A Tribute to the Magic of Gratitude

Why would I start my workday without spending that precious minute expressing gratitude for all the wonderful things that IS there RIGHT NOW and all the lovely things that have happened so far? Why would I not want to drink to my full from the fountain of oneness and love, before I start to express into external form the divinity which is inside of me - since that is what my work is about anyway!

THANK YOU UNIVERSE for this wonderful day
For all the love that is coming my way

Thank you universe for this amazing morning
That blended divinity with human yearning

Thank you universe for the flowers that bloom
And dissipate the slightest suggestions of gloom

Thank you universe for this perfect peace
And even for the bus driver who was a perfect tease

That driver made me Remember, who I could be
If I only took back my control of Me!

Thank you universe for the messages you send
For all the love with which my garden you tend

I believe that YOU have a plan

Beautiful friends,....I'm sharing a personal update once again, because I believe that faith can really transform every one of our experiences like it has done for my today.....

this can be sung in the tune of 'I believe i can touch the sky...'...:-)

I believe that YOU have a plan
You know more than any man
I believe YOUR PLAN is right for me
YOU can see more than I can see

I believe YOU have made the world
I believe in YOUR every word
I believe my life is perfect now
Though only you know, exactly how

I believe that YOU are divine
I believe I am perfectly fine
For I believe that I have in me
YOUR essence from which I came to be

I believe all is well around
I believe YOUR love is all abound
Every moment I can choose to see
YOUR truth, inside of me

I believe in your gorgeous plan
That is perfect for every man
I believe that You are also me
If I only choose to see.....

I believe that YOU have a plan.....and it goes on till you really start believing it ..:-)!

So this is the song I made up and sang on my way to school.....you get the idea I guess............. I was taken by surprise yesterday initially when a certain someone sprang an unexpected surprise on me that would drastically effect some of my plans and I did not respond in a skilful way initially. I let my thoughts and attention go onto someone else who sprang the shock on me, and her plans, and her schemes, and her logic, and her psychology.... ....
only to realize today that that is not the vibration I want to get sucked into at all. What the heck does it matter....I can never ever through mind and logic achieve anything I want to from her :-). Instead by moving into that zone I lose my cheerfulness and positive ambitions and my mind got occupied with judging and criticizing instead of staying on the goals I want to achieve in this lifetime. Luckily, my Source / God, showed me my folly and I am now re-focussed on my own goals.

I also got a message from my source that as I move in my chosen directions, people and situations which are at different vibrations not relevant to my pursuit will begin to fall away from my life...because things that don’t match vibrationally will not be able to stay in each other’s presence....and maybe this person going away is one such thing. Anyway, I don’t need to understand or justify why this event is also for the ultimate good. I believe it is for my and everyone else’s ultimate good out of my faith alone, for that is the beauty of faith. It can stand on its own with no need for any other justification. If I choose to believe in the magnanimity and wisdom of my source and the universe only when things are going according to what i can understand as 'good', what kind of faith is that. If my God is all pervasive and divine, He is always all pervasive and divine, and so I choose to have faith in my source ALWAYS.

Morning Gratitude

I am grateful for this morning,
I am grateful for my Mom in laws support and cheerfulness
I am grateful for the lovely trees and plants and creepers that grow along the paths that I walked and for the wonderful people who must have planted them and for the sun, rain, and wind that nurture them and for the people who look after these plants daily
I am grateful for this moment now
I am grateful for this vacant space in my awareness as I see and engage with everything around me knowing that all this is just a game
I am grateful for my wonderful Son, and all the joy he brings me day and night
I am grateful to God for giving me such a wonderful son
I am grateful for this computer, for GLOG, and for all these amazing resources that have come my way to make appreciating life and the things in life a daily habit
I am grateful for the fun I am having while doing it
I am grateful for being me, and I am grateful that I can appreciate myself with this warm feeling
I am grateful for breathing freely and smoothly
I am grateful for my thoughts and for the peaceful pauses in my thought streams
I am grateful for the wonderful sounds i hear and the soulful pauses of silence that touch my soul
I am grateful for the neverending mystery of life and its gradual and timely unfoldment in such a perfect way that it is exciting enough and challenging enough and enjoyable enough and stimulating enough that I remain alert and aware enough to continuously refine and manage my inner world so i remain more and more in that state of optimal life experience that can be described perhaps byt he word, 'flow' :-)

Love and light and thanks to ALL, and I really really mean ALL, for I cannot even pretend to believe I can ever count and realize how many things and people are orchestrating life's intricacies to make it so amazing for me.

So I thank you God, my source, and EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY's source for that is my shortcut way to that ALL that is! :-)
Love , love and more love!

Thank you God for ALWAYS being there

Thank You God that I can keep coming to you no matter what I'm thinking, and no matter how I'm feeling

Thank you God that my faith in you in so strong and incomparable that even my own thinking cannot prevent me from coming to you

Thank You God for being there ALWAYS and for speaking to me even when I am a half reluctant listener

Thank you God for accepting me as I am and guiding me to another route when you sense that I have blocked out my own listening receptivity

Thank you God for knowing me through and through, understanding me through and through, and loving me through and through!

A Vibrational shift through Gratitude

I am grateful for becoming aware of these ripples within myself

I am grateful for seeing what’s me, and also seeing that what I see is not necessarily me!

