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I strongly recommend all to read the story here, followed by my reflection to it:
I love the story of the two stonemasons. When it comes to choosing and doing a job, my fundamental question is teleological: How the work I choose to do fulfills the purpose of my life? Do I love to do this work? Does this work fill the cup of my life with joy and happiness? Does this work serve a higher purpose besides paying my bills? Is this work a part of something bigger than the job I am doing? Is my work a labor of love and selfless service? After I graduated from a college I chose to teach not only for bread and butter but my teaching brings a lot of joy and fulfillment in my life. My father's advice was very simple but very profound: Follow your heart. Love what you do. With this attitude work becomes worship. I have been following his advice and it has brought deep satisfaction and joy. Listening to my inner voice and following it has created golden light of deep fulfillment, happiness and joy in my life. May we all find the purpose of living and live our life fully! Namaste!
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Below is my reflection based on the passage by Navin Amarasuriya:
Cultivation of empathy for me, for others and the world depends on the way I perceive. If the lenses of my perception are narrow, clouded and self-centered, my realization of the reality will reflect my perception. As I know the Reality is One but it is perceived differently by different people according to their ways of looking at it. About 5000 years ago Indian Sages have proclaimed "Ekam sat vipraha bahudha vadanti"-The Reality is One and is seen differently by different seers. It is my realization that there is Oneness in Manyness. I need to go beyond my personal narrow brand to broad brand. If I don't expand my vision, my empathic relationship with me, with others and the world will be limited. When I was young my mental model was narrow and rigid brand. Over the time my mental model has become more brand. By practicing Mindfulness Meditation and cultivating and sustaining an attitude of nonjudgmental awareness and loving kindness I have been able to see the word as ' a complex yet beautiful spectrum of colors.' Namaste. I love this passage authored by Srikumar Rao. All wisdom traditions teach us that happiness lies within us. All of us regardless of outward differences have the potential to blossom like a rose that blossoms in the world is not a whit less than the flower that blooms in a show garden. Our job as a flower is to let it bloom. Our fulfillment lies in letting the flower bloom. We all are children of God and we let ourselves grow as we are. When we live this way, we do not let our joy and happiness controlled by the spigot of other people's attention, appreciation, acclaim, and admiration. Living this way, as the author says, "We construct a prison around us and hand that person the key." Living this way, we let our worth defined extrinsically and that way we create unhappiness in our life. When we value our worth intrinsically then nobody can diminish it.
So, it is all upto us to be happy and fulfilled by being ourselves. Namaste! Based on the excerpt from Amishi Jha's bestseller - Peak Mind, I have written my reflections below:
Am I paying my full attention to what I am thinking, feeling and doing? Is my attention fully focused, whole -mindedly and whole- heartedly? Am I mindful and aware of what is happening externally and internally? If and when I am not aware of it then my attention will be hijacked. Without paying full attention to what is happening outside of me and inside of me I am getting my own mind imprisoned by myself. I find William James recommendation of bringing the wandering mind over and over again very helpful. Doing it enriches my mind, my learning, my physical, mental, emotional, relational and spiritual well-being. If I don't do that my life becomes fragmented and it has a strong impact on a variety of functions of my life. It boils down to wise choice making. Right Knowing is Right Being. It is difficult for the mind to be one-pointed, non-flickering like the unflickering flame in a windless place as our mind wanders and gets scattered 30 to 50 percent of our waking moments. There are times when my mind flickers and gets kidnapped by external pleasant sounds, by pleasant sensory objects and by going back to the past events or thinking about future outcomes. Instead of denying what's happening in my mand I recognize it, accept it, and bring my mind back to what I am thinking, feeling and doing. This way my mind remains focused on the stream of here and now consciousness. This way I free myself from the grip of wandering attention. It becomes easy to relate to the present moment fully. This is the art of living. May we cultivate this skill of paying attention to fill the cup of life with wonderment, joy and fulfillment. It is wonderful to read Dalai Lama's excerpt from The Book of Joy. Below is my reflection to it:
There is a wise saying: Prevention is better than cure. This wise saying can be applicable to physical pain as well as to mental and emotional pain. When we have physical pain we take pills to reduce the physical pain. A better way to deal with the physical pain is to find out what causes physical pain and to take actions to prevent it coming, by taking preventive measures to create physical immunity. Likewise, we can prevent or avoid our mental and emotional pain by knowing what causes difficult and destructive thoughts and emotions. And that way we cultivate our mental immunity. I have been suffering from physical pain for quite some time. In order to reduce my physical pain I take pain reducing pills. I also have consulted experts to discover the cause of physical pain and do whatever is prescribed to reduce the physical pain. I also apply other ways for managing my physical pain such as relaxing breathing and Yogic stretchings. I have learned not to dwell on painful thoughts and not to get obsessed with these thoughts. The same way I deal with mental and emotional suffering. I follow three steps:
Namaste! On the outer surface we all are different in shape, size, strength and in many other ways. On that level some may join hands with us in friendship and some may punch us, beat us or even kill us. But when we go deeper we can see the Reality, the oneness, Christ consciousness, the unitive consciousness, the cosmic consciousness. In that state the egoic mind which creates division within us and between us gets dissolved and we become children of God. That is essentially who we are. In that state there is no trace of fear or intention to harm. Sadly, most of us live on the surface and create walls of divisiveness and fight like cats and dogs.
