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…

The Art of Doing Nothing

Tags

consciousness, meditation, nothingness, purpose, relaxation

One annual rite of passage at the start of summer is the making of the ‘reading list’. At my daughter’s school, the ‘requirement’ is to read a few thousand words worth of books from a list of their own making. As her first week out of school came to a close on Friday, she decided that we ought to give the library a visit so that she could get started.

The library, after over a year or so? Well, yes! Paper books. Yay! And I would have plenty of time to browse the “New Books” section because her list was a dozen and a half books long. Maybe I would find a new title on poetry or spirituality. We would see…

Thirty minutes of browsing, pulling and putting books back, and nothing was ‘speaking’ to me. And then, a small hardcover in white that said, “NIKSEN – Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing”. This was it. How did the library know that I had been exploring the Zen practice of “Wu Wei” or “purposelessness” over the past week or so?!

Needless to say, “Niksen” came home with me and I have been enjoying it. At first glance, the phrase “doing nothing” seems like an oxymoron because it combines ‘doing’ with ‘nothing’. If we are ‘doing’, then it cannot be ‘nothing’, right? The paradox can be resolved by adding ‘without premeditation or defined purpose’ to the ‘doing’. Think of an unplanned, spontaneous detour on a road trip. Or a trip into la-la land as you pause your brisk morning walk to look at the geese and new goslings cross the street. Or…

In moments where we suspend the churn of mental, emotional and even spiritual activity, we can find ourselves in a state of ‘doing nothing’. It is a state of just being. Some would equate ‘doing nothing’ to ‘being useless’. Even if that were true, the Tao philosophy posits that it is the balance between the ‘useless’ and the ‘useful’ that gives meaning to life. The pursuit of ‘being useful’ accumulates stress and tension in our lives. Embracing the useless by doing nothing, even for a few moments, can release stress and renew us.

We have all experienced those moments where we ‘lost ourselves’ to the world as we immersed into nothingness. Gazing at a butterfly landing on the azaleas, watching the kids rolling down the hill at the playground, listening to a favorite piece of music or dozing off in a lounge chair during a beach trip. You get the idea. Doing nothing can be so much fun because it feels like play! So, why don’t we do more of Niksen or Wu-wei?

We have our reasons, real and imagined. We have responsibilities, deadlines, project reports, home-stuff, school-stuff, work-stuff, the stuff of life and death. How are we supposed to find time for conscious nothingness in our busy lives? Maybe we can ask a different question. Where are we headed if we don’t make time to ‘do nothing’ and give the ‘useful’ moments of our life a chance to rest?

Let’s make time. If necessary, schedule time to do nothing. It’s going to be uncomfortable for some of us ‘go getters’. If it helps, let’s consider your ‘doing nothing’ time as a new growth opportunity. Who knows? We may find ourselves niksening in the “what’s new” section of our local library and even discover some new (inner) treasures.

Kumud

P.S. I invite you to join our weekly Twitter chat on Sunday June 6 at 9amET / 630pm India. We will play with the idea of doing nothing in #Spiritchat! Namaste – @AjmaniK

Sunrise happens while we do nothing…

Close Encounters with Joy

Tags

joy, meditation, practice

The nature of life and its living is that we have many interactions on a daily, hourly, minute-ly basis with the external world. Every sound, every visual input, every thought, every item of food and drink, every encounter that our physical senses have with the ‘world’… they all leave an ‘impression’ on us at some level of our existence. Such is the nature of our living that we tend to filter these inputs into categories of ‘positive’, ‘negative’ or ‘neutral’.

But there are some interactions that resist categorization. They are difficult to describe in words, speech or even visuals. The harder we try to describe or classify these encounters, the more they slip away from us. It is like trying to describe that feeling of pure Joy that courses through your being when you see the first dragonfly of a new summer. Or the pure Joy felt while watching the unexpected visit of a hummingbird on newly blooming flowers on the porch. Or the radiance of Joy that leaves you breathless as the sunset sends golden messengers into the evening sky.

