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I love and deeply enjoy reading the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh. In this beautiful passage he conveys a profound message of relating to what is real. In order to hear what is not said and in order to see what is not manifested requires waiting with patience, open mindedness, open heartedness and conviction that what is not heard and what is not seen is real. As Thich Nhat Hanh says ploughing the earth, sowing the seeds, and spreading the manure are essential conditions for the blooming of the sun flower.
The birth of a poem is like the latent seed turning into a blossoming flower. I feel my heart stirred up with deep feeling of wonder and joy before a poem is born. It is like hearing the sound and feeling the fragrance of a beloved coming from nowhere! I felt the same way when I felt a deep stirring of love in my heart when I saw my beloved for the for first time and I still feel the fragrance of love in my heart though she is not physically with me any more. What helps me see that which is waiting for the right conditions to bloom? Faith, not belief, and patience, open mindedness and open heartedness help me wait for the inner light to shine to see what is not seen by the outer light. When my inner eyes are not open I get disconnected with the flowering and blossoming of life. Namaste!
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Here is my 96th Birthday Presentation. It is a collection of my favorite songs and words of wisdom. Please enjoy! It is very tempting to hold on to what is familiar though it may cause pain in our hands. Fear of the unfamiliar and the unknown keeps us in the dark zone. In this beautiful poem Jan Richardson describes the blessings of passing through the longest night for awakening to see the light within. I have gone through this process of awakening by releasing the fear of traveling on the unfamiliar road. Awakening from the comfortable but growth blocking sleep has not been always easy for me. My daily practice of meditation has helped me free myself from the clutches of fear of uncertainty. Darkness fades away as I am walking toward the dawn of awakening. What a blessing!
I have been blessed to experience such inner light in the darkest hours of my life. It happened to me in 1959 when I came from India to America. I had never been out of my country for 34 years. There was excitement mixed with fear. I did not know anybody when I landed in Chicago, a foreign country, a new country, a strange country. My keen desire for learning new things was the light that helped me go through the difficult times. And such inner light has been guiding me in my journey of life. As I was growing up in India I was blessed to see my father taking a stand against injustice done to women as well as to "untouchables". I saw Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Vinoba Bhave and many other courageous leaders fighting for freedom from the unjust British rule of India. Daily practice of meditation has been very helpful to me for guiding me on the right path. I am grateful for receiving such blessings. Namaste! I love parables. They are short like this given on Awakin.org. Hindu parable contain profound wisdom. This parable reveals the spiritual way of living a precious life without attachment to material things. The man who is sitting by the river side contemplating is deeply contented with what he has. He gladly gives the precious diamond from his bag to the poor man who is a stranger to him. He is not expecting any reward from the beggar. His life is flowing like the river. And when the beggar comes back after a year in the dress of a wealthy man he welcomes him with an open heart. The wealthy man wanted to know whatever was inside him that allowed him give the diamond freely. Detachment, offering a gift to someone unconditionally expecting no reward in return. This is an example of living like a Karma Yogi, offering a gift from unselfish heart.
I have learned the art of living a spiritual life from my parents and a few wise teachers. I am deeply grateful for teaching me how to spiritualize my life. I got the precious diamond of living without attachment. Living this way creates joy and contentment in me. We all have the precious diamond of happiness and fullness in us. It's by sharing it with others or offering it to others with no attachment fills the cup of my life. Living in the world spiritually creates abundance, inner wealth and offering the inner wealth to those who need it is a blessing to me. This is a life lesson. When any thought of what I am going to get from others goes through my mind, I recognize it and willingly I let it go. Remain awake and aware of the mind stuff without being bound by it is my mantra. This is my self-liberating mantra. That frees me from my self-created prison. Namaste! Kittisaro is a former monk and the founder of a hermitage in South Africa. Below is my reflection to the excerpt from the article -Tangled in Thought.
