On Creating Simplicity

Tags

awareness, freedom, simplicity, spirituality

Thirtieth January. It was on this day in 1948 that the simple life of Mahatma Gandhi was snuffed by an act of violence, as he walked to an outdoor prayer meeting in New Delhi. His final words as he breathed his last were, “hey ram” — a remembrance of the God Rama. Gandhi, the man who was instantly recognizable by his simplicity – a pair of glasses, a walking stick and a white cloth made of homespun cotton draped around his body, as he travelled all across India inspiring a nation to rise up in non-violence to shake off the chains of British rule.

It was Gandhi’s simplicity that made him relatable to India’s ordinary people who felt that they too could join him in his fight for freedom and justice. His mission was simple too — complete independence for India. Inspired by the Bhagavad Gita and the likes of Paine and Thoreau, he inspired many lovers of non-violence and freedom in his wake, including Martin Luther King, Jr.

We all have had experiences with simplicity, or at least the occasional and intermittent desire for it in our lives. We often marvel and reminisce about the joy and lightness that we felt in those stages of our lives when ‘life was so simple’. One reason that our heart may even ache for a rerun to simplicity, to create it again in our lives, is that it is our natural state.

The ease of flow that we experience in simplicity is what attracts us to create it again. Simplicity, and the allowance that it creates in our lives – the idea of living a simple life of observation instead of a life of a desire to control people’s behavior and the tendency to jump to conclusions and judgement. Simplicity engenders a life of peace, tranquility, lightness and creativity rather than a life living the death spiral of the ‘outrage of the hour’ brought to us by our hyper engagement with (social) media.

How do we begin to create simplicity (again)? One area we can examine is our daily habits and practices. What habits can we simplify, or even eliminate, without much effort? What (spiritual) practices are portable and sustainable? In what ways are we introducing more complex thoughts into our daily life? Some questions I often ask at the end of the day. For how long did I sit still today? What did I consume and how did it affect me? Did I engage with nature today? What was my greatest moment of Joy today?

As we ask these simple questions and watch the answers emerge, our awareness will create more simplicity in our lives. The more that simplicity grows within, the more we will be attracted to it because of its rewards and its ability to return us to our natural, holistic state. Simplicity creates sustainability and warmth for the heart, like the rising of the Sun. A sunrise is simple, and yet, is there any single act more effective and essential for the health of the planet?

Kumud

Join us for our weekly Twitter chat, Sunday Jan 31 at 9amET in #SpiritChat – we will ask some simple questions and create some simplicity. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The simplicity encouraged by Nature…

On Truth and Reconciliation

Tags

healing, light, reconciliation, spirituality, truth

It’s a mid-winter Saturday morning as I wait for the sun to rise and break the logjam of cloud cover that has been hanging in the sky like a spider hanging on for dear life, precariously at the end of its thread. I am reflecting on today’s morning meditation and the sunlit energy state that it created for my heart — a state that I hope to remember to carry with me through the rest of the day, and evoke when the cloud cover returns within or without.

The events of the week, particularly of Inauguration Day last Wednesday, have flung open the door to a state where speaking the truth is not the exception any more. The calls to ‘end the uncivil war’ and to ‘be brave enough to see the light’ are like balm to the wounds of millions of hearts who are looking for relief from the weight of pain, even grief, that they have been carrying like muse on an uphill mountain trail.

I have told the story before, and yet, in the context of truth and reconciliation bears repeating. It took me the better part of twenty years to tell my mother the truth of how much it hurt that I, the middle child, didn’t grow up with the rest of the family. It took a moment of inspired courage, standing on the balcony of a small apartment watching the sun set, holding our cups of tea, that I opened the door to speak my truth. And, to my pleasant surprise, she spoke hers. It I didn’t take me long to realize that her decision to ask her sister to raise me as a seven year old was the toughest thing she had done at her young age of twenty nine. The two of us speaking our truths to each other that evening, led to many more truthful conversations during the rest of her visit to the USA. By the time she left, I was well on the path to forgiveness and reconciliation.

That conversation was almost thirty years ago. It wasn’t that we didn’t have strong disagreements or great challenges in our relationship in the years since, but we never forgot that speaking and living our own truths, and walking in each other’s shoes with compassion, was our way back to respect, reconciliation and healing. By the time she suddenly passed away a few years back, she had become one of my best friends, confidants and advisors. Even though I continued to question some of her truths, and we had many long phone conversations about them, I never questioned her capacity to love.