I am sure that you have had many such experiences in your life, in your living. Many of them may have been seemingly ‘random’ encounters, a by product of being at the right place at the right time – often called serendipity. But what if we could have deliberate engagements with Joy on a daily, hourly, minute-ly basis? What if we were to approach our (spiritual) practice(s) with the Joy, the energy, the excitement, the indescribable exhilaration that we felt when we (first) realized that we were truly in love? How forward-looking were we then for the next meeting, the next conversation, the next embrace of our beloved!

Imagine what our (inner) world would look like in a month or a year if we were to rise every morning to meet every daily encounter with JOY?! What (more) could we accomplish then with our action(s)? I posit that we can (re)create an intentional close encounter with Joy in every action. And every time the world distracts us, we can immerse ourselves in the heart and declare…

I AM Joy. I belong to IT. It IS me. I AM present in IT. IT is present in me. I AM That.

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

I invite you to reunite with us in #SpiritChat on Sunday, July 23rd at 9amET/1pmUTC on twitter – share some of your personal ‘close encounters of the Joy kind’ with us. I share with you some photos of my personal ‘close encounters’…

On Clarity and Commotion

Tags

clarity, commotion, meditation, spirituality

What is it about some people that they have the ability to keep their wits about them and operate in great clarity, as others around them are clouded, even frozen, in commotion and confusion? Are some people the beneficiaries of a natural propensity towards clarity while others are susceptible, vulnerable to commotion? What brings out your “clarity response” and fuels it? Are you mostly a “worrier” or a “warrior”?

I wondered about these questions following an incident last Saturday, where there was an emergency medical situation during a lecture that I was attending. A (very) small percentage of those present were energized into action and exhibited an almost abnormal level of clairty, while an equally small percentage were observed to be adding to the commotion and confusion of the situation. The cardiologist who happened to be in the audience evaluated and performed CPR, one of the organizers ran into the adjacent building to procure an AED, one (or more?) person(s) called EMS, the speaker gathered the rest around and spoke calming words and some prayers…

It all worked out well in the end – the patient, who had no pulse for almost two minutes a few hours earlier, walked out of the ER that same afternoon. I know, because I went in the EMS van with them to the ER. And I was there to drive them home later that afternoon. In the midst of a lot of commotion and confusion, I felt an immense sense of clarity take hold of me as the events were unfolding. It was as if a clear conduit of energy was feeding me, guiding me, instructing me on exactly what to do at what moment in time. A bit surreal, but now I can relate a bit to those stories where people find “superhuman strength” in crisis…

As I tried to process and analyze why I had responded with such decisiveness and clarity in those hours. I am usually a patient “wait and see” rather than “jump in with both feet” kind of person. I am most comfortable when being in the background, fading into the dust, rather than leading the charge. But, I saw a different side of me emerge on that day. Maybe it was the fact that a life was on the line, and the price for commotion or confusion was unacceptably high. Or maybe it is my recently spiritual practice – primarily my daily #meditation – that fills the reservoir of awareness with the fuel of clarity by transcending the monkey mind full of thoughts – fueled the “take action with immense clarity” in those hours.

We have often heard that we are unaware of our strengths until we are tested. I posit that our daily spiritual practice(s) fill our reservoirs with awareness and clarity, with an inner resilience that can surprise us when we have occasion to draw from it. Clarity of action does not happen by accident. Just like any other skill, it is a skill that can be acquired by diligent practice.

Your loving alertness is a lantern
Keep it protected from wind
that makes it crazy.

Instead of that airy commotion
live in the water that gently cools
as it flows. Be a helpful friend,
and you will become a green tree
with always new fruit,
always deeper journeys into love.

– Rumi (“New Blossoms”)

We can find a path that leads us away from constant confusion and commotion. Some day you may find yourself part of a team saving a life. Who knows – it may even be your own.

