemic. Humans learn that living a full life is about maintaining a good energy balance, keeping harmony between the inner and the outer, discovering new facets of the diamonds that they are, softening their sharp edges as they journey, and more.

As we step into another New Year as deemed by completion of yet another revolution around our life-sustaining star, a lot of us can perhaps feel an infusion of, an immersion into, or even a surge of new energy in one or more layers of our existence on planet earth. I felt this newness of energy on the day after the winter solstice as I asked for permission of the waters, and then gently walked into a cenote in the Yucatán peninsula. It is hard to describe the feeling of freedom when a non-swimmer like me actually floats on his back and looks up at the high-noon Sun filling one with light — for a moment I thought I was seeing stars in the daytime — except that it was all a beautiful melding of the elements playing their celestial harmony within my heart.

Like at least some of you, I am looking forward to the New Year as an opportunity for new darings, new experiments, new ventures, new rediscoveries of what lies within, and more. Resolutions are not my thing. They never were. I can’t explain why. Maybe I am simply too content to know and feel the new energy that is continuously flowing my way, often ‘on request,’ glowing my path as I learn to soar and fly with my fellow travelers and guides.

How about you, dear reader and traveler? How does your energy level feel as you come into the New Year? Is there a sense of newness, of an elevated potential of being, or…? I invite you to consider, maybe even ask someone to help you reflect — they may point you to tools, practices and opportunities that you haven’t considered yet?

No matter which direction you move in, I wish you the best of the New Year’s energy. May it work to energize all those life areas that need harmony and integration, and suffuse more life within your life. May the new energy help you and me remember the directive of “That Thou Art” — the energy without is the energy within — the old and the new are One.

Namaste.

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter chat, Sunday January 1 2023 at 9amET / 2pmGMT / 730pm India, as we celebrate the energy of the New Year in Spiritchat. – @AjmaniK

The energy of a new dawn brings the goodness of Hope

Paths of Openness

Tags

awareness, fear, lightness, openness, vibration

Rarely, if ever have I not felt better after walking in Nature’s embrace. I have often wondered during my walks – how does this happen every single time? Is it the stillness and the silence and the vastness and the constantly changing variety of the path? Or is it something more, something that logic and intellect are unable to adequately explain?

Perhaps what fills the heart and soul when we get out of our own heads and walk the open path, beyond the limitations of our knowledge and even our knowing, is beyond mere reason and words to explain?

And yet, having experienced the heart-affirming outcome of every single past walk in vast openness, there are days when I hesitate to walk… why is this? The world and its seeming urgencies and pressures of time and space create mental barriers.

How do I overcome the barriers to openness? I remember the light, the flow, the radiance, the glow, the energy transfer that creates temporal transformation that lightens the heart and points me upwards. The gravitational pull of the final destination, the path to it, winds through openness, does it not?

The open path often finds us walking alone. This doesn’t mean that we need to stop living in the world, isolate ourselves from feelings and emotions. Being open can help increase our awareness of the feelings and emotions that are creating excess and imbalance within us. Our ‘practices’ are ‘working’ when they open us, orient us towards equilibrium, and harmony with the world. Over time, openness can teach us how to conserve energy, so that we can do our best work while moving in the direction of our heart’s destiny.

The alternative to openness is closedness, driven by fear. What does the path to closedness create? Perhaps more fear? The first law of thermodynamics states that ‘an isolated system cannot change its internal energy, and hence do no work’. The corollary is that the work done by us depends on how we un-isolate ourselves, connect with energy sources around us, and allow for change in the level of our internal energy.

Maybe that’s the answer to the original question. Why does Nature, and by extension, some people, raise our internal energy and vibration when we associate with them? Is it because we allow for them to do so, by being open to them? If yes, then the choice becomes – what kind of path and what kind of energy association will we open ourselves to, to get closer to our destination?

Sunflowers on the open path by the river… some thrive, and some…

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter gathering and open conversation, Sunday Sep 4 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India in #SpiritChat. Namaste ~ AjmaniK

Towards the Light of Truth

Tags

darkness, deepawali, diwali, light, lightness, seeds, trees, truth

I did not exactly plan it this way. Three weeks ago, when I collaborated with my good friend Jon Mertz on the topic of “betterment”, I hadn’t looked this far ahead. Two weeks ago, we talked about “common ground”, and how it would be vital for us to find some, despite all our differences, in order to have a thriving and sustainable future. A week ago, with the goal of betterment in mind, we discussed the idea of sowing “seeds of kindness” on “common ground”. 

Assuming that at least some of us have planted some seeds of kindness, or are at least planning to plant some, we now need some nourishment for those seeds to successfully germinate. Nourishment comes from the nutrients in the soil, the water, and from sunlight. Yes, seeds are typically sown beneath the surface, but some light does reach them even below ground. Sunlight is in fact essential for the process of photosynthesis – the process by which light is synthesized into sustainable life. In essence, light plays the same role to grow seeds, as truth does to grow love in our lives.