What did I learn from my experience? I learnt that we are all capable of truth and reconciliation, and that our heart’s light stands ready to show us the way if we can muster enough courage to heal our wounds and let go of our pain. Is it ever too late to discard shame and blame in favor of civility, candid conversation and co-creation?

The spider doesn’t need to hang by its thread any more. The clouds have parted, the sun has risen, and it’s time to resume weaving the web of love with threads of truth, reconciliation and healing.

Bring your light. We need your courage to heal.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly conversation, Sunday Jan 24 at 9amET / 730pm India as we discuss some truths. The sun will be rising, I will be pouring tea, and we will walk the light. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Sunrise on the lake – Wednesday, January 20 2021

On Revisiting Joy

Tags

celebration, healing, journey, joy, spirituality

As late as last Tuesday, it appeared that we were drifting towards “skipping Christmas” this year. For whatever reason, and I can probably rattle off a lot of them, the family, including me, just didn’t seem to have caught the spirit of the season. We all seemed to be in silent agreement about the skipping and sleep-walking towards 2021. Some things are not meant to be, I thought.

And then came the snow on Wednesday evening. It wasn’t the violent snowstorm that had come a couple of weeks ago and dumped more than a foot of snow on us in the span of twenty four hours. No. This was the gentle, quiet, languid snow where every flake takes its own sewer time drifting towards the earth. There is a haze that sets up at sunset and it’s almost as if the overcast sky holds the last light of the day in its arms such that the radiance makes the night as bright as the day. The lights around the neighborhood come to life and their reflection against the water and the falling and fallen snow creates a sort of magic that extends the silent invitation.

Come play, it says. Come revisit. Come and remember. Find a single reason for Joy. You look at the new puppy sitting by the patio door with wide eyed pleading, waiting for you to open the door to the deck so she can go out and roll around in the fluffy white, even feast on it. Silently, the tide turns and my daughter announces that mid-Thursday that she is done with all her finals. My wife decides that enough is enough. She goes to the basement, and while I am on a work telecon, single-handledly digs out the eight-foot high tree that has been wondering if it will get to see the lights this year.

I am still wondering about reason, but the snow falling and the water swirling around me has other ideas. My daughter has decided that she is going to play with the gingerbread cookie kit sitting in the box. With that, the tide has fully turned. Cookies, my friends!

I am transported to a time where the heart feels like it is bobbing for waves in the ocean, where you have waded in just far enough and deep enough that your feet can still feel the earth. As you hold ground with the tips of your toes, every so often, a wave comes and lifts you clean off of the ocean floor into moments of joy and exhilaration. Every time you think you’ve had enough of the waves and try and return to the shore, the slightest of undercurrents invites you to stay a bit longer.

Revisiting Joy doesn’t happen like a flash of lightning during the middle of a late summer thunderstorm. It happens with the slow drift and soft lullaby of the peacefulness of every snow flake that is grateful that their falling has been cradled by grace and give brilliance to a single heart on some of the darkest nights of the year.

My hope is that you get to revisit too. We can only resist the invitation of nature for so long. We can resist our intrinsic nature even less, and our intrinsic nature is Joy. That is what we were built for. To remember, experience and share it.

Joy to our world. Let us revisit and soar again.

Kumud

P.S. The house keeps filling up. Lettered stockings have now appeared on the fireplace. Santa is getting his delivery ‘truck’ ready… Come join us and share your story of Joy. I hope you can find a reason. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Learning to fly by revisiting Joy

Towards Betterment – with @JonMertz

Tags

betterment, self-care, self-improvement, self-knowledge, spirituality

What is the primary goal of spiritual practice and a spiritual mind-set and heart-set towards life? We all may have different answers to this question. From personal experience, I can say that the answers to this question often change with time, with our station in life, and as our definition of life-purpose changes.

One thread that runs common through all our answers to the question of “why spirituality” is perhaps to find an answer to the question – “Who am I”? It is with this self-inquiry that our search for self-knowledge often begins. It is when we begin the journey to look within that we can begin to see the aspects of ourselves that may need “improvement”. This often leads us down the path of seeking “self-improvement”, which often brings us to the path of “self-care”, and then “spiritual care”. 

