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Here is an article that is worth a read and below is my reflection to it:
Self-compassion is kindness to ourselves. We all go through suffering and delightfulness. There are two ways of relating to our suffering and joyfulness: accepting our joys and sorrows compassionately without comparing ourselves with others and that way feeling up and down. There are two components of compassion: self-empathy and self-kindness. As we all know that we are not perfect. When we compare ourselves with others and feel higher or lower than others we get disconnected with ourselves and others. Such a perspective causes disconnection, separation and isolation. When I was studying at the University of Chicago my self-esteem was somewhat wounded when I compared myself with other students who were brighter than me. I felt a sense of inferiority. My self-esteem was affected by what was going on in my mind, thoughts of not-good enough. When I developed friendship with a foreign student who felt compassion for me, I felt his empathic understanding and kindness for me. His compassion for me enkindled the light of self-compassion and self acceptance in me. I am very grateful to him for bringing me out of the dark period of my life. What helps me make space for Self-compassion? I find the idea offered by Kristin Neff quite helpful. As she writes, " Instead of endlessly chasing self-esteem, we embrace ourselves with kindness. "Being empathic and compassionate to myself is very helpful to me to cultivate self-compassion. Practicing mindfulness meditation and non-judgmental self-awareness have been a blessing to me. May we cultivate self-compassion and compassion for others as we are going through tough times in our life!
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Below is my reflection to Swami Krishnananda's article:
The world we live in and also our life has three qualities: tamas, rajas, and sattva. Tamas makes us passive-static, rajas makes us active-dynamic and sattva creates a balance. When I go to the extreme position I become lethargic and lazy, and go into deep slumber. When I take an extreme dynamic or action-oriented position I get exhausted. When I avoid extreme positions and take the proverbial Buddhist middle path I am in a sattvik state, a balanced state. Living in a sattvik state makes me act wisely. I know what to do, how to do, and then do it. Not just to know and think about it. According me this is a sattvik way of living. I try to follow this sattvik path of living in every walk of my life. When I talk, when I listen, When I eat, when I sleep, when I work and when I exercise. When I have not followed this balanced way of living I go through physical, mental, emotional and relational suffering. Suffering is my teacher. I do not hit my head when I suffer and I do not hit the other person's head for my self-created suffering. I wake up, rise from my downfall , make a U-turn and go back the path of wisdom. Paying attention to what is going in my mind, becoming aware of it helps me from taking the wrong way which may hurt me and others in my life. I know that it is to say that but difficult to do it. Patience, perseverance and practice are my best allies. Introspection and meditation are also very helpful to me. They show me the path of light in my journey of life. Namaste! Here is my reflection to Marc Lesser's article:
Can acceptance and change join hands together? Can light and shadow walk together? Can silence and voice sing together? Acceptance of what is and making essential changes is a balancing act. Changes do take place. They need to be faced creatively and wisely. Otherwise life doesn't flow. It gets stagnant and stinks. In the dynamic world we live in, both 'fight for change' and 'lead to improve' are necessary. Change needs to make in the the right way in right direction. This is the way I am embracing life. I see the value of both frames of references. I maintain the fluidity of living without getting blocked by 'either or' mental stance. Life has given me many opportunities to learn from my personal experiences. When I experience pain in my belly I relate to my belly pain mindfully. I recognize it and investigate the cause of my physical pain and learn from it and do not eat pain -causing food. The same way I relate to my relational pain. I become aware of what happened that triggered my anger, anxiety or despair, accept it and learn from it and put it into practice to avoid the aches I created in me and the other person my life. I have learned from my own personal experiences what causes light in me and what causes darkness in me. Self-awareness, introspection, courage to recognize my shadow have been very helpful to me to know myself and work on myself. Life presents challenges to face and gives us opportunities for transformation. Namaste! I like the difference between old individuals and elders as shown by the author Suzzane Simard. As the author says not all individual are elders nor all elders are old. The marking sign of an elder is wisdom, not just knowledge. People may have knowledge but not wisdom. Wisdom grows like a Mother Tree connecting, nurturing and protecting the young plants. As an elderly and old member of the family and my community I help the young members of my family and the community at large when they need guidance from me. My heart gets richer when I help, guide and nurture those who need help and support.