Kumud @AjmaniK

Join our weekly twitter chat held Sunday May 21st, 2017 with the #SpiritChat community. We will refill our reservoirs with some clarity. I will bring the tea and questions. You bring the cookies! Namaste.

Finding Clarity… Sunset on the water brings clarity to unseen areas!

Creative Energy Practice – HeartFulness

Tags

creativity, energy, meditation

Among all of the creative practices that can help us increase our emotional and spiritual energy levels, mindfulness and meditation are often in the top few. Rarely does a weekly #SpiritChat go by where these to practices are not mentioned in an answer to one or more questions by one or more participants. Lately, mindfulness has become almost a ‘buzzword’ fix-it-all for many of our ‘problems’ that are apparently caused by our perpetually distracted mind. There seems to be an abundance of mindfulness (often labeled ‘self-awareness’) practices available to us. We simply have to choose one, or even many. But what about meditation as a creative practice to raise our energy levels?

In some way or form, I have had a personal practice of ‘meditation’ for a few years. I would call it more like ‘an attempt to sit still and examine what flows through my mind and heart’. It has basically been a ‘roll my own’ method with some partial guidance by sporadic attendance at meditation workshops, reading about meditation techniques and others’ experiences, and so on. To say that I had been simply ‘spinning my wheels’ without much apparent ‘benefit’ or tangible ‘progress’, other than the satisfaction that I had at least developed a regular habit of ‘sitting at a given hour’, would be an understatement. The universe must have felt my silent cry for assistance, for last November, I decided to give ‘heartfulness’ a try.

In a casual conversation on the ‘festival of lights’ holiday, I told my brother-in-law in India that I was ready to begin my heartfulness practice. It wasn’t that he hadn’t asked me to try out what he had been practicing for many years. It was just that I had not been willing (or able?) to listen to his invitation with any degree of acceptance. So, he had left me alone to ‘get ready to ask for help’ in my own way. And when I did ask, he was ready. We began with an introductory session the very next day, followed by two short sessions on subsequent days during the week. And then, it was all up to me, to have the self-discipline to follow the simple instructions.

Six months later, I can say that the practice itself is very simple, straightforward and effective. Like any new practice, it ‘works’ if you ‘practice’ it. I am earnestly working on being creative in creating time to make the practice of heartfulness a part of my daily life. I am getting close. Very close. Why have I ‘stuck’ with it? If the results so far are any indication of what the future will hold, I am eager, willing and present to all the energetic possibilities that heartfulness meditation has to offer!

As part of our weekly #SpiritChat conversation, I invite you to our conversation with special guest @amalik1818 (yes, my #heartfulness coach :)) on Sunday, June 26th 2016 at 9amET/1pmUTC. I am very excited about all of you meeting Alok, and feeling his wonderful energy. We have been trying to coordinate this for a few months now, and the time and space coordinates have finally aligned!

Namaste,

Kumud @AjmaniK

Resources: Heartfulness Meditation

Bio: Dr Alok Malik retired from the Indian Army after being a practicing surgeon for over twenty years. He is currently the Medical Director for one of the largest hospitals in Hyderabad, India. His meditation practice stretches back over a decade, and he is a certified trainer in Heartfulness techniques.

P.S. If you have been trying to establish a creative energy #meditation practice, or been ‘struggling’ with your current one (like I did for two and a half years), or merely are curious to try something new, Alok @amalik1818 will offer a choice of two thirty minute ‘remote’ sessions to get you started after the chat – Sunday 8pmET or Monday 8pmET (other times may be available on request. please ask). No strings attached. No charge or fee. How to sign up? Leave a comment below or DM me on twitter for the very simple instructions. Come join us!

Update: How To Participate in the ‘Introductory Sessions’ conducted by Alok Malik – @amalik1818 on Twitter in #SpiritChat

Step ONE: Watch and follow the Heartfulness Relaxation video commands for ten minutes, BEFORE start of meditation session (start at 745pmET today)
https://youtu.be/HuiV395xI4I

Step TWO: Login to twitter. Check in to #SpiritChat with a simple tweet confirming that you are PRESENT, at least five minutes before the designated START time of 8pmET. The trainer (@amalik1818) needs confirmation that you are present – we are doing this via twitter/#SpiritChat for now. (we may add a WhatsApp group or alternate way later to accomplish this step).