Hold that thought for a minute while I introduce you to my friend Jon Mertz. I met Jon in my early days of twitter, and we quickly became friends because he had a clarity of purpose and a transparency that was refreshing. He was very supportive of #SpiritChat during the early years, and remains so to this day. The opportunity came to meet him in Dallas, TX in January 2013, and we got together for lunch when I was visiting there for an Aerospace conference. 

Let’s bring back the thought of “self-improvement” and “spiritual care”. Over the past few weeks on twitter, Jon introduced me to his  concept of “betterment”. I was drawn to the concept because “betterment” seems to be the logical outcome of “self-knowledge” and “self-care”. It is when our spiritual practices “better” our state of awareness, “better” our state of Joy, “better” our state of Truth, that  we know that spiritual growth is happening. 

Jon Mertz has written a wonderful post to introduce the concept of Betterment as a “New Leadership Calling”. From a spiritual perspective, the “calling” is what first awakens us to the notion that we need to change something within. Regardless of our initial goal or motivation to change, it is when our efforts and practices produce tangible betterment in our lives that we are inspired to keep walking our path. 

Betterment is simple. How do our actions and interactions make others better? How do our actions and interactions make ourselves better? – Jon Mertz

The simpler an idea is, the easier it is to implement, integrate into and sustain in our daily practice of living. Betterment meets that criteria. 

Betterment is evolutionary and, sometimes, transformational. – Jon Mertz

The outcome of our spiritual practice is often transformational. Transformation of the heart, mind and spirit is the knowing that answers the question —  Who am I? How am I making myself and the world better?

Simple and Transformational. Betterment is the calling.

Will we step up and answer the calling?

Kumud 

Jon Mertz’ Bio : Jon Mertz founded Santa Fe Innovates, a social entrepreneur accelerator program and community. He also is an interdisciplinary leadership doctoral candidate at Creighton University. @JonMertz on twitter and founder of the Thin Difference community. 

Kumud’s note : I am grateful that Jon has introduced me to the concept of #betterment. I am excited that I will be hosting him in our weekly #SpiritChat  on Sunday, October 25 at 9amET / 630pm India. Come meet Jon and stay for some tea and cookies with us as we talk about #Betterment for all. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Meet Jon Mertz – author of “Betterment – A New Leadership Calling“

Rediscovering Joy and Wonder by @AwakeningTrue

Tags

discovery, joy, spirituality, wonder

Rediscovering Joy and Wonder

I was about 5 years old, staring into a bassinet where a newborn baby was sound asleep.  She was lying on her back and I was as mesmerized by her stillness as I was by her tiny hands.  Soon, I became aware of someone standing behind me.  It was not my Mom or one of my aunts because I knew that if it were, I would feel a hand on my shoulder or hear a familiar voice speaking to me.  I continued to stare at the sleeping baby, and then she made a small sound and she smiled.  I was totally amazed,  but not by the baby.  It was these words, “She is talking with the angels,” that amazed me.  The woman standing behind me spoke these words so softly – not to me but to herself.  Even at 5, I understood when someone was speaking to me and when she was not.  It was not the woman’s words that amazed me – they seemed true enough to me – it was the way she spoke them.  It was, I realized many years later, a tone that was full of wonder.

Joy and wonder!  I link these two words because there seems to be something magical when we experience joy and wonder in the same moment.  So, how do we rediscover joy and wonder when we are not watching a newborn talk with the angels?  Times when you have experienced joy and wonder may have just immediately come to mind.  When we are prompted, that often happens.  We think about a gorgeous sunrise after a storm, or the first fireflies of summer, or splashing in the ocean, or some moment when we felt sheer, unbridled joy AND a sense of awe and wonder.  A more important question is this – how do we rediscover joy and wonder in our day-to-day lives even as we live in these very challenging times?  How do we experience joy and wonder every day?  Every day.

I believe in the magic of everyday life, and believe we can choose to notice the magic within us and around us.  We can pause for a few moments to notice the glistening dew on the grass, the way the light seemed to flash just as our eyes rested on those sparkles.  We can drink in the beauty of the light reflected in the dew, knowing that it will shift and disappear in a few moments, and realizing that if we had not glanced in this direction in this exact moment, we would have missed this light entirely.  Joy in the beauty, wonder in the timing, gratitude for the magic of the moment.

I hope you will join the #SpiritChat conversation this Sunday, and share your insights about rediscovering joy and wonder in our daily lives.  Has this ever seemed more important to us than it is now?

Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino — @SharonDAgostino, @AwakeningTrue and @SayItForwardNow 

Author’s bio: I believe in the power of love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and gratitude. And I believe that each of us has an important role in shaping a kinder, gentler, more compassionate world for all. 

Kumud’s note: I am delighted that Sharon will be hosting #SpiritChat for all of us on Sunday, October 4 at 9amET on twitter. I am so looking forward to “Joy and Wonder”, and all that emerge from our rediscovering them. Thank you, Sharon!

Fireflies evoke joy and wonder – photo by Dave Burwell

 

Towards Peace Supreme

Tags

justice, peace, source, spirituality, supreme

Monday, September 21 was the observance of the International Day of Peace (IDP) sponsored by the United Nations and celebrated with various events held by organizations across the world.

I became aware of IDP through the Heartfulness organization’s effort called “Connect for Peace”, whose goal was to connect 40 million people in meditation over a period of 24 hours on that day. In order to understand “what does peace mean?” to different people (kids, athletes, change makers, spiritual leaders and more), a video of responses was compiled and shared (see link in the footer… highly recommended)

So, what does peace mean to you? How and when and where do you best experience it? How often do you seemingly lose it and how do you restore it? How can we experience Supreme peace, and be established in its awareness in the majority of the moments of our daily lives?

Some of you may have heard the story of the monk getting ready to meditate by the river bank who sees a scorpion drowning in its effort to swim. The monk picks up the scorpion from the shallow water, and as she is about to put him down on dry land, the scorpion stings her. The monk is unperturbed, and gets ready to meditate again. The scorpion wades into the water again, starts drowning. The monk rescues it again, and gets stung again. When this happens a third time, an observer sitting by the bank cannot resist asking the monk – why do you keep rescuing the drowning scorpion when all it does is keep stinging you in return for your kindness?

The monk replied – the scorpion, one of apparently much lower awareness than me, is holding true to its nature, which is to sting. I, of higher awareness, ought to also hold true to my nature, and which is to be kind and perform kind actions, don’t you think? Why would I give up my peace, my serenity, my stillness, my Dharma (way of being) in response to the scorpion’s sting?

Such is the nature of our living in the world. The world stings us when we do kind things. Let us not forget that sometimes we may be the scorpions – maybe not in action, but with our thoughts and words. Often, the stings are unprovoked, undeserved, unexpected, unjust and unfair. How do we respond?

We respond to the stings of the world in accordance with our height of inner awareness and depth of inner peace. We are not all monks (yet), but some of us are on the path to becoming aware again, remembering again that supreme peace is our intrinsic nature. By associating with those people, places and practices that evoke peace within us, we connect with our peace within. Through regular connection with supreme peace, we raise our awareness to the point where we lose our sting, and the world, our mirror, loses its sting too.

Have you ever wondered why new born babies tend to make everyone around them happy? One reason is perhaps that the new born is still immersed in its connection with the peace supreme. The newborn hasn’t had an opportunity to forget that It is That or that That is all there Is. The newborn isn’t questioning whether it is the drop or the wave or the ocean. It is simply being peace.

That is the state of newborn peace which our spiritual practices can return us to. When you and I practice peace, we contribute to creating supreme peace for all of us. Why create peace? Peace creates a channel to convey natural justice based on natural law and order, which is indeed supreme.

Spirituality teaches me that peace supreme is above all and within all. There is no journey towards it, because I am already there. It is infinite, and that is enough for me. How about you?

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly community gathering on Twitter with #SpiritChat folks – Sunday, Sep 27 at 9amET. We will gather in peace and play with some questions and answers. Namaste – @AjmaniK

YouTube link for compilation of answers to “What does peace mean to you?” – https://youtu.be/TEKSFltSsvs

When the bee meets a flower – Peace flows Supreme

The Essence of Self-Love

Tags

awareness, healing, love, spirituality

The Essence of Self-Love (by Elisa Balabram)

Last month, our host Kumud Ajmani and #SpiritChat, celebrated 9 years of weekly spiritual and inspirational conversations. Congratulations! I may have joined six months or so after its launch, though I’m not sure when exactly. Since then, invariably every conversation includes at least one Tweet on #SpiritChat that makes a reference to Self-Love.

I’m copying a paragraph from a recent article I wrote on my blog Inequalities, Racism, Self-Love and Action that I think is relevant. I imagine that a world filled with self-loving individuals would be a more peaceful, respectful, joyful and loving world, would you agree?

