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Isira is a indigenous wisdom keeper from Australia. As a young adult, Tibetan Lamas, recognizing her as an important incarnation, travelled to bring her from Adelaide, South Australia, to the Himalayas to be ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Based on the writings by Isira, below is my reflections:
Relationships give birth. Relationships nourish life. Relationships connect us. How do we relate to each other makes a big difference. Relationships unite us. Relationships divide us. Relationships become a friend. Relationships can be an enemy. Healthy relationships create oneness. In wholesome relationships me becomes you, you becomes me. There is no dualism in healthy relationships. There is Divine union. Our True Identity, our True Nature has no divisiveness. Body and mind have forms. Soul is formless. When we perceive the Realty this way it becomes a gift. Life becomes a blessing. I felt oneness between me and my parents, me and my spouse, between me and my friends, between me and a stranger, between me and nature. In such relationships, I felt oneness. Daily meditations have opened the door of Oneness for me. When we do weekly satsanga we feel such oneness. In such experiences the individual self becomes the universal Infinite Self. It is an experience of Unitive Consciousness. Namaste!
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As the author Carrie Newcomer says, either "overwork (the most revered attention in our culture) or a selfless form of not taking care of myself (a revered spiritual misconception in our culture)". Living this way creates perpetual imbalance in our life. It creates and perpetuates an energy draining cycle. According to me, a wise way of living is creating a dynamic balance in my life. Another lesson I learned from this story is how to connect with the deeper inner part of my being. As Thomas Merton calls the "True Self" or as the Quaker calls "The Inner Light" or as the Vedic sages call "The Light Within." All of us have the inner trusted "spiritual good bones". We are born with this inner gift. And all of us have some trusted outer resources. A wise way of living a happy, creative, and peaceful life is creating a dynamic between these two trusted resources. We need to wake up from our sleep to see the inner light and remain awakened. Like any other being, there have been times in my life when I have made harmful choices, creating suffering in me and in people close to me. I learned valuable lessons from my suffering. I woke up and saw "The Inner Light", my "True Self". We create our own internal messiness and we create our own burden. What helps me to end my suffering and be free from it is introspection, compassionate mindfulness, and remaining awake. Living my life this way requires self work: patience, endurance, open-mindedness, and open-heartedness. When I live this way my life becomes a blessing to me.
Namaste! Reading this passage by Danusha Lameris reminds me of two of my favorite authors: F.F.Schumacher who wrote 'Small Is Beautiful' and Mother Teresa who wrote 'Be Kind Anyway'. Kindness done from our loving heart opens the door to Divinity, "the true dwelling of the holy." We get many opportunities to receive and express gifts of small acts of kindness everyday of our life. Such gifts bring joy and happiness to the giver and the receiver. It creates holy or spiritual connections regardless of outward differences-financial, political, racial, or religious. I was born and raised in a relatively poor family. Financially we were poor, but inwardly we were affluent. I saw my parents giving small amounts of food to hungry people. Seeing them happy by these small acts of kindness was a blessing to us. This gift of giving has opened my heart and has made me very happy and enriched. I am blessed to have such parents for teaching me the value of acts of kindness. They provided good modeling and I am very grateful to them for giving me the gift of kindness. May we all do small acts of kindness in whatever way we can.
Namaste! 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! 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! |
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