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Doug Powers has written a beutiful and timely article and below is my reflection on it:
As we grow up we need to make clear choices about many aspects of our life. In order to make wise choices we need to have clear intentions. My decision is usually based on the intention on the ground of good will and greater good not only for me but also for others. That is the main criterion I apply in making important decisions in my life. Have I always made wise choices? Of course not. As a human being I have made mistakes and have made decisions that have hurt me and others close to me. I woke up and and started walking on the right path. To me life is a journey with a clear destination and clear intention. Making clear and and right choices in our political, social and economic domains has been difficult for me. Our policies and actions are not always based on good will and well being of others. The big egos of the decision makers have been causing a lot of harm to the majority people in our country. When I was young I participated in the movement against Vietnam War. Even though I saw the rightness of this movement I did not go along with the use of violence caused by both sides. I realized how difficult it is when the movement is not grounded in the good will of the people. Good will and doing greater good for people is the basis on which I make my choices. Remaining awake and mindful of myself has always been very helpful to me in remaining on the path. By nature I am optimist. I believe that the inner light of wisdom will shine and help us to go through the clouds of darkness. May we all walk on the path of serving people and doing good for others! Namaste!
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Richard Rohr has written a thought provoking article and below is my reflection to it:
Sadly, the world we live in has a little time to slow down and has a little time to be silent. Both our outer world and our inner world has a little time to pause, see, listen and contemplate. Both worlds are largely filled with little space and time for emptiness and silence. This essay reminds me of a wise saying stated by the great Indian spiritual teacher Shankaracharya: Gurostumaunamvyakhyanam, shishyastuchinnaha samshayaha. The teacher observes the silence and the doubts of the students get dissolved. The teacher is within us. In order to make wise and pure choice and take wise and pure actions, deep inner silence is essential. My father taught us to be silent by repeating the Sanskrit word Shantihi-Peace- three times. When we asked him why three times, he mentioned Peace within-intra being, peace between-inter being, and beyond both- Transcendental being. Over the years I have learned the power of practicing pause as stated by Victor E.Frankl:" Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom." Only reading and understanding is not enough. The knowledge needs to be translated into action and practiced in our daily life, in our daily action. It is our light house-guiding our way of living truthfully and compassionately. In order to live truthfully and compassionately I practice Mindfulness Meditation. It is my daily spiritual practice. I consider it my Dharma. It keeps me rooted and grounded. This daily spiritual practice helps me to stay grounded in primal presence, primal silence,primal consciousness. This is my way of relating to me and others on a daily basis. Each day is a silent day, a spiritual day, a day of awakening and a day of serving. Namste! The following is my reflection after reading the poem by Climbing PoeTree:
To me Human without Being is like the Sun without Light, Stillness without Movement, Silence without Sound, Up without Down, Beginning without Ending. They are intertwined. There is beautiful Sanskrit word , Sahaja, which means Natural, Effortless. Nature follows her natural rhythm. Body goes through its four natural cycles-birth, growth, decline and death. The challenge for me is to live as a Human Being maintaining connection between Human and Being. Human without Being is incomplete, self-centered, egotistic and narcissistic. When I take a mindful walk in nature I feel naturally connected with external nature- the vastness of the sky, the touch of the wind, the fragrance of flowers, the chirping of birds, the sound of silence. I feel such effortless connection between my inner nature and outer nature when I meditate and when I get absorbed in chanting or listening to chanting. I feel at home. I always take time out to be with me and be fully present with me. I take a mindful walk, meditate, read and reflect on spiritual teachings. I do not feel lonely when I am alone. Such aloneness is a blessing for me to explore my inner self and work on myself. Namaste! Rachel Naomi Remen has posted an article full of insight. The post can be read here and below is my reflection to it:
A tree is born in the womb of a seed. The seed is invisible though it is there in a dormant state. So is the life. Our life is pregnant with unseen and unknown meanings. We need to relate to this dimension of our life with open mind and open heart, open eyes and open ears to see and hear and feel the wonder and awe of life. Our life gets nourished, enriched and expanded by embracing the manifestation of beauty, wonder and awe. I will always remember the experience I had in a Zen retreat. While doing Mindfulness Meditation I saw myself flying in the open sky with my feet firmly planted in the solid ground of the Mother Earth. This experience taught me not to confine myself to the limited and narrow mindset and heart set I was used to. I realized the meaning, value and the power of the "beginner's mind." The mind that is not bound by preconceived notions, opinions and assumptions. It is not attached to and bound by the chains of the past and lost in the worries of the future. The present moment is free from the right and the wrong. It is an open meeting space in which life blossoms and offers gifts of love, joy, compassion, and kindness to others. I am very grateful to the gifts of nature that I receive everyday in my life. I watch the sun rising and setting, smell the fragrance of flowers, birds chirping, rain falling and the earth keeping me grounded. Sadly, how often we take the gifts of nature granted and miss offering our gratitude to nature. Namaste! I would recommend you to read this article by Martin Shaw. Below is my reflection to the article:
The Corona virus presents a great challenge to all of us for safety and survival.Whose safety and whose survival? The little ego says " the safety and survival for me at the cost of others." When we face a huge crisis we need to go beyond our little ego. This is a call to all of us to learn how to tackle personal or collective crisis. How to grow from it? All wisdom traditions emphasize to offer selfless service to those who need. When we go beyond our ego, when we close the " smoke hole", we get connected with the divine world within us. It opens the door of compassion, generosity and unconditional love., the Divine Love. I always find time and a quiet place to do Mindfulness Meditation. I seek solitude to practice Mindfulness Meditation for quieting my inner noise, the busy and chattering mind, to connect with the marvelous, the Divine Light within me. The marvelous Divine Light guides me to walk on the path of serving others. Like others, I miss walking on the spiritual path and lose my connection with the Divine within me. I go to sleep. Unconsciously I dim the light within me. My pure consciousness shrinks. It is covered by darkness. I wake up and open my inner door and invite the Divine Light to guide me. Namaste! Chris Corrigan has written a beautiful article that is found here. The following is my reflection to it:
We all have the potential to transform ourselves on a small scale or a big scale. We journey through our life at times knowing where we are going, encountering obstacles coming in our way and dealing with them rationally. And there are times in our life when we face opportunities and challenges that we have never encountered before. We are landing in a new world which may baffle us, confuse us, intimidate us. Our rational mind knows no way to relate to the new emerging unknown world. There are two ways for us to go through these new doors. Either we shut off our mind and heart or keep them open, inquisitive, wondering, trusting and welcoming the new light entering into our selves. I love the way Chris Corrigan writes about this transformation: " We all are heading into our chrysalises. We have all climbed into cocoons....Have some empathy for the caterpillar who creates its chrysalis and becomes a pupa." As I had mentioned before life is a journey. Life has given many challenges for me to face, learn and grow. There are times when I tumbled and fell on the ground. At these times, I look within, stay calm and grounded. The universe is sending me a message to remain open and patient to listen to my inner voice.The inner voice of wisdom guides me to receive the blessings of self-transformation. I feel very grateful for the gift that I receive from the loving kind universe. Life is wonderful! Namaste! Troy Chapman has written an interesting article that you can read here. And, here is how I reflect upon the article:
We see man-created sides in many areas of our life such as social, political, economic and religious. We often draw lines between us and them. The other on the other side becomes our enemy. We fight for justice by seeing the other, our enemy. We create such walls and fight for our side which we consider always right. This a dualistic perspective -"me" against " you", love against hate. There is the third Transcendental perspective that helps me to see the other as me and me as the other. Love is the core teaching of all Wisdom traditions. When we relate to ourselves and others with love and compassion we see others as me. This is the meeting place as the Sufi poet Says, "Out beyond ideas of wrong -doing and right- dong there is a field. I will meet you there." Living this way liberates me from dividing myself within me and between myself and others in my life. This way of living creates harmony, peace and love within me. Living this way I become the citizen of the world. As an Indian poet sings, " The whole universe is my family." When I was growing up in India I saw the power of living truthfully and non-violently, compassionately and selflessly manifested by Mahatma Gandhi. He was an embodiment of love, compassion , and truth. He related to the British rulers non-violently even though he was behind the bars many times in his life. He has had a strong and benevolent impact on me as I was passing through youthful years on my life. The stream of loving kindness has continued flowing as I am passing through the last phase of my life. Practicing Karma Yoga-Yoga of selfless action or Yoga of selfless service, Bhakti Yoga- Yoga of pure love and devotion and daily meditation-practicing Raja Yoga, introspection and contemplation keeps me on the on track of " Right Living." Namaste! Here is my reflection on the poem by Lynn Ungar.