Sit comfortably, on seeing the Twitter message (or if not on Twitter, start at designated time) to START MEDITATION do the following ——

1. Put your phone on silent mode
2. Ensure that no one disturbs you for at least thirty minutes
3. Gently close your eyes
4. Gently take your attention to the source of divine light within your heart
5. Don’t try to concentrate or try to see the light. Just imagine that the source of Divine Light is within your heart and it is attracting you
6. If your mind wanders to some other thought, then gently push it away and naturally get it back to the source of light within your heart.
7. Slowly you will experience thoughtlessness and absorption in meditation
8. Continue meditation for thirty minutes. You may use an alarm to guide you.
9. Jot down your experiences during meditation and condition after meditation in a spiritual journal.
10. Remember NOT to concentrate on the source of light, or keep repeating the thought about the source of light as a mantra. If you don’t see any light, that’s ok, and if you see some that’s also ok.

Above steps are from the two-minute video for Heartfulness Techinques at
https://youtu.be/xMzZl_7mRpY

Tips:

1. Watch the Heartfulness meditation video

2. Follow the Heartfulness Relaxation script for ten min BEFORE meditation

3. Meditation takes place at the level of subconscious mind. When we imagine in our conscious mind that there is a source of divine light within our heart, the same settles in the subconscious mind and stays there. Now even if this thought were to disappear from the conscious mind it does not matter. We therefore don’t have to concentrate on it, repeat it or run after it.

4. If some other thought comes to our mind AND we give attention to it by actively participating in it, THEN that thought settled on the subconscious mind. Moment we realise that we have got swayed by another thought, then gently push it aside and naturally center back on the source of light within your heart.

5.While you meditate, the trainer focuses Yogic Transmission on your subtle body. Experience its effect and note the same in your journal.

Going Forward: After three guided meditation sessions (thirty minutes each), you may start meditating on your own at a fixed time in the morning. Start with thirty min and gradually increase it to one hour.

One meditation followup session with a trainer will be needed once a week (at least once every alternate week) going forwards.
We can schedule them on a fixed day and time (TBD) for all to join in a group setting.

Questions? Please ask in comments below or DM @amalik1818 or @AjmaniK – thank you!

Heartfulness – Cleaning

1. After finishing your work day, sit comfortably, close your eyes and focus your attention on the complete spine, from the top of the neck to the bottom of the tail bone

2. Continuously imagine that all complexities and impurities are leaving you through the back of the spine, in the form of vapor. Don’t try and see any vapor.

3. After a few minutes you will feel some vibration/heat coming out from a segment of the spine. Now concentrate on that segment of the spine and use your will to accelerate the going out of complexities and impurities, till it stops coming out.

4. Then move to the next segment of the spine and repeat the above process.

5. By the time you’ve covered the whole spine, you will be feeling much lighter.

6. Now imagine that the Sacred Current of Divine is flowing from the Source into your heart and spreading across the whole body, and filling it with Sacredness.

7. Get up with a feeling of being filled with Sacredness. The above process takes 15 to 30 min

Tips:

1. In case you tend to go into meditation during cleaning, break it by opening your eyes and restart the Cleaning.

2. In case you can’t do the Cleaning in the evening, do it before going to sleep.

On Zen and Spirituality

Tags

meditation, spiritchat, spirituality, zen

From the moment that I laid eyes on the book simply and appropriately titled “Zen”, I knew that it was going to be become part of my library. What I did not know is that I would actually start reading it almost immediately, for most books spend some time on my shelves before they make it into my ‘reading table’. I have been reading about Zen’s “history and teachings and impact on humanity” (by Osho) over the past two weeks or so, concurrently with “living beautifully” (by Pema Chodron). It has been quite an impactful one-two combination 🙂

Zen and its practice has been around for hundreds of years. The seeds were borne in India, they traveled to grow in China, and then bloomed in Japan, and across the world. Zen has inspired many arts, poetry, music, and even the ‘ceremony of drinking tea’! Many ‘Zen masters’ have had great influence in the East, and lately (past few hundred years) in the West in various practices and manifestations.

