The Big Picture

Tags

awareness, big picture, connection, perspective, vedanta

And just when I thought that all the light blooms were off of the flowering trees, in the stillness towards the end of the trail, a thicket of tall bushes bearing soft pink petals is still alive and blooming! Not only do they add color to the trail, they also give shade to the young wild roses yet to bloom.

As I start my journey back, the tall trees shower their lightest of leaves onto me as I walk. I can see that the wet and muddy trail is getting covered by a thin, first layer of green. It is perhaps akin to the first layer of the fine carpets that my ancestors were expert weavers of?

A thin branch of a rose brush reaches out and snags its thorns on my shirt as I walk closer to the edge to avoid a puddle. I pause and feel its kind welcome — nature’s hand on my shoulder, reminding me of the bigger picture, lest I rush by. What is the big picture of my existence, it wants me to ask?

My thoughts go back to the lecture hosted by us earlier in the week. Our guest speaker, who has been a Vedanta monk for almost sixty years, spoke about ‘The Big Picture.’ How often do we pause to remember who we are, and our connection to the universe? Why we do tend to so easily get entangled in the small, unimportant things in our lives, and get distracted by the BIG picture of our life? He gave a beautiful analogy to our dilemma.

“We often wander through the WiFi zone of life, looking for the password to connect to the higher network. But we already have the password. We have always had it. We have always been connected. We are just unaware of it!” – Swami Sarvadevananda

I pause again as I walk by the old house, turn around and look back. All of a sudden, I see that there’s green everywhere — green in the grass on the ground, green in the leaves on the trees against the sky, green in the algae on the water. How did so much green get created in a week or so? How much energy did nature have to spend to create this transformation?

I cross the tiny bridge and step out from the shady side of the pond to the sunny side, and the warmth of the sun already crested above the forty foot tree line greets me with aplomb. More questions came. What kind of transformation can I create within me and the world around me, if I focus on the BIG picture of my life and my walk through it? How do I stay focused on this BIG picture?

As if on cue, as I stand facing the sun and the lake, I hear the fog-horn sound of a bull-frog bellow above the birdsongs and the heavy highway traffic nearby. It is perhaps a reminder that a message transmitted with a singular purpose will always make its way through the noise of the world. Yes, I had to cross a bridge, stand in the light, and be in the right heart orientation to receive the BIG picture reminder.

Perhaps that’s the essence of spiritual work, isn’t it? What do you think?

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly #SpiritChat gathering, Sunday May 15 at 9amET / 630pm India on twitter. We will talk about the BIG picture, hopefully with a good WiFi connection, and some cookies 🙂 Namaste – @AjmaniK

Spring flowers… still blooming on the trail

On Changing Perspective

Tags

inner change, perspective, photography, spirituality, walking

What a difference a week can make!

This Friday, as i begin my weekly walk on the school campus, the Sun is already cresting the trees, as I approach the trail from a distance. The one-hour shift of the clocks last Sunday has created a totally different perspective for my walk. I have gone from starting my walk just as the sun would be rising, to walking in full daylight.

Even though the intensity of the morning light is different in the waking and walking hour, some things haven’t changed. The welcoming embrace of the lake and the trees, the wetness of the grass, the dramatic colors of the leaves that are on the trees and the ground, the raucous warnings of the blue-jays, the groups of ducks swimming in the water as they keep an eye on how close I get to the shore. And so on.

And yet, somehow, the nature of the light — sometimes soft, sometimes harsh; sometimes silvery, sometimes golden; sometimes enhancing the brilliant colors, sometimes casting long shadows — makes me think about the importance of perspective.

The nature of external light, of its source, doesn’t change from day to day, season to season, year to year. What really changes is how we see things, particularly familiar things. A different day, a different hour, gives us the opportunity to change our focus, our framing of the subject, our cropping (removing things from our field of consideration), and our composition (all that we want to include) and perhaps most importantly – our perspective of light.

Yes, I am leaning heavily on the language of photography because it is something that I engage in regularly. Playing with light and perspective on the outside has often helped me to ask questions of myself. What if I was to change my perspective on a certain matter, particularly on one that regularly creates inner disturbances? What if I were to do a full 180 turn from the ‘long shadow’ side and look at the ‘light side’ of a matter? Could I gain some inner peace, create acceptance and regain vital energy by changing my perspective?

In my waking and walking experiences, revising perspective isn’t merely about changing my mind, my thoughts or my actions. Perspective is about acknowledging the light and its source, being grateful for its constant and accessible presence, and allowing it to soften the heart enough so that we can see our Self with new eyes.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly Twitter chat, Sunday Nov 14 at 9am EST / 730pm India. We will discuss perspective and all the new possibilities it can create for us. Namaste. – @AjmaniK

Framing, composition, focus, lighting and perspective- they all define how and what we ‘see’, don’t they?