“Self-love is not gloating or self-aggrandizing. One could argue that if someone is gloating, they are seeking approval from someone other than themselves, in order to give self the permission needed to feel loved. To practice self-love is to go beyond societal and cultural expectations of one’s successes and/or failures.  Self-love is the deep knowing within oneself that one matters, has value to offer, is a light, for simply existing and being one’s heart centered, authentic Self.”

For me, the essence of self-love is a clear unimpeded connection to one’s heart space, soul wisdom, and love within. It includes giving self: acceptance, love, kindness, and permission to fail. It may also require taking things lightly, being free of judgment (work in progress), treating self as one’s best friend, and creating opportunities to express oneself authentically and creatively. In addition, I find it helpful through the self-love practice, to develop an awareness of the inner critic, and to apply tools to minimize its influence. How are you practicing self-love and what does it mean to you?

Join us this Sunday at 9am ET for a conversation about “The Essence of Self-Love” and share your experience with it.

Elisa

Elisa Balabram is a lecturer, intuitive business/life #coach, writer & #author of: Ask Others, Trust Yourself & Mending a Broken Heart: Lili´s Magic Journey. Her blog is at https://www.askotherstrustyourself.com

 

It is with great pleasure and gratitude that I welcome Elisa (@womenandbiz) to host #SpiritChat on Sunday, Aug 9 at 9amET on Twitter. Please join in and share with Wlisa and the #SpiritChat community. Namaste. – Kumud

Elisa Balabram #FF @womenandbiz on twitter

On New Foundations

Tags

foundattion, Gardening, spirituality

It was about this time last summer that I decided to undertake a project to “rock-scape” all the plant beds on the sides and the back of the house. I figured that this would be a sort of a permanent solution to the annual mulching of the beds in spring. The landscape fabric was first laid down around the existing plantings, and then a lot of “river rock” was put down. The fabric and rock was in effect  removing the foundation for weeds to grow. It looked great and the remaining part of last summer was essentially free of pulling weeds from the beds. And yet, my celebration was not to last through this summer.

I hadn’t figured on the ingenuity of nature. There are two bird-feeders stationed in two of the beds, from which seeds are constantly spilled onto the rock-scape below by the birds throughout the day. Earlier this summer, I saw some of these seeds starting to grow through small gaps in the rocks. I figured they wouldn’t last long, because their roots couldn’t possibly go past the landscape fabric. I was only partly correct. When I went to pull these new ‘weeds’, they did come out relatively easily because their roots had grown laterally along the fabric. 

That’s the story of the weeds that grew without a deep foundation anywhere and everywhere there was seed, water, sunlight, air gaps and a little bit of soil. They couldn’t grow deep, but they figured out a way to create a new foundation. Something similar happens to us humans too. Seeds of thoughts and emotions are always traveling to the soil of our hearts and minds. These seeds, seeking new foundations, travel to us from friends and family, co-workers, media and social media, Zoom chats, WhatsApp conversations, and much more. 

So, how do we ordinarily deal with these seeds? I have a bit of a “let me rock-scape my mind” approach. The idea is to prevent the  thought and emotion seeds to find new foundations in my mind. I have found that if I can keep my mind relatively “weed free”, then my heart has a good chance to operate at its optimal level too. Despite my rock-scaping, I still have to do a daily weeding of the seeds that find their way through and grow roots, shallow as they may be. And yet, there is another aspect to the notion of “new foundations”.

For establishing or renewing a garden or landscape with flowers and plantings, garden centers often sell young plants and flowers in planters. When re-planting these plants and flowers at home, it is vital to provide good quality soil, some fertilizer and lots of water so that they can establish deep, healthy roots and thrive in their new foundation. The storms and droughts of life, the re-plantings and re-growths are best handled by those whose foundations run deep in faith and love,

New foundations are best established by those whose spiritual practices help them to keep out the weeds, as well as grow healthy new gardens no matter where life takes them on their journeys. I invite you take inventory of your weeds and flowers among your mind. How is the health of your heart’s garden? What seeds have established new foundations in your heart and mind lately? 