As I was growing up I needed help, support, empathy and emotional nurturing in my life. I was blessed to have some elderly folks in my life to provide guidance, empathy, love, and nurturing. The elderly people provided shade and support I needed to survive and flourish. They taught me by their living example how I can go through the thick and thin in my life. They were my great teachers and they have laid the foundation of living wisely. I am very grateful to them. My experience has the been a great teacher for me. Only conceptual knowledge is not enough. Deep knowledge comes from living the knowledge, by practicing and wisely applying that knowledge to real life situations. It is organic teaching and organic learning. I have learned that it is not how long we live but how well we live that matters. Namaste! I like the way Anthony De Mello shows the contrast between Worldly Feeling and Soul Feeling. Soul feeling arises from within us. It is characterized by joy, intimacy, nourishment, and fulfillment. No body takes away soul feeling from me as it is generated and sustained form within. Worldly feeling comes from outside sources such as someone praising me , admiring me, think highly of me. Such worldly feeling fluctuates as it comes from outside sources. It comes and goes. Self-generated soul feeling is generated from the depth of our being. It endures and gets richer and deeper. It is rooted in our being.
I am a teacher and a counselor. I have enduring love affair with teaching and counseling. Teaching and counseling fill the cup of my life. I have been teaching and counseling for the last 75 years. I am not tired, bored and unfulfilled by following my inner voice. When I feel good and great about me by the praise and admiration I receive from others that make me feel good and great, the glorious feeling stays for a while and after sometime it evaporates. This week I was invited as a guest speaker to give a talk at Governors Sate University to undergraduate and gradate students majoring in School Psychology. I told them the reason for my being a teacher and a counselor. It has been my cup of tea for all these years. When I do what I love to do like teaching, counseling and meditating I feel deeply happy. The reward comes from within. It is unending. It is very joyful and fulfilling. I am connected with it and not attached to it. Fulfillment, love and joy are the criteria of soul feeling. Hope and pray we all find our path that creates and sustains inner wealth of joy, excitement and fulfillment in our life. Namaste! Here is my reflection to the excerpt of Parker Palmer's interview:
For me as a human being, all quests-intellectual, ethical, and spiritual- are important. Intellectual quest without being bound by ego is important for thinking and for processing my thoughts and emotions and to understand me, others and the world. Moral or ethical quest without "oughts" is important for me to walk on the moral path. The spiritual quest is essential for knowing and realizing my true nature, who or what I am.. In this state I do not feel bound by my own self-created "altitude". This is the state of unitive consciousness in which other states with "attitude" get dissolved. I feel grounded and connected with existence, the "being". Spiritual practices keep me grounded in what is and relate to what is rather than my own fabrications of the reality. I feel free from my self-created prison and self-ignorance. In deep meditation state I experience the distance between me and the ground going away and I realize that at the core of our being, we all are one. As the great theologian Paul Tillich says," the ground of being." It has taken a good amount time to know who I am. Remaining awake when I go into the sleep of delusion and working on what makes me fall asleep has been very helpful to me. The challenge for me is not to go back to "sleep". Self-awareness is the key to stay on "the ground of being." Getting feedback from my own self and from others is also helpful to me for walking on the spiritual path. Namaste! Here is my reflection to the excerpt from Chaz Howard's book, Bottom:
There have been times when I have been deeply hurt. And there have been times in my life when I have hurt others too. Such experiences have made me realize that we all have the potential to hurt ourselves and hurt others close to us. It does not mean we are bad or evil. We do bad or evil things. When I relate to hurt in this sense I feel empathy for me and for others. Such empathic understanding of my own wrong doings helps me heal my wounds and the wounds I have created to others. Realizing and accepting the fact that we are human beings prone to doing wrong things and making mistakes. We are not perfect. I hold my wrong doing hand with empathy and compassion. Being empathic and compassionate to me helps me for my self-redemption and also redemption for the other person. Self-awareness is the guiding light to me and it helps me evolve and grow in the realm of goodness, kindness, love and compassion. Namaste! As writer Judy Brown mentions, a breathing space is needed for fire to burn between the logs.