A live recording from the walk… sharing a new perspective on where #SpiritChat topics come from…

On Mothers and Perspectives

Tags

caregiving, divine, fostering, mothers, mothersday, perspective, universality

How can I write about a Mother’s perspective when I am not one according to the world’s definition? One way to attempt it is to write from my viewpoint as a child of a mother. Another way to write about it is through listening, watching and observing the Mothers around me. Yet another way is to consider the varied qualities and roles that ‘Mothers’ play in the world. Let me dive in and try a blend of all of the above.

The biological mother is the physical reason for our being, the conveyor of our existence. All of us have a connection to her through blood, tissue, genetics, and in most cases, nurture and nutrition. From a woman’s perspective, becoming a mother (or wanting to be one) requires a complex investment of physical, emotional, mental and financial energy. My own mother told me the stories of her challenges of getting married at nineteen, and then almost dying while giving birth to my older brother within a year. I often wonder – how would have her life been different if she hadn’t been handed the Mother role at that age? Yes, her three children were her great pride and joy, and yet the way she talked about her dreams, I sometimes wonder – what more could she have accomplished in life if she had had more ‘freedom’ in her role? Do you ever wonder the same about your biological mother?

There are many whose lives have had little influence of their biological mothers. For them, grandparents, fathers, foster parents and even teachers, may have taken over the traditional ‘mother’ role of nurturing, caring and loving. What is the perspective of those children and their ‘mothers’? I happened to stumble upon this perspective through my neighbor’s writing this week. It is titled “The Strength of Surrender” – I invite you to read her powerful story where she says that ‘Courage is a Mother’s first name’. Yes, the perspective of courage can often be overlooked by those who have lived through an ‘ideal’ upbringing – if there is even such a thing as ‘ideal’.

Yet another perspective on Mothers and children is that if the “Universal Mother”. I often refer to “Mother Earth” or “Gaia” as the one that provides unlimited and unconditional love and caring to humans, animals and plants alike. Mother Earth’s various energies manifest in diverse ways, recognizing and filling the needs of growth, development and healing for all her beings. The Universal Mother evokes a perspective of deep gratitude within me – what m’a your perspective on her?

The fourth perspective I would like to present for your consideration is that of the Divine Mother. For me, She represents the ultimate ‘safe harbor’, the ever available giver of warmth, understanding and forgiveness, the fountainhead showering constant love, and the firmament of grace and protection for her beloved children. Every instance of remembrance of such a Divine Mother has the tendency to fill me with light, lightness and joy. How about you? Do you have a similar perspective about her existence, her presence in your life?

I realize that I may not have covered all the perspectives of Mothers today. In fact, it isn’t possible to do so. There are those for whom the Mother perspective is that of pain, suffering, estrangement and more. There are those who have lost a Mother, and Mothers who may have lost children recently. There are those…

My hope and prayer is that whatever your perspective on Mothers may be, may it in some way eventually help you walk towards more love, more light, more healing and more living.

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly chat, Sunday May 9 at 9am ET / 630pm India with the #SpiritChat family on Twitter. I will bring some of my Mom’s favorite chai and snacks – @AjmaniK

Life’s Silver Linings

Tags

focus, holidays, hope, new year, perspective

As early as last week, I started hearing and reading references to how much 2020 “sucked”, and that folks couldn’t wait for the year to be over — so that we could all march into 2021 and forget about this year. It made me ask two questions —

• was there anything good that we could take from 2020 as we welcome 2021?
• how was 2021 going to become ‘magically’ different for us at the stroke of midnight on December 31?

I guess I wasn’t alone in noticing the emerging negative tone towards 2020. On Monday, my long-time twitter friend, @VegyPower messaged me to say that she had an “idea for the #SpiritChat conversation on Dec 27”. We talked over the phone, and sure enough, she was thinking about the “silver linings” amid all the storms that we experienced in 2020. Hence, this week’s topic was seeded. 

After my phone conversation with her, and as the week progressed, I did not have to think too much or too deeply about my own silver linings from 2020. For that matter, perhaps you won’t have to look too far to find them either. To begin, it may be helpful to ask some questions that invite us to reframe, refocus and revisit our perspective of 2020. For example, if you could take three positive ‘things’ forward from this year, what would they be? My suggestion would be to pick one ‘thing’ or ‘set of things’ each — for mind, body and spirit. Write the ‘things’ down on three sheets of paper. Add some bits of poetry, some doodles, or some photos, and maybe even create a “2020 Silver Linings” board. If you feel like it, now share your board with friends and family — who knows, it may inspire them to do the same. 

It is easy for the human mind to forget, to want to forget pain, and painful times. I often hear and read that most of us are attracted much more to pleasure than to pain. Hence, we tend to want to fill our lives with experiences that bring smiles, laughter and Joy. And yet, it is pain, suffering and death on an unprecedented scale that brought the best minds of Science together in 2020 to design, test, manufacture and distribute, not just one, but multiple vaccines, in record time, to fight the pandemic. In my mind, this  ‘coming together for a common goal’ is surely one silver lining from 2020. I am sure you can think of many more. 