How long would we be able to live a holistic, sustainable, growth-oriented, thriving life of joy without a constant stream of truth flowing into our heart-mind? I surmise that light and truth are interchangeable in our lives. Where there is light, there is truth. Where there is truth, there is light. When truth is felt by our heart, we feel lightness. When untruth is felt by our mind, we experience darkness. The victory which we often talk about, and even celebrate – that of goodness over evil, kindness over prejudice, love over bigotry – is in some ways encapsulated by the light of truth dispelling darkness. 

When a seed is able to encapsulate light, its darkness begins to disappear. With light, the seed’s ‘mind’ realizes that its purpose isn’t to remain buried beneath the surface. With light, the seed’s ‘heart’ begins to manifest its truth, which is to become a giant oak tree. With light, the seed starts growing root of truth below the surface and shoots of awareness above the surface. In some ways, seeds and trees are perfect examples of the circle of light, life and truth. 

Out of what has the tree been produced? Out of the seed; the whole of the tree was there in the seed. It comes out and becomes manifest. So, the whole of this universe has been created out of this very universe existing in a minute form….….every evolution is preceded by an involution. The seed is the father of the tree, but another tree was itself the father of the seed. 

— The Cosmos: The Macrocosm – Swami Vivekananda

Some of you who have read this far are probably wondering – what does all of this have to do with spirituality and spiritual practice? Remember the story of the “bowl of lentils” from last week’s post on sowing kindness? What if every single one of us was to choose to only see the light of truth that shines within us? If we were to practice that, will we not see our own truth, and start germinating rapidly to our manifest destiny of enlightenment? If we were to be in the process of rapid growth, what would we see in the world around us?

Immersed in the light of truth, would we not tend to see more of goodness, joy, kindness, faith, gratitude, honesty, integrity, acceptance and justice? Would we not perform more of the actions that produce light instead of darkness? Light begets light. Truth begets truth. The light of truth begets truth and light, just like the tree begets the seed and the seed begets the tree. “Every evolution is preceded by an involution”. So, where do we begin our new practice of germination?

Any time that we feel ‘darkness’, let us choose to immediately light a new lamp or candle. A newly lit lamp can serve as a reminder that we can evoke the source of light that we carry within us, at any given moment. When we evoke the source, the tree, we, the seed, also evoke its qualities of omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, self-luminousness, joyfulness, awareness and truthfulness.

Is there a better way to celebrate the light of truth?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly community gathering on twitter, Sunday, November 15 at 9amET / 730pm India. We will celebrate kindness, truth and light, and perhaps even make a commitment to goodness. I hope you can join me and indulge some of my questions as we gather on common ground. Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

A reflection – on the source of the light of truth within us…

On Light and Lightness

Tags

autumn, light, lightness, Tran sformation, transitions

More than the change in the early morning temperatures, there is a remarkable stillness that comes with dawn as the season make the turn from summer towards autumn. You can feel the stirring of change in the leaves as the ones that are to yield their greens to the yellows and reds and oranges get ready to lighten the load of the branches with their eventual precipitation.

I have been watching this transition brought about by the change in the angles and intensity of light for many years, and yet, every year the totality of the letting go of the deciduous ones rarely fails to amaze me. It’s almost as if autumn comes to remind me of the benefits of harnessing the change in light within to take another step towards lightness on the path.

There is a sense of urgency that comes with the shortening of the days as the setting of the sun in the distance moves ever so slightly Southwest every evening. Every day that winter comes closer, the physical light that we have access to grows a few minutes shorter. The birds know it, the bees know it, the butterflies and lightning bugs that have disappeared knew it, and yet, somehow, sometimes, us humans choose to forget it.

Maybe it isn’t so much that we forget about the shortening of the days but it is that we have our mind immersed in the past or the future that we are unaware of the transitions. External unawareness reduces the sensitivity of our inner sensors, as they collect dust from living a life of blindness towards the gift of the presence of light.

It has taken me about thirty minutes to write this post on a crisp Saturday morning. The two boys across the lake on their swing set have been going back and forth like pendulums all this while. The stillness of the forest has gone from the steady hum of insects to the awakening of blue jays. The young puppy has gone from calmly sitting on the dew covered cushion to chasing its tail in circles.

I sit here wondering about how the developing of the practice of focusing on the source of light within the heart has improved my awareness of the importance of lightness in my life. Lightness can come when we are lost to the external world in the moment, when light within returns to the source. We often experience lightness in joyous external activity like music, painting, dancing, writing, cooking and the like.

It is when attachment to activity and inactivity stops, when all the colors merge into One, when the letting go is effortless in its completeness, that the immersion in lightness is complete.

No matter the season, spirituality and spiritual practice is perhaps about being in that lightness, carrying the awareness of transformation within us, in every moment.

Onward. Bring on the new colors. I am ready to let go. How about you?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and conversation with the #SpiritChat community on Twitter – Sunday, Sep 13 at 9amET/ 630pm India. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Where all the colors merge into One, in that light we can experience lightness…

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…