Sound of Silence! In the noisy and busy world of doing and having, we tend forget to listen to the inner quiet and wise voice of the heart, the soul. Our minds get filled with fear, anger, annoyance, grievance, blame and despair. In the times of crisis we need to center down and let our bodies and minds be quiet, calm and clear. We need to turn off our agitated bodies and minds and create to listen to the voice of silence filled with empathy, compassion, kindness and love. We are encountering such challenging and testing times right in front of our eyes.. Can we go beyond our self-serving mind set and heart set and become brothers keepers? These are the times when we go beyond our self-created boundaries and relate to each other as children of God? This way we can shift of our mind set from me to we. As the poet Lynn Ungar writes " Promise this world your love- for better or worse, in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live." Structures of body and mind change slowly and at times drastically like the times we are facing now. I see and experience the openings of hearts welcoming, helping and caring for people impacted by this calamity. Such experiences fill my heart with gratitude. Such acts of love and compassion make the world sacred and beautiful. Giving myself quiet time to fade away noises of mind helps me to be connected with my heart which is the abode of love, generosity, compassion and warmth. Namaste! A wonderful article by Ursula LeGuin that I enjoyed reading is here. The following is my reflection on the article:
Communication as mutual entrainment opens the door for blossoming of mutual understanding, enrichment, creativity, and bonding. In intersubjective communication words matter. What we say and how we say matter. We affect each other positively or negatively. It depends on how we synchronize the pulses of each other. As the the author Ursula Krober Le Guin says," by getting the beats into a master rhythm, by entrainment." For me, intrasubjective and intersubjective communications are intertwined.When I am in a quiet zone, I expereince such rhythmic communication within me. I am in entrainment with the voice arising in me. It is me listening to me. Such intrasubjective communication clears the clouds of opposing inner voices I may not be aware of. Such intrasubjective communication helps me in intersubjective communications. When I am in quiet natural surroundings, I experience deep connection between me and the sight and sound of nature. This also happens when I am in entunement with music and musicians. What helps me is my deep and total attentiveness, my total presence, my alive quietness. This also happens in my intersubjective communications. It is like the author says an ancient gift. It's upto us to use it wisely. May we cultivate the art of communication as mutual entrainment! Namaste. I love this thought provoking essay written by Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee. We are born out of the sacred and nourished by the sacred. Is not something that can be taught? We are born with it. It is natural, instinctive and effortless. It is our home. When we live in the sacred home, life feels wonderful, beautiful, colorful, fragrant and meaningful, like a flower of different colors and fragrances. It is an experience of joys and sorrows, smiles and tears, lights and shades, a gift and a promise.
In my journey of life, I have seen sun setting and rising, clouds coming and going, life passing through dark zones and light zones, gains and losses. I have learned many lessons from life's ups and downs. At times from long periods of pain and suffering. When I acknowledged and accepted darkness and emptiness, and quietly, non-judgmentally, and compassionately investigated what brought me down, I started seeing the light behind the floating clouds. This awakening was a gift and a promise to me. It helped to be reconnected with the sacred ground of the soul, the Divinity within me. Self-examination, open-mind and open heart, and relating to all kinds of experiences mindfully has helps me to be reconnected with the sacred, the soul. Daily meditation, introspection and contemplation helps me reclaim my sense of sacred. Namaste! |
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