Now, about the second question —  how will we use the silver linings, and even the dark clouds that we experienced in 2020 to continue to create better versions of ourselves in 2021? I haven’t seen my Aunt, with whom I have spent many a Diwali, Thanksgiving and Christmas in the past, at all this year. I picked up the phone and called her in the evening on Christmas Day. The phone rang a few times, and I was composing my voice mail in my head, when she answered. She had just returned from Christmas dinner from her son’s home and some wonderful family time with her three grand-daughters. We talked about the year, and about the year to come, and she was all excited about the second vaccine dose that is she is to receive in mid-January. But that wasn’t all. 

As we talked about 2020 and 2021, she said that she had spent a lot of time doing ‘spring cleaning’ in November and December. She had found a “folder” full of something, which had items that went back to 1967 – fifty three years ago. She asked me to guess what may have been in that folder? The best I could come up with was — “maybe they’re some kind of letters.” Close enough, she said. For the next hour or so, she then proceeded to tell me the story of the ‘long-distance romance through letters’ that happened  between her husband-to-be and her while she was in India and he was in Canada. It was quite a story, which I had heard for the first time — and I’ve known her for 34 years. 

Why do I tell you the story of this conversation? After I hung up the phone with her, it made me think of silver linings and the remarkable story that I had just heard. It also made me ask – what are the stories that 2020 has uncovered for us, from which we can learn and remember, so that 2021 can benefit from them. Will we remember stories of pain, of love, of joy, of suffering, of hope, of giving, of receiving, of tears, of laughter, and treat them all alike? Or will we choose to forget them, only to re-discover them in our heart’s folder many years, if not decades hence? 

The lesson of 2020, for me to remember, is that every moment of a fully lived life is a silver lining unto itself. What will you remember?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for a special conversation with the #SpiritChat community on 9amET / 730pm India, Sunday, Dec 27 2020 on twitter. My gratitude to @VegyPower for the inspiration for the topic (and some questions!). If you cannot join us in the hour, I wish you the best for the New Year. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

 

If we look closely enough, there are silver linings everywhere…

Spirituality and Big Questions

Tags

exploration, perspective, questions, spirituality

One frequent bonus of working at a national aerospace agency is that one gets to meet their fair share of ‘space travelers’. On completion of their missions, they visit the center, share their wonderful stories, photos and anecdotes from their travels. One purpose of their visits to the center is to thank the workforce for contributions to the completion of their successful mission. A related purpose is to provide inspiration to scientists and engineers, young and old, to continue their work in the support of space exploration and related missions.

I have been fortunate to meet my fair share of astronauts over the years. I rarely let an opportunity go by to meet one, get an autographed photo, or even get a photo taken with them if possible. To merely be in the same rarefied air with them and listen to their enthusiasm for humanity, the earth, and for exploration, often fuels me up with enthusiasm for my work.

Needless to say, when the opportunity came to meet lunar explorer and moonwalking astronaut Harrison Schmitt, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. I thought it was going to be similar to my past experiences with meeting astronauts, but I was “oh so wrong”. There was a unique energy about Dr Schmitt of Apollo17, the last Apollo mission flown by NASA in 1972, almost fifty years ago. He literally had the energetic “new baby” like bounce and the “overflowing child-like joy” that both my wife and I clearly felt.

I marveled at the fact that he was so full of enthusiasm, four decades and more after the tremendous feat of Apollo’s final twelve day lunar mission. It made me ask several questions. When I get to his age of 84, what events will I remember from ten or twenty or thirty or forty or even fifty years ago which will fill me with child-like Joy? What am I working on today, which will make a difference for future generations (of life explorers) in future decades? What can I do today, individually and as part of a team and community, which will inspire the future in some big or even small way? How am I making good use of my creative energy on a daily basis to advance humanity’s future?

Yes. Some of these questions may seem “big-picture” like — even grandiose. And yet, they were inspired within me by being in the presence of one of four remaining humans who have walked another celestial body. I share the ‘big questions’ with you in the spirit that some of the inspiration of Dr Schmitt — a geologist turned jet-pilot turned astronaut who just “happened to walk on the moon” — also rubs off on you.  I am not sure of the answers, but my hope is that these questions will cause us to pause in the midst of our daily challenges, some small and some seemingly big.

In our  search of the answers to our own big questions, we can re-frame our vision of the world. With new perspective  and new vision, we can rise above the urgent and focus on the truly important . With new vision, we can then ask some big questions related to spirituality. How do we know that a ‘greater power’, It, exists? If It does exist, what is its nature? Do we have ‘personal experience’ of It, or is it a belief that was given us? How do we allow It to influence or effect our lives, or do we?

Kumud

P.S. What are some ‘big questions’ that you often ask your own self? Share them with us in our weekly gathering in #SpiritChat on twitter, Sunday Nov 17 at 9amET / 7:30pm India. I will bring some questions, along with tea and cookies. We may even ask the big question – tea or coffee? Namaste – @AjmaniK

Astronaut Harrison Schmitt speaks about his adventures, asks some big questions, shares his photos from Apollo 17

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…