I read an amazing post by Jack Kornfield. You can read the full article here. Where We Are Is Our TempleMy reflections on the post are as follows
"Reading Jack Kornfield's writing makes me feel at home. It is like home coming. I was raised in a poor family of nine members: father, mother and four brothers and three sisters. In spite of poverty, we felt spiritually whole and wealthy.Our parents embodied spirituality in everyday living. Every evening we used to go to the nearby temple to pray and worship. Our parents made a little shrine in our home and we used to pray every morning.Our home was our temple, Love, truth,compassion, grace and forgiveness were the foundations of our family temple. That became the way of our living.We were blessed to live near the Gandhi Ashram and used to attend evening spiritual gatherings in the presence of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji inspired us and reinforced our spiritual way of living.When a journalist asked Gandhiji, "What is your message?", his answer was simple and profound, " My life is my message." Almost every Sunday morning, I go to a community church with my daughter and her family. She is married to a Catholic gentleman. I listened to the pastor's sermon. The message is the same that I learned as I was growing up in India.Spirittualty is the way of living, the 'Path of the Undivided Heart." Let everyday be a Jesus Day or Buddha Day or Krsihna or Rama day. Material wealth and material possessions, and our out word appearances and religious dogmatic beliefs may divide us as me against us, or make us believe we are greater and better than others.The spiritual reality or truth is that we all are one family, that where we live are is our temple.This is my understanding of spirituality, of living spiritually My everyday spiritual practices, prayer and meditation, help me to live from my undivided heart. My work is my worship. My living is my prayer. I would like to conclude my reflections by quoting Chief Seattle: " We do not weave the web of our life; we are merely the strand in it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves." May we make our New Year's resolution: let our home be our temple and let us embrace spirituality with an undivided heart! Namaste! "
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3. Be generous: it’s contagious. There is no experience more uplifting than giving. At the base of generosity is compassion, which research finds has a direct impact on well-being. You know what’s cooler? Generosity is generative:The more you practice, the better you feel and the easier it becomes to be generous! Plus, it’s contagious. Your act of generosity very well might inspire someone else to act kindly toward another....Or get more connected.Try smiling at a stranger, tell a friend that you appreciate them, or tell a loved one how much they mean to you. It all adds up- and adds to your happiness quotient. Remember. Real life isn’t all rainbows and kittens, but real happiness is always available, even in rough times. Parting thoughtWe often think of happiness as the side effect of some stimulus, either external(sensory) or internal(ego) But author Chade-Meng Tan says that happiness is readily available independent of either. Accessing this natural reserve of happiness what he calls “ joy on demand” requires three things; a mind at rest, the recognition of even small moments when you feel good, and basking in “wholesome joy,” which arises from things like sharing and giving-he compares it to wholesome food for the body.
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