So, what is Zen? According to Osho, “Zen means the same as dhyan and is a Japanese change of this word”. But, what is Dhyan? A sanskrit word, “Dhyan is the whole effort of consciousness, and means to be so into your own being, that not a single thought exists”. Yes, it is tough to find a single word in English for Dhyan. Zen it is.

‘Think’ of Zen as “consciousness without clouds, a pure sky”.

The seed concept of Dhyan, when combined with the concept of Tao, is surmised to have created the flower of Zen. The fragrance of the flower spread across the world, as the “energy of the seed was released”. Flowers are great sharers of the energy of the tree, for they attract the seekers, the butterflies of the spiritual world. And so, the practice of Zen flourished over the centuries, and found its way into the pure-sky consciousness of students seeking mastery of the divine moment.

History is one thing, and one may argue about it, even disagree with it. However, spiritual impact is quite another. One example of this impact is “the practice of laughter”, which is said to have been an part of some Zen traditions for many centuries. “Laughter becomes prayer in Zen” – when we develop the ability to laugh at ourselves, and with others, we realize the foolishness, the temporal nature of all our ‘conflicts’. For conflicts are borne of division, and there is no room for ‘division’ in the pure, cloudless, aware consciousness of Zen.

“The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind” ~ Zen master (Sosan)

Another example of the impact of Zen is the practice of silence. It is hard to visualize any image of the Buddha, without a visual of silence in our minds. Some may further connect silence with the practice of ‘meditation’, and that would be a good connection to make. Silence, when experienced, brings a thread of simplicity and transparency to our consciousness. And one definition of meditation is that it is “an unbroken thread of awareness”. So, let us “chop wood” or “carry water” or “do the laundry” or “wash the dishes” – all those mundane, seemingly boring, meaningless tasks that can weigh heavy on us. But, if we can manage to do them with that unbroken thread of inner awareness, we can experience many Zen-like moments of no-mind – pure consciousness.

“Silence and laughter are the keys – silence within, laughter without” ~ Zen master (Mahakashyapa)

I have attempted to plant a tiny ‘seed’ of Zen in our awareness, by sharing how it can make a practical impact on our everyday life. What we do with the seed is up to us – some seeds stay buried for years before they decide to grow. Maybe that will be the case for you. Some seeds cannot wait to send their shoots into the sky, roots into the earth, and become flowering trees, to share their fragrance with the world.

Whatever the case may be, find joy laughter, find joy silence. The key is yours to do with it what you may.

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly twitter chat, with hashtag #SpiritChat ~ Sunday June 19th at 9amET/1pmUTC. We will discuss “Zen and Spirituality”. If you have some favorite Zen experiences or quotes to share, bring them with you, or share with the community in the comments. Thank you, and Namaste 🙂

On Breath and Balance

Tags

balance, breath, meditation, spiritchat, spirituality

On the first Sunday of 2015, we discussed the topic of Awareness and Action in our weekly #SpiritChat conversation. One thread that emerged from that chat was related to the connection of (proper) breathing, and how it can create better awareness for us. We will explore this connection further in this week’s (Sunday, January 11th 2015) twitter chat.

From a biological perspective, we are all aware that the act of breathing sustains life. We may lose all our other physical and sensory capacities, but as long as breath remains, so does our mortal body. We often take our act of breathing for granted, because it is an involuntary action that our bodies mostly perform regularly, without our direct intervention or attention. For the most part, this works in our favor – it keeps us alive when we are sleeping or busy running around in our daily lives. The oxygen exchange of every breath enables cellular activity, the firing of neurons, the purification of blood, and much more.