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly twitter chat, Sunday August 2 at 9amET / 630pm India. We will plant some new seeds with the #SpiritChat community as we begin a new year and build some new foundations for new friendships. Namaste – @AjmaniK 

A planter with marigold flowers is ready to be planted into its new foundation…

Engaging our Youthful Spirit

Tags

engagement, leadership, new direction, spirituality, transformation, youth

The breeze blows swift this morning under overcast skies and the grasses rimming the lake seem a tad taller from having been replenished by the light rain that fell all night long. It’s the kind of morning on the deck where a light T-shirt isn’t warm enough and a sweat-shirt wouldn’t be cool enough… and so I put on a yellow soccer jersey with Brazil colors on top of the blue.

In the small Zoom chat on Friday, a lot of us were wearing blue again. I commented that blue was becoming a theme for the chats and Lucille (@sageandsavvy) reminded us that blue activates the “throat chakra” and empowers us to speak the truth. From hosting my niece’s wedding events on Zoom for three straight days this week, I know that yellow is the color of purity. Bride and groom wear yellow while the family applies orange turmeric paste on them, before they take a ritual bath the day before the wedding is a ritual of the ages in our community.

Blue, yellow, orange – add red and green trimmed with gold – the traditional colors worn by Indian brides, a lot of music, dance, and laughter, and you get a soul-filling vibrance that energized me and all those present. The energy of love and joy of the young bride and groom was unmistakable – even from seven thousand miles away. It was a wedding like me and many others had never experienced – an immersion and engagement of a different , unique kind where you could be fully present to the flow of youth-led celebration, without all the distractions and stresses of attending a real-life wedding.

As I write this, the wind has calmed a bit, and out of the corner of my eye, I see that the Mama rabbit who has set up family camp in the thick shrub beyond the fence, has arrived at the base of the deck’s steps. At a six foot distance, we have been doing this stillness dance for a few days. We are aware of each other, but we only look at each other through sideways glances, and we both sit in stillness — a bit like how the bride and groom sat during the fire ceremony part of the wedding. Once she has decided that she is safe, she moves to the base of the bird-feeder where the spillover created by the blackbirds is her repast. My phone flashes a notification — “Flight from GOI to BOM at 9am” — this was to be my return flight from the wedding in Goa. Rescheduled for next June.

Now, where was I? Yes. The contagious, vibrant, energetic refueling of the spirit provided by immersion in the colors and sounds of youthful energy. Last week was confirmation of a direction that I had been called to the week before – to focus my energy towards greater engagement with folks who are young in heart and spirit.

This new direction is not merely about engaging those who are young in age, although they are the inspiration for it. It is about offering the energetic experience, the wisdom, the talents of those who have been on life’s roads less traveled, to those emerging youth who will lead our world into its new future.

Some of this reminds me of my good friend Jon Mertz of @ThinDifference, whom I met on Twitter, and is the first Twitter friend I met IRL on a visit to Dallas. He has supported #SpiritChat for many years, particularly in its youthful years, and has been a long term proponent of “engaging generations and empowering future leaders.” It also reminds me of Simon Harvey (@Simon_GB), a day one #spiritchat participant, whose passion for leadership flowed through #LeadfromWithin for many a year.

I believe it is time for me to follow their lead, the lead of my calling, and the lead of many others like @GrandmaOnDeck, @GaryRGruber, @VegyPower and more. I believe it is time to focus on engaging the energy of youth across the world, and dive headlong into this new experiment and calling to a return to the heart.

I hope you will join me in this new walk. I was going to wait to start walking towards this in a few weeks, but Elisa (@WomenandBiz) in yesterday’s Zoom chat taught me through a Maya Angelou quote — why wait to do the next good thing? Sharon (@AwakeningYourTrueSelf) encouraged me to follow the new direction with the same passion that I have had for the weekly #SpiritChat and Quaratulain (@iquarattariq), the youth representative in the Zoom chat, lent her warm, heartful endorsement.

So, here I am. I am hoping that some of you who have been with the #SpiritChat community for a while will provide inputs, ideas and guidance to this not-so-new heart direction for many of us. I will need all of your help and more, to take the current energy of “we’re all in this together” and transform it into action, so as to effect a transfer of power that will create a new core of leadership at the heart of this world.

I know that we can do this by engaging a new generation that leads and acts with the heart — for that is the key to sustainability.

My three week retreat is over. I’m back. Refueled. Ready for a new launch. Join me. Let all of us young in heart and spirit, you and Me, turn this world upside down, and become We.

Let us arise, awake, and stop not!