Radical reflection means to be aware of the root cause of suffering with an open mind and open heart. Awareness clears my vision clouded by my ignorance of who or what I am; how my clear seeing is affected by my selfish thoughts, selfish desires and selfish acts. Awareness liberates from my self-created mental and emotional prison. Awareness is the inner light that helps me see my path of life clearly so that I do not get astray or get lost. Self-awareness is the light within me, the voice within me untouched by the self-created clouds and mental deafening noises. The word awareness is the key word that keeps me awake for walking on the wise path of living. It keeps me awake of what kinds of thoughts and emotions are arising in my mind and what kinds of words are coming from my mouth, and what kinds of sounds I am hearing in my ears and what kinds of things I am watching with my eyes and how am I using my hands, helping me and others or hurting me and others. Awareness helps me learn from myself and become wise. This an ongoing process in me. The awareness question that I ask to myself is, " Am I sleeping or am I awake?". I have made a clear and wise choice of remaining awake in my mind and heart. The light of awareness is my path of living life fully, attaining Nirvana, freeing from the egotistic self, waking up from separateness into the whole. From being a fragment to being the indivisible whole. It is becoming a Buddha, the one who becomes aware of the wholeness of life and lives for the welfare of all beings. I am on this way and I am not hurrying. Namaste! As seasons change from Winter to Spring and go through the renewal process so we do. We let go of the past which is already gone and wisely embrace the change taking place at this stage of our life. There is a natural rhythm that yearns to shake off the slumber. It is time for awakening and we welcome it.
We are also endowed with special unique gifts and talents. Let us reflect on how we can cultivate our unique talents within us and how we can offer our gifts to others? As we journey through life, we may find ourselves drawn to certain activities we feel called to do along the way. We begin to resonate with a specialty or calling and therein lies the profound elegant simplicity to identifying our gifs. We carry within us certain qualities and attributes that contribute to our personal and social welfare called loka sangraha in the Bhagavad Gita. Everything we do has an impact on us and others in our life as well as on the natural world. Sometimes it may not be obvious to us what gifts we have. Below are listed four ways to discover our unique gifts. It may be helpful to journal about or discuss with a trusted friend or family members the following:
Once you have identified your passions, values, and talents, it’s time to put them to work by exploring the ways of building your life around them. You need to take some time to contemplate the words and phrases that come about from your self-reflection and inquiry. At the end of the day realize who you are, what you do, and how you show up in the world. Everything you share-whether it’s your bright smile, your compassionate heart, your keen intellect, or your quality of presence-has ripple effect on everyone around you and beyond. When you think big, show up bold and share your compassion, you become a gifted a role model for all. As I was reading this essay written by AkikoBusch, a song I had heard a long time ago came to my mind. The song is written in Hindi by an anonymous poet. The title of the song is Mukhadakya dekho darpanamein? Why do you look for your face in the mirror? There are two mirrors: inner and outer. In the world we live in, I see many people seem to be interested in showing their faces in the outer mirror such as Facebook, Instagram or other popular social media. A question arises in my mind what motivates people to show their faces in the outer mirror. Is that their real self? Is there a discrepancy between the public self and the private self? Am I a two faced person? Do I need validation for being myself in the eyes of others? If I am contented with my face as it is then there is no need to be recognized and validated by others.
Mindfulness awareness helps me find my original pure face not affected by the judgmental and critical eyes of others. Sadly, we live in a world where our face is judged by the color of our skin, by the race or by the class and by religion. When I meet someone racially different from me I become mindful of what passes through my mind. Am I looking at that person with clear eyes or colored eyes? Practicing mindfulness frees me from the judgmental and critical voices arising in my mind. Reading and implementing the teachings of mystics and words of wisdom of enlightened spiritual teachers have helped me evolve spiritually. Clear eyes liberate me from my conditioned mind and such inner clarity helps me relate to others as children of God. Namaste! I tend to agree with the author Robert Sapolsky that aggression will always be a part of human experience. Love also will be a part of the human experience since the biologies of strong love and strong hate are the same. The context of aggression matters. Animals as well as humans protect their children from the cruel jaws of mean aggressors. In order to protect the innocent, aggressive behaviors have to be dealt without reacting. And that's the way I interpret the behavior of the mother narrated in this essay. Without using discretion counter- aggressive behaviors could cause havoc. History is full of such violent behaviors whether it is like throwing nuclear bombs or poisonous gas in Japan and Vietnam. If we follow "eye for an eye" way for retaliating to the enemy then as Mahatma Gandhi said the whole world will be blind.
