When we realize experientially the truth that everything is impermanent ,one word from an enlightened teacher is enough to wake us from the sleep of ignorance. Such an awakening helps me neither to hold on to the past nor to reside in the future which has yet to come. The only moment that exists is the present moment.Such awakening helps me to be free from my emotional backpack.
Watching my dad passing away calmly in front of my eyes made me realize the impermanent nature of all the natural elements such as air, heat, breath, water, matter. I realize the truth of impermanence. According to my understanding emptiness and fullness are two sides of the same coin. There is no fullness without emptiness and no emptiness without fullness.
When I meditate i experience my mind empty of thoughts, free from my attachments to the world created by me, the separate self. In that emptiness I feel the fullness of living in the moment. When I live meditatively I feel the other me. These are precious moments of compassionate connection. the experience of oneness, fullness.
​- Dr Jagdish P Dave

​My being is made of five primordial elements of earth, water, fire, air and space. These elements are within me and outside of me. When I pay my loving nonjudgmental attention to my inner natural elements, I get intimately connected with outer natural elements. Such experience makes me fully alive. and present. If and when I depend on technology for direction, I lose my connection with my directional inner signal suh as my intuitive knowing and gut feeling and signals coming from nature. like the sun, moon, north pole star, wind and clouds.
One day my friend and I were taking a walk on the bank of the Ganges. We got deeply connected with the touch of the cool air, the sound of the river, the vastness of the blue sky and unseen yet deeply felt spiritual vibrations.We did not use our smart phone for identifying location, distance and direction. This expereince made us vibrantly alive, grateful and joyful. Living in the present moment without getting distracted or mentally occupied by the technological gadgets helps me lean into what I am experiencing, where I am truly are.
Namaste
- Dr Jagdish P Dave

You can click here to read a nice article written by J.Krishnamurti. Following is my reflection on the article:
Reading J. Krishnamurti's writing makes me think, inquire and reflect. As I am reading this article questions do arise in my mind. Questions such as why individuality does not have a purpose? Can I have individual existence without having separation between my individual existence and another person's individual existence? Can I relate to the other person's individual existence harmoniously while we both respectfully accept our differences? These are not idle philosophical questions. I face them almost everyday. I keep an open mind and really listen to the other person as an individual.

My individual existence has a purpose that is to create unity or harmony within my different voices within me and with another individual' existence. It s like being in a concert with different players and instruments creating concord and harmony. Or it is like a rainbow with seven different colors and merging into each other creating unity or oneness.

I know from my  own experience that this is the truth that creates positive energy, joy, excitement and peace. Realizing this truth is an ongoing  challenging journey for me and I am happy to work on it. patiently. Yesterday, I had an exiting and delightful conversation with my friend talking about what is true education and what is the essence of human nature. When we talk about my premise on basic human nature  quite  different from his premise on human nature, dark clouds of friction started  building up up. We are good friends and have great long standing relationship. Both of us took deep breaths to create a space  to  mindfully respond and not to react. This helped us to be open to each other and relate to each other compassionately. Such experiences have been very helpful to me in building bridges to help us remain connected with each other. Such a way of working on individuality opens the door to experiencing oneness. I know this is an ongoing journey. I have patience and determination to walk on this way.

May we remain open minded and open hearted to flourish the richness of our individual existence and live harmoniously.

My reflections on very thoughtful post by Maria Shriver. You can read the original post by clicking here.
​I deeply believe in the original goodness in all of us. I also deeply believe that together we can move humanity forward for greater good. And when I see people going beyond themselves to help and serve people who need help and support, my heart gets filled with, joy, hope and aspirations. But when I see people suffering from social and economic injustice, I feel pain and anger and my heart gets broken. When I see two -mouthed  and two-faced behaviors of our leaders who are supposed to serve the people and not to self -serve and their parties, I not only feel anger and pain but I feel despondent. I know I need to remind myself of the original goodness residing in human heart.. When I see some compassionate and courageous leaders taking a position for common good, my pain goes away and  my anger fuels my passion to join hands with such good and bold people. And I pursue my purposeful journey of helping and serving people. And I hear the song  "We shall overcome" in my heart.

I would like to conclude with the inspiring words of Maria Shiver, " I envision all of us with broken hearts coming together to heal and get to work, mending the crack in the divide."

May we keep the spirit of working together by joining  our hands for the dawn to arrive in the sky of humanity!

David Whyte has written an interesting read that you can find here. Here is my reflection on the article:
​Feeling lonely, disconnected and depressed is sadly growing more in our society. We are born by intimacy, we survive by intimacy and thrive by intimacy. We need to open our mind and heart to be connected with the world of nature and others like us. We need to make a shift from I-It to I-Thou.

How can I relate to the world of sound if I keep my ears plugged? How can I listen to the live silence of nature if I keep my mind noisy? How can I smell the fragrance of blooming flowers if I keep my nose plugged? How can I feel the warmth of your touch if I keep my hands off? How can I feel your presence if I am not present with you?. How can I see me if I am not awake? The universe offers countless gifts to us. We need to empty our task -loaded hands to receive them.

Three days ago my grandson invited me to do mindfulness meditation with him in the early morning  hours. We sat in our front yard sitting silently with open heart and open mind. During the twenty minutes of mindfulness meditation, we got deeply connected with the touch of the cool air, the enchanting fragrance of the  blooming flowers , the sight of the rising sun and  the chirping of the birds.We also felt joyfully and deeply connected with each other without words.

Everything is waiting for us. Yes. We need to say YES to it and gracefully welcome it.