Once I was driving with my family to do a workshop for counselors. It was a rainy day. I had to stop at a gas station for filling up gas. As I was about to get out of my car, there were two guys who seemed to be very angry and hateful. One guy came out of the car, cursed me and pointed his gun towards me. Something happened in my heart and felt for the guy pointing gun towards me. He must have picked up that feeling in me. He waved at me and left me unharmed. Awareness of the situation and remaining centered calmed him down. How I relate to the situation makes the difference. I responded to him with empathic awareness and did not react to him. With practice of mindfulness, I have been able to relate to difficult and sometimes dangerous situations successfully. From a spiritual perspective the outward differences fade away and a deeper sense of Reality of oneness shines within me. I have realized that treating others with loving awareness and kindness transforms us. I pray that we relate to others with the deeper understanding of our true nature. Namaste! What is consciousness? Do we reside in individual consciousness or universal consciousness? What happens when we break the intrinsic connection of oneness between our individual consciousness and universal consciousness? What blocks or breaks our perception and connection between our individual consciousness and universal consciousness? These are profound philosophical, spiritual, and scientific questions. According to my understanding and experience, both individual and universal consciousness are the same. We do not see and experience this union when we see ourselves and others including the environment with physical, mental, emotional and social lenses or filters.
I experience such Reality, such Truth or my True Nature when I get deeply connected with the Upanisadic Hindu prayer mentioned by Judith Blackstone. This prayer is an invocation to the Divinity or luminous light within to lead us from Illusion to Reality, from Darkness to Light. The prayer is in words. Experiencing the truth of the prayer removes the darkness of ignorance and separation and unites me with light of Divinity. As mentioned before, invoking the light of Divinity by daily morning prayers helps me stay on the path. Practicing Mindfulness Meditation and remaining mindful with loving awareness have been very helpful to me to know my real and true nature and stay on the spiritual path. Namaste! Based on the article by - Justin Faerman, I wrote my reflection below:
It is my experience and understanding that unconditional love can solve world's multiple problems on different dimensions of life: physical, mental, emotional, relational, natural and environmental. Love unites people regardless of external or outward differences. Love is sharing. Love is giving. Love is offering. Love is serving and nurturing. Love is connecting. In the world we live in, there is a lot of divisiveness. We need to find a common ground based on empathic understanding and compassion to respect people with different ideologies without fighting and hating. If we do not wake up the future looks very dismal and dark. Love can remove that darkness. I have friends with different political and religious ideologies. We have been able to maintain our friendship by having an empathic and open-minded and open-hearted stance. Differences do not create distances by empathy and compassion-the core components of love. It is not always easy to maintain equanimity and balance. If we do not maintain that stand life becomes a battlefield, causing a lot of internal emotional damage. I have learned not to give up but to persist with compassion and humbleness. What helps me stay rooted in love? As I have mentioned before, open- mindedness and open- heartedness, empathic understanding and compassion and humbleness help me stay rooted in love. Namaste! Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu monk, philosopher and author. Based on the excerpt from his talk in 1900, I am writing my reflection below:
My slavery or freedom depends on the state of my mind. My mind binds me, my mind frees me. Who controls my senses and my thoughts and feelings? My mind. Who is driving my life? My mind or my senses? If and when I let my senses be my master, my senses will pull me down into the ditch of all kinds of pain and suffering, If I let my mind be the master, I will be able to make wise and right choices. And this way I will be free from my compulsive thoughts and actions. Have I fallen into the ditch and emotionally hurt myself and others close to me? You bet! Being a human being I have fallen down and ethically done wrong things called sins for which I have paid the price for suffering. I have learned from my downfall and have learned how to rise up. I woke up from my dark and gloomy sleep. I am mindful of not repeating the same hurtful cycle of misery. There is always inner light for guiding me on the right path. I need to keep my inner eyes open. I need to remain awakened. What helps me develop an intelligence that goes beyond the senses and thoughts? The light of awareness keeps me awakened. Regular practice of mindfulness meditation helps my mind to be calm and clear. Reading, inquiring, reflecting, and implementing the wise teachings from spiritual resources and the weekly satsanga meetings have been very helpful to me for staying on the path of awakening. There is always hope, hope for finding and staying on the Divine Path! Namaste! This is a great Birthday Kevin! There are many wonderful lessons cited by Kevin and that makes it difficult for me to choose a couple of lessons. The one that applies to me is " Don't wait for the storms to pass; dance in the rain." This statement took me back to my little home town in Gujarat where I was born. On a hot summer day we were eagerly waiting for the dark clouds to show up and rain for hours. It was the right day and time for us to dance. And we keep on dancing until we got tired. Now I am old and I relate to this statement differently. I see the value of living fully in the present moment fully and joyfully. The present is the real time. Not to dwell on the past and be anxious about tomorrow. Now is the real time.
The second lesson "Your growth as a conscious being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have." I find it rather difficult to relate to conversation with people who have rigid and fixed different positions in politics and religion and are unwilling to keep their minds and hearts open. I try to remain open with them but it is hard to walk on one way street. I like to be astonished and that's a great way of aging wisely and gracefully. And such "wow" moments happen frequently for me. I see two little children running around in a grocery store near their mother. I look at them and smile. They return their smile to a stranger! Seeing a variety of colorful flowers in my backyard and birds singing song fills my mind with wonder and heart with delight. I have been practicing and teaching Mindfulness Meditation in my Zoom classes. Living mindfully offers many opportunities to us to view and relate to life as dancing in the falling rain. When we are not living in the present moment we miss seeing the rain falling, flowers blooming, children smiling and seasons of life changing. May we be aware of the power of presence, the only dance there is! Namaste! |
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