From a mental perspective, breath, and the act of breathing is important too. If we break up the single cycle of breathing into four parts – inhalation, retention (or pause), exhalation, preparation (or pause) – each part of the cycle has a role in how it affects our mind. Being in awareness of the retention part of the cycle, which is the pause after we inhale, is said to directly affect our mental clarity. It is in that pause of retention that we have the ability to still the thought waves that constantly traverse our brain. Hence, awareness during breathing can lead us to a deep silence, the silencing of thought, stillness of the mind.

From a relaxation or “meditation” perspective, we are often advised to “take a deep breath” and then follow it up with a deep exhalation. In the first part, the inhalation, we can create the awareness that we are filling ourselves with goodness, with plenitude, with prosperity, and such. In the exhalation, we can practice the awareness of self-surrender, of humility, of giving back and such. Hence, awareness of inhalation, and the subsequent exhalation, can create a higher awareness – of balance. This balance is facilitated by the pause of retention, the pause that brings mental clarity.

So, the connections between breath and balance are manifold. When we are stressed, we often feel that we are “out of breath”. When we are physically unwell, our erratic breathing is often a symptom or manifestation of our unwellness. I am sure that you can think of many more connections of our lifebreath to our life and its actions.

“For all This is fixed to lifebreath, as spokes are fixed to the hub. Lifebreath proceeds by means of lifebreath, gives life breath, and gives to lifebreath ~ Upanishad

Our challenge is to pay attention to our breath. If we watch its motion, listen to it, even for a few minutes everyday, then, over time, we will learn to recognize the healthy, balanced pattern of our breathing. This awareness of balanced breathing, will then help us to apply “corrections” when we are not in balance. By practicing listening, we can create balance and wellness in every breath cycle.

I appreciate your reading, and wish you all the best of balance in every breath. If you have comments, suggestions, questions or corrections, please do share. I also invite you to share in our #SpiritChat on twitter – Sunday, January 11th at 9am ET / 2pm UTC.

Namaste,

Kumud

The questions asked during the live hour…

Ready? Q1. "Take a deep breath in. Hold. Exhale. Hold." Repeat. What do you feel? #SpiritChat 

Q2. When we are highly inspired, we say, it "took my breath away". Who/what makes you feel that way? #SpiritChat 

Q3. Awareness. Which part of your (physical) breath cycle are you most aware of? Unwaware of? #SpiritChat 

Q4. What would you like to breathe into your life? Breathe out of your life? #SpiritChat 

Q5. We mostly breathe from a 'shallow' place. How can we 'correct' this? Why should we correct it? #SpiritChat 

Q6. On balance. Can breath-awareness help to create outer and inner balance? Why or why not? #SpiritChat 

Q7. "All growth happens when we are out of balance". If so, then why is balance even important? #SpiritChat 

Q8. What is the connection between breath, balance and stress. Please share. #SpiritChat 

Q9. Take a deep breath. Send a message about life and living to the world... Thank you! #SpiritChat 

Final Q10. Take another deep breath. Send a message about balance... Thank you again! #SpiritChat 

Storify Summary: https://storify.com/ajmanik/on-breath-and-balance

The nature of the Self

Tags

love, meditation, self, spirichat, spirit, truth

The first three Sundays of the first month of the new year have taken us on three separate but related journeys in our weekly #SpiritChat twitter chats. We kicked off the year with a call to action – not just action for action sake, but Spirit-based action, or action that is inspired by and flows from our inner core. A few of us made an affirmation which began with the phrase “My actions in 2013 will grow…” – do you remember yours? Would you like to make a new one?

The second Sunday of January in #SpiritChat was a journey towards evolution, involution, and a little bit of revolution. We made an attempt to connect spirit-based action with evolution and involution – but there is more work to be done. The subject of spiritual integrity brought a lot of energy to our weekly discussions on the third Sunday. One question that was left unasked (due to lack of time) was –

If integrity means wholeness, then what is this wholeness that we seek? How can we seek it?