Click here to read a nice article written by Timber Hawkeye. Following is my reflection on the article:
This writing by Timber Hawkeye reminds me of St Francis of Assisi's Peace Prayer. It begins with," Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon;  where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy." And it ends with these uplifting  words: "for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal life." This is the spiritual dimension of living. Knowing it and practicing it, contemplating and acting, extends and expands our awareness leading to pure awareness. As the Budha says, "Asho dhammo sanatanaha. This is the Eternal spiritual law." When I am quiet not justifying my wrong doing or reacting to other's wrong doing, I see the light of this spiritual wisdom. I understand my wrong doing  empathically as a human being and of the other too like me as a human being. When I see myself  and the other with the sense of empathy and compassion, I hear the underlying cry for love behind anger and hatred and violence.

This is an ongoing journey in my life and I am going through it slowly and steadily. My path gets more enlightened with each step and I am grateful to great spiritual teachers for guiding me in the journey of my life. My journey becomes a pilgrimage.
I would like to conclude with the words of wisdom by my favorite Russian author Leo Tolstoy: " Love is the only way to rescue humanity of all its ills."

Namaste!
May we sow love where there is hurt, hatred and injury!

I read a wonderful article by Elizabeth Gilbert. You can read the article here. The following is my reflection:
​How sad it is that  as we grow up we get put down and self degrading messages from the people who also love us and care about us. Such messages grow like bad roots in our unconscious mind and have a significant impact on our sense of self. This touching and beautiful story teaches us to welcome the innocent stranger, our own future mysterious and blameless  self, to befriend him or her, and extend our conscious hand of affection. We may not be able to do something about our bruised past self but we can welcome our self to come with loving and kind tenderness.

There are times when I have beaten myself for making big mistakes such as hurting someone close to me. What has helped me to meet and be my innocent mysterious self is the kind and loving people in my life for accepting me  with affection as I am. I have been practicing loving kindness meditation. Being compassionate to oneself and to others has helped me to stay rooted in affection and sympathy toward my future self.

May we be open to welcome our innocent stranger!

Here is my reflection on a wonderful article written by Pablo Neruda. Click here to read it.

 Poet Pablo Neurada remins me of a poem written by an anonymus Zen master.
                                     Sitting by the river
                                     Doing nothing,
                                     Spring comes
                                     The grass grows by itself.
Such words of wisdom have been sign posts in my life, a daily reminder to count up to twelve, be in the zone of being, letting go of my busy and often noisy world of doing and having. Such words remind me to pause, feel and be with my natural rhythm of life giving and life sustaining breath, to count up to twelve, to stay in the being zone. Such words have been my daily prayer washing  away the noise of irritation and agitation, frustration and anger, and fear and anxiety. Such words open up the door for meeting my being without craving and without holding.They create a wide open space  filled with unseen beauty, unheard sound, and unknown strangers. Such words take me to a land of emptiness filled with fullness,a land of formless forms, a land beyond space and time. This is my daily prayer, a meditative prayer creating birth of joy, awe, joy, fufillment  and gratitude in my daily living.

May we take time out to count up to twelve everyday to be connected with our being!
Namaste

This is my reflection to an article by Lisel Mueller. The original article is found here.​

​The world is in the eye of the beholder. So true! There are two worlds-the outer world and the inner world. When I see the outer world with my outer physical eyes, I see parts of the world distinct from one another. The outer world is made up of natural objects like trees, leaves of trees, flowers, waves of oceans and streams of rivers. The human world is filled with all kinds of differences. If I see the world with outer eyes, I see the world of separateness and divisiveness. Black versus white, rich versus poor, east versus west, life versus death, me versus you, my religion versus your religion.These differences create distances , conflicts and wars. We lose the seamless thread of the reality, the oneness in manyness. When I see the same world with my inner eyes I see the interconnectedness and even oneness in the apparent divisiveness. The world appears as we see it.

In my daily life, when I see the outer world with the eyes of my heart, I see the interconnectedness of life. At times I experience the outer world as an integral part of my being and at times as an extension of my being. Seeing people with the eyes of my heart, with empathy, kindness and compassion builds a bridge between the seer and the seen. This way of living enriches my inner life. I find it difficult to relate to self-centered and unkind people with empathy, kindness and compassion. I know I am not perfect. I am working on myself. Loving Kindness " Metta" mediation helps me to relate to such "difficult" people.

I have been practicing Mindfulness way of living. Such a way of living helps me to develop interconnectedness with life, oneness in manyness, and unity in diversity. It is a life-long journey and I am not in a rush. I remember and implement the wise saying, " Hasten slowly!

Namaste!

I read a thought provoking post by Margaret Wheatley. Here is her post

Who Do We Choose To Be?
My reflections to the above post is as follows:

There are leaders who create islands of insanity and there are leaders who create islands of sanity.  I have witnessed both kinds of leaders. When leaders relate to  people as human beings and not as units, they create change in the society. They deeply care for them and bring about large changes.We are blessed to have such leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Maria Montessori to name a few. Such leaders choose a path of serving people with courage, patience and perseverance. 

I participated in Free India movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. He initiated the path of non-violence
against the mighty British empire He chose the path of changing the hearts of the rulers. He worked tirelessly for the wellness of all people of India, especially the poor farmers, laborers and untouchables.He inspired many leaders in many lcountries to follow the path of non-violence against social injustice and exploitation.

I agree it is not easy to blaze new trails.It is hard to make significant and grate change against establishment and against self-serving and power -hungry leaders. Great leaders awaken the people and create movements that result in a big change.We need such leaders in all parts of the world. 

May we have leaders who create islands of sanity for the well-being of all people!