My stance on aggression and violence is to respond to violence with non-violence and hate with love. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Dalai Lama are living examples of implementing this philosophy. I have not encountered heavy duty aggressive behaviors in my life. A couple of times I had run into aggressive car drivers cutting me off on highways. I let them pass by praying for their safety and the safety of other drivers like me. There are aggressive drivers on roads. It does not make sense to react to them aggressively. I apply the wise saying of Viktor Frankl when I encounter aggressive behaviors in my life. " Between a stimulus and a response there is gap and in that space there is freedom and power." When I encounter an aggressive behavior I pause, breathe deeply and I remain in charge of my potentially aggressive response. I try to empathize with the aggressor and respond to him compassionately. Many times aggressive behaviors are symptoms of unresolved deep conflicts. If I counteract with an aggressive behavior, it adds fuel to the fire. Regular practice of Mindfulness Meditation and Loving Kindness has been very helpful to me for regulating my aggressive impulses and for creating kindness and compassion for the other person. Namaste! Listening is a personal pilgrimage that takes time and a willingness to lean into life. Unpredictable as life itself, the practice of listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous, and challenging art forms on earth. Listening is the first step to peace. We need to quiet our noisy minds and all the the thoughts we inherit and store in our mind. Our mind becomes a storehouse.
When we listen attentively the differences between us move back and things we have in common move forward. We need to quiet the patterns of thinking of our past. Listening is not a shortcut, but a way to embody the one life we are given, a way to personalize the practice of human being. In real ways, we are invited each day to slow down and listen. Listening stitches the world together. Listening is the doorway to everything that matters. It enlivens the heart the way breathing enlivens the lungs. We listen to awaken our heart. This is the work of reverence-to stay vital and alive by listening with an open heart. Attentive listening is our way into lifelong friendships. This is the work of being human. This is the work of love., the work of being human. And our friendship with each other opens us to the wisdom of care. This is the work of love. We need to stay loyal to these three friendships: the work of being, the work of being human, and the work of love. In a daily way, listening is being present enough to hear the One in many and the many in One. Listening is an animated process by which we feel and understand the moment we are in, repeatedly connecting the inner world with the world around us, letting the one inform the other. All this helps us hear who we are because our identity and the reach of our gifts can only be in relationship: listening helps us discover our relationship to all that supports us in life. We can start a new place to start no matter how overwhelmed we might feel by listening to the inmost self. It helps us to think of silence as the connective tissues of life. It is giving our complete attention to the silence that holds our self that awakens us to both the soul’s calling and the call of the soul. While the souls’ calling is the work we are born to do, the call of the soul is the irresistible yearning to experience aliveness. The center of our aliveness doesn’t care about what we achieve or accomplish, only that we stay close to the pulse of what it means to be alive. The deeper we look at listening, the more we find that it has to do with being present, because a commitment to being fully present enables us to listen more to others, to their dreams and pain, to the retelling of their stories. It deepens our compassion. And listening to the history of our heart allows us to hear the ache of being alive. Each of the ways of listening- to an innermost self, to the silence that joins everything, to the soul’s calling for the meaningful work, to the call of the soul to be simply be alive, to the complete presence of others that holding nothing back opens in us, and the tug of life and its sweet ache of constant connection-is the practice that deepens our understanding of who we are and of the precious life we ‘re given in our time on earth. How do we make our choices and how do we live our life is a question for every body. If I make selfish choices for my personal benefit at the cost of others, I am leading a low level life. This way of living diminishes my well being and well being of society. In order to live life fully I need to set values that enrich my life and the lives of others. This is a radical shift in my consciousness moving from a lower level of consciousness to a higher level of consciousness. I expand my consciousness by surrendering to higher consciousness. As the author of this essay James O'dea says "A Higher Level of Conscious Engagement".
When I see people who are suffering physically, mentally and emotionally I feel deep compassion for them. I extend my hand to help them by counseling or doing what I can to reduce their suffering. My actions are based on my deep compassion for them without expecting anything in return. This is my way of practicing Karma Yoga. This way I am detached spiritually, fully engaged without being bound by my attachment to the fruits of my action. This is also an example of a higher level of conscious engagement. Living this way brings deep joy and fulfillment in my life. Keeping the light of self-awareness and following that light helps me avoid self-absorption and superficial understanding. I have learned to step aside when a selfish thought or a desire arises in me. Remaining awake and aware helps me of not getting trapped by my self-absorption and superficial understanding. Light of self-awareness keeps me walking on the right path. Namaste! |
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