This unasked question brings us to the topic for the final week of the month. We will take a brief journey in to the nature of this wholeness, into the nature of the Self. Let us use “the Self” in the context of a power, greater than us, which infuses all of life. So, having set the context, we can ask – What is the true nature of the Self? What is its connection to our ego? How do we discover the nature of the Self? Can it be discovered through thought? Or, perhaps, the more fundamental question. WHY? Why do we need to know the Self?

Finally, in order to establish a (perhaps tenuous) connection between all our January connections, I leave ou with this proposition – Our spirit-based actions, our evolution (greater growth), our involution (going within) and our journey to a greater integrity (wholeness) – are all of these, in essence, different paths to discovery of the Self?

“Take the great bow of the sacred scriptures, place on it the arrow of devotion. Then draw the bowstring of meditation, and aim at the target – the Self.” – Upanishad

I invite you to join us in #SpiritChat on Sunday January 27th at 9amET to discuss some of these questions, and begin (or continue) a journey to explore the nature of the Self. If you are new to #SpiritChat, please see our FAQ on how to participate in the chat. Thank you!

Kumud

Update:Here are the filtered transcripts for Qs 1 to 8 only. I am also experimenting with a transcript version with no RTs ~ just the answers – Enjoy! Thank you to all who shared!

Here are the questions asked during the live chat. Each question has a link, which will allow you to view the original question, and RT/reply to it on twitter. Please add #SpiritChat to your response if you want the community to see your answer. Thank you!

Here we go. Q1. What does “the nature of our true Self”, mean to you? #SpiritChat View and respond to Q1 on twitter

Q2. WHY do we need to discover the true nature of our Self, our spiritual core? #SpiritChat View and respond to Q2 on twitter

Q3. Are we afraid to try and discover our true Self? Reveal our true Self to others? #SpiritChat View and respond to Q3 on twitter

Q4. What is the relationship between our ego and our true Self? Close siblings? Cousins? #SpiritChat View and respond to Q4 on twitter

Q5. In this search for our Self, we may end up evading “real-world” responsibility. Agree/Disagree? #SpiritChat View and respond to Q5 on twitter

Q6. Is knowledge of the Self, our spiritual core, related to our self-esteem? How? #SpiritChat View and respond to Q6 on twitter

Q7. What steps are needed for us to discover our true Self? Action? Introspection? Or… #SpiritChat View and respond to Q7 on twitter

Final. Q8. What is the next step in our spiritual growth, once we know the nature of our Self? #SpiritChat View and respond to Q8 on twitter

SpiritChat – April Discussions

Tags

compassion, education, meditation

April has been an exciting month in our weekly spiritchat discussions. We began with a discussion titled The Spirit of Compassion – a virtue that is thought to be essential to developing moral excellence and spiritual growth.

The second Sunday of April was Easter Sunday – when we paused for the holiday to let folks enjoy the spirit of renewal with friends, family and community.

…the heart and spirit of Easter is about faith, family, love, light, renewal, hope and remembrance – all those things are worth pausing for…

We did something different for the third Sunday – I invited a special guest, @acmullick – to share with us about the practice of meditation. At the outset, we realized that there are too many different aspects to meditation to cover in the space of one hour. So, this topic will be back in the future – to discuss more specifics of meditation. I would like, in particular, to explore the link between meditation and prayer.

The fourth Sunday of April (which happened to be Earth Day) started out as a discussion about education and learning and evolved into a chat about what nature and the earth can teach us. As always, a lot of questions were raised during this chat – some of which we will try and answer in future chats.

So, as another month is behind us and we prepare to step into May, we pause (as has become a little bit of a spirit chat tradition) – to look back on the month in the final week. Which topic impacted you most in April? What topics would you like to see discussed in the month of May? Is there a common thread between compassion, renewal, meditation and learning?

I invite you to join us in our weekly SpiritChat discussion on Sunday, April 29th at 9am ET / 1pm GMT.

Go ahead – invite a few friends too!