Balancing life in all areas of our life is the key to to living wisely. Too much or too little can't burn the fire of life. Too much food or too little food intake has an impact on our life energy. How much we eat and what kind of food we eat has a strong impact not only our physical and mental health but also on the environmental well-being. Moderation in all areas of our life. Too much of even a good thing, like eating too much good food can create health problems. Being born and raised in a simple- living family laid the foundation for moderation in my life. It has taught me how to to create a balance in different areas of my life. My parents taught me when to talk , what to say, how to talk and when to be quiet. These are the gifts of life that I have received from my parents and I am very grateful to them for such gifts. Being mindful of what is going in my mind, talking a pause, and decide what is the right thing to do. It's creating a balance between when to between presence and absence. It is learning when to yes and no. What to take in and what to reject. As I have mentioned before this principle applies in all walks of my life. May we learn the art of balancing our life for our personal life as well as social life. Namaste! In all wisdom traditions that I know of, "Who am I" is the fundamental question raised by spiritual seekers. There are two Selves: Ego-self and the Witnessing -self. The ego-self is a convenient construct to organize all the separate experiences occurring in the mind. I is necessary to relate to the ever-changing world. The challenge that I face in my daily life is not to be bound or attached to the world created by the mind. This passage authored by Culadasa (click here to read it) reminds me of the story of Two Birds narrated in the ancient book of wisdom Mandukya Upanishad:"Two birds, inseparable companions, perch on the same tree. One eats the fruit, the other looks on. The first bird is our individual self feeding the pleasures and pains of the deeds. The other is the universal self, silently witnessing all."
To me spiritual growth is a life-long journey with a few ups and downs, pleasures and pains, successes and failures. When my vision is blocked by selfish desires I tumble and I hurt myself and hurt others related to me. Such experiences have taught to me to be aware of inner mental world and not get bound by my self-serving desires. With mindfulness and self-awareness practice I have been able to walk on my path without falling down. Like the second bird in the Upanishadic story I relate to the world with witnessing consciousness. This way I live in the world with humility and gratefulness. Namaste! Acceptance-based inner work is one of the core components of the Mindfulness paradigm. We know the flowing water of a river is far less likely to contain impurities than trapped water. Trapped water is an incubator for harmful bacteria and is often contaminated. We need to let the river of feelings flow to avoid the harmful effects of trapped feelings. Our feelings are experienced in our body and if we do not let them come and go mindfully, they become toxic and cause physical illness. Since body and mind are interconnected the blocked toxic energy creates mental stress and causes mental health problems. In order to prevent and avoid the harmful effect of suppressing or blocking emotions we need to do the inner work for our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. And so when we are open to our feelings as they arise, we recognize and acknowledge them, accept them, investigate and let them go mindfully. This is the way we free ourselves from the grip of our negative and harmful feelings and emotions. This is the way we cultivate skills of emotional regulation and emotional resilience. This way we can cultivate our Emotional Intelligence.
We are social beings. We are connected with people. We have a variety of interactions with people in our life. Our inner work is essential for our personal well-being as well as our relational well-being. When we do the inner work we create a wholesome environment within ourselves which facilitates the creation and the sustenance of healthy interpersonal relationships. This way we can cultivate our Social Intelligence. Social Learning and Emotional Learning are as important or perhaps more important than Intellectual Learning. And this is what we need to do in schools and families and the community at large. We know the cause of suffering in our personal and interpersonal life and also in the social and political arenas. We need to wake up and work on these problems diligently. We are also spiritual beings. We have the potential to self-realize and get enlightened. The light of wisdom shines within us. It is our own inner light that removes the clouds of delusion and opens the door to seeing Reality-Truth- that liberates us from the self-created suffering. This is a spiritual journey. All wisdom traditions teach us different ways of liberating ourselves from ourselves. As the Rigvedic sage says,” Truth is one. Paths are many.” The Bhagavad Gita shows four Yogas-spiritual paths- of awakening, self-realization and enlightnment: Path of Self-knowledge called Gnana Yoga. Path of Selfless Service called Karma Yoga. Path of Devotion called Bhakti Yoga and the Path of Meditation called Dhyana Yoga. Gautam Buddha realized and taught the Eightfold Path of liberation. One has to find one’s spiritual path and follow it earnestly, patiently and diligently. This is also inner work. Such inner work cultivates Spiritual Intelligence. Inner work is for physical, mental, emotional, relational and spiritual well-being. And as we know sometimes for doing this inner work we may need a Guru to guide us or we may find our own path by ourselves. Satsanga, compassionate presence and support of like-minded people can be very helpful. May we find our path of liberation to live mindfully, freely and fully! Let me conclude with the wise words of a wise teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. Embrace Strong Emotions Do not fight against pain, do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent towards it, the same thing goes for all your emotions. |
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