Kumud

P.S. Join us in our weekly chat, Sunday June 28 at 9amET / 630pm India as we gather to celebrate the energy of youth. Maybe I will switch from tea to juice, and from cookies to fresh fruit. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The contagious joy and energy of young hearts and spirits…

Spirituality, unity and union

Tags

celebration, fathers, solstice, spirituality, union, unity, yoga

The longer I wait to write this post on Saturday morning, the shorter the shadows get in the back of the house which faces west. The Sun, slowly ascending towards its peaking of the day, on this day when daylight reach its ascendancy over darkness in the northern hemisphere, I contemplate union and unity.

A tiny baby dragonfly in resplendent blue with translucent wings lands in the center of the rainbow colored hula hoop encrusted with silvery highlights lying on the floor of the deck. An orange winged blackbird lands on the wrought iron post holding the bird feeder, squawks loudly as it departs without partaking, as if to say that I need to fill it again. The two boys on their swings across the lake have been going back and forth for the past half hour, unassisted, as they have surely mastered their art of Joy. The lake glistens and ripples as it often does in the harmony of the slight breeze and the low angle of the Sun’s light from the East. My cup of tea is empty but I am too enamored by it all to move off of the deck, lest I miss something vital.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Union and Unity. In the 5th century BC, the Indian sage Patanjali, compiled a treatise called The Yoga Sutras. It is said to be the collation of the knowledge and practices of the lives of the practitioners of Yoga of the time. Patanjali wrote about Yoga as a thread of aphorisms explaining the relationship between the natural world, the inner spirit of humans, and the unity between them.

The practice of Yoga can be simply described as any practice which leads to union between the external and the internal. Yoga is the manifestation of the unity that we often intrinsically seek in the paradox of living in the transient external world while seeking the permanent within.

Swami Vivekananda describes this striving for union in the form of four paths of Yoga, all emerging from One as we move outward on them, and then converging into One as we return home. These four paths are the path of work and action, the path of knowledge, the path of devotion and the royal path of meditation. Why do we need four paths? Why not just one?

Perhaps because all humans, like the colors of the rainbow, have different propensities and inclinations that they bring into their physical existence. So, the offering of four distinct and yet non-exclusive and equal paths of Yoga, invites the practitioners of love to practice love in the way that they may be most attracted towards in their current state of life. Very often, a human may practice all four paths simultaneously, with different levels of intensity at different times of the day and night.

The Yoga of action may dominate during the day, knowledge path may prevail during reading or observing nature, devotion may take over during prayer, meditation may subsume one at dawn or dusk or other times. Yes, we are all practitioners of multiple paths, whether we are aware or conscious of the particular path, or even the goal, for that matter.

And the goal? One goal is to manifest the unity of the four paths into the realization that our true state is where the states of permanence, knowledge, and bliss, unite us in our union with the One.

A sense of unity often precedes Union. However, we know that unity cannot be decreed by a constitution or any number of bills of rights or legislatures or courts or executives and their orders. It is just like a rainbow cannot be decreed to appear or be perceived — the sun and the rain drops and a number of other conditions have to come together to create it with harmony. The rainbow appears when human nature recognizes that the union of colors, while maintaining their independence and their right to individually exist as equals, can only enhance the beauty of the world for all who set their eyes upon such a union.

How does union and unity manifest? We can observe union in father-children relationships, in a bride and groom’s joyfulness on their wedding day, in a decision to be aware of and celebrate all the physical light steaming upon us during summer solstice. Perhaps the greatest manifestation of unity and union is in an individual’s decision to work towards their union with the divine through the path of Yoga of their choice.

To be friendly towards those friendly towards us, to be joyous for them in their joy, to be empathetic towards those suffering, and to be indifferent without attitude towards those with evil intent – these four practices of maitri, mudita, karuna and upeksha – are considered to central to Patanjali’s definition of Yoga.

As I finish writing this, a baby sparrow has arrived on the deck and is loudly tweeting in a sliver of shade by the bird feeder. It is as if she’s asking me to get off the couch stat and do my Dad Yoga of re-filling the feeder. Such is the life of a householder- to stay unified in the heart while performing the actions related to the feeding of the world around me.

Now where did I put away that 50 pound bag of bird seed anyway?

Kumud

P.S. Join me and the #SpiritChat community in our weekly twitter gathering on Sunday, June 21 at 9amET/ 630pm India. We will integrate Fathers Day (US), International Day of Yoga, Summer Solstice and the kickoff of four days of online and offline events for my niece’s wedding in India… Namaste – @AjmaniK