Kumud Ajmani

Update: Here is the transcript http://bit.ly/sc-tr-0429 and questions – thank you to all who shared in the discussion!

Q1. In your opinion, what is the best way to practice #compassion? #SpiritChat 

Q2. What prevents us from being #compassionate? How can we overcome it? #SpiritChat 

Q3. How can #meditation (or similar practices) lead us to more #compassion? #SpiritChat 

Q4. Can we learn #meditation by ourselves? Or do we need a technique and/or teacher? #SpiritChat 

Q5. What kind of #education do we need for spiritual progress? Or #SpiritChat 

Q6. What spiritual lesson(s) did you learn in April that will help you moving forward? #SpiritChat 

Q7. April was a month of renewal with #compassion and #meditation. What can we expect in May? #SpiritChat 

Meditation and the Spirit

Tags

meditation, spirit, spiritchat

The subject of silencing, or at least quietening the mind often comes up in the SpiritChat discussions. In fact, in November 2011, we had devoted an entire chat to Silence and Stillness of the Spirit. More recently, in March 2012, we had shared ideas about the connection between awareness and silence.

One of the techniques that most of us have heard about, and which relates to the quietening of the mind, is meditation. According to Wikipedia,

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit.
It is generally an inwardly oriented, personal practice, which individuals do by themselves.

At a more succinct level, Jiddu Krishnamurti says (in The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader)

Meditation is not the means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

The most famous meditators of all time is perhaps the Buddha himself – he is often depicted with his eyes closed, head slightly bent, hands clasped, seated with his legs crossed in the classic pose of meditation. According to the Dhammapada, The Buddha was once asked by a skeptical person – “What have you really gained by all this meditation? I do not see any tangible change in you?”

The Buddha replied – “Nothing. I have gained nothing through meditation”.

The skeptic continued – “So what is the use of this meditation?”

The Buddha smiled and said – “Well, I may have not gained anything, but I have lost a lot – I have lost anger, depression, ill-health, fear of old age and fear of death.”

So, it seems that a practice of meditation, done with discipline, holds many benefits in store for us. There is some scientific evidence that is beginning to show that mindfulness and meditation have considerable benefits for our mind, body and spirit.

What exactly is meditation, what does it entail, what does it promise, what can you expect as a beginner or an advanced practitioner, what is the best way to start? We will try and address some of these in our upcoming weekly discussions in SpiritChat. In addition, this week there is a little bit more – this week, I will be asking some questions suggested by a special guest who is a dedicated practitioner of meditation!

I have invited Dr Aloke Mullick – @acmullick on twitter – to share some special insights with us on this subject. Dr Mullick initially started delving into meditation at an intellectual level in 1977. He started trying to meditate on his own in 1985. He has been meditating under the guidance of a Spiritual Master since 1993 and actively meditates about two hours every day.

I invite you to join us in our weekly #SpiritChat discussion to discuss “Meditation and the Spirit”. Sunday, April 15th at 9am ET / 1pm GMT.

You may not gain much – but you could lose a few things!

Kumud Ajmani

Have you tried to meditation or similar techniques in the past? What has been your experience? Do you have a question on this topic you would like me to ask during the chat? Please add your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you.

Update: Here is the transcript http://bit.ly/sc-tr-0415 and questions – thank you to all who shared and connected!

Q1. What does the word meditation mean to you? #SpiritChat 

Q2. How long have you practiced meditation? Or have been thinking about starting meditation? #SpiritChat 

Q3. In your view, what are the obstacles to practicing meditation? #SpiritChat 

Q4. If you meditate - do you have specific goals? If you don't, why would you like to start meditation? #SpiritChat 

Q5. What benefits have you observed (or you would expect) from meditation? #SpiritChat 

Q6. What is the connection between meditation and prayer? #SpiritChat 

Q7. Do you think that meditation is a 'Means' or an 'End' by itself? #SpiritChat 

Takeaway Q8. How can our practice of meditation influence those we connect with? #SpiritChat