I am grateful for the awareness of this blur and sinking feeling even as its descending on me, because I realize that as I am becoming aware of its descent, I am escaping the possibility of that feeling taking me over

I am grateful for becoming aware that my breath is not free flowing, that it is a bit laborious and lumpy, because as I am becoming aware of my breathing I am also becoming aware of the connection between my breath and my mind and my inner state

I am grateful that I am becoming aware of the contrast between my inner state and the beautiful wonderful spring day outside, because the beauty outside is reflecting to me what my inner state can be if I only let go and allow it to be

I am grateful for the wonderful man I met on the way to school, who said, 'have a great day'

I am grateful for becoming aware of my heavy state energetically and realizing that this is not me, it need not really be me and that these emotions are borrowed emotions that I have picked up from others around

I am grateful for remembering that I only need to shift my focus from this heaviness and these 'other people' to re-focus on my source to bring back the light into my current experience.

I am grateful for knowing with such utter conviction that nobody but me is responsible for my inner state and nobody but me can truly shift my level of current vibration

I am grateful for making the resolve right now that I will fight all my lethargy and the excuses my mind is making and move myself physically to go and do my yoga and pranayama practice.

I am grateful for deciding that even if I feel sluggish and heavy, I will just accept myself the way I am and go to do my daily practice and connect with my source and let my sources light dissolve all of this.... ....with love

I am willing to let my source dissolve all of me with love
I am willing to let my source dissolve all of my ego with love
I am willing to let my source dissolve all of my excuses with love
I am willing to let my source dissolve all of my inertia with love
I am willing to let my source dissolve all of my resistance with love
I am willing to let my source dissolve all of my distractions with love
I am willing to let my source dissolve all of my illusions with love

Om Namah Shivaya!

Gratitude, Acceptance, Awareness, and Responsibility

I am grateful for the lovely insight and satori moment I had when I was coming to school

I am grateful for the amazing choice I am making each day to do my calling and life’s work BEFORE I sit to do my 'needful work'

I am grateful for all the amazing people in my family, Dadi, Mummy, Daddy, my grandparents, Amit, Siddharth, Kavitha

I am grateful for realizing that the amazingness of all these people is ONLY LIMITED by my ability to expect how AMAZING they are and are going to be in my life

I am grateful to be accepting the current limitations of my own ability to accept the amazingness of these people and I am also grateful for the liberty and freedom I am giving to myself to expect the people in my life to be more and more magnificent and amazing!

I am grateful for allowing and I am grateful for being

I am grateful for having read 2 great books in the bathroom and getting just the right messages for today

I am grateful to be going now to do my yoga and pranayama

I am grateful for taking my life into my own hands, for taking full responsibility for the way i spend my time , for the way i feel about things, for the state of my inner world, and for everything that happens in my life

I am grateful for God's vibrant and full blast presence in my AWARENESS every time I just choose to look up to him, and I am grateful for the underlying knowing that he is present and looking after me even when I am not actively looking up to him!

I am grateful for life, for living, and for growing! and for writing, ..and for GLOG, and for EVERYTHING!

Training the mind? Approaching the mind with love

Good Morning! Today, as I was sitting in the bus, I thought, ’hmmm….nothing to write about today, so when I get to school I’ll get on to my to-do list right away. And then my mind took off on a spin as I thought about my grandparents, my sons nursery, my husband, the trees, my work, etc. and a general and uninterestingly random stream of thoughts soon occupied my full attention. I snapped out of it suddenly when I had nearly reached my school. As I entered consciously into body awareness (like Eckart Tolle recommends), and I started smiling at the massive random roll my thoughts had just been on. I was reminded of the metaphors I had heard often on the workings of the mind, ‘The mind works like mad monkeys let loose’, ‘An untrained mind is like a mad elephant while a trained mind is like a trained elephant’, ‘Ones mind can be ones greatest enemy as well as ones greatest friend (Bhagvad Gita), etc. I thought of whether I was doing enough practice to train my mind or whether I was just assuming that it’s nature was basically dysfunctional and therefore was I shifting into body awareness merely to give myself a break from my mind’s chatter. I started wondering, if I could do something to use the mind effectively for my spiritual growth (as a helpful tool instead of just thinking of mental chatter as a nuisance).
As I got down from the bus I straightened my spine, and told my mind, hey…’I’m watching you now’, and for fun I visualized turning a torch on inside my head to watch out for the arising of the next thought’. I liked the using of this experiential metaphor, and the stillness that came with it. Me being playful me I started playing with exactly where I would like to visualize the torch shining within, and as I shifted the torch around I finally settled on the heart area and I felt an intuitive nudge to make it a torch of love and light both instead of merely light! Boom! This was my Satori moment for the day. I was flooded with an expansive feeling of love and knowing as a new insight dawned on me and I realized that so far whenever I became aware of my thoughts, it was as if the thoughts were an enemy, or at least something unwanted and dysfunctional that I had to rid myself of. I had to rid myself of the habit of these thought patterns that don’t serve me. Now, as I was shining both love and light together on my thoughts I saw, not a mad monkey, not a mad elephant, but an innocent and ignorant child, a playful harmless puppy. I still felt that my mind could use a lot of training, but not an intensive army rigour, just some loving presence, a cuddle maybe and a bit of acceptance. I would have to watch out and be alert still to catch the mind when it strays away, but not with a feeling of condemnation. Not an, ‘oh no there goes my terrible mind on its unwanted spree’, but a loving, ‘oh no little child, don’t you go running there’,….. and ‘I always love you, no matter what, but I’m not going to let you run that way!’. Maybe it’s the parent in me that has brought out this ability to see a possibility of a love infused disciplinary regime. In my youth I always associated discipline with rigour, and maybe that is why I had interpreted ‘training the mind’, as a somewhat harsh regime.
By the time I entered my school, my pace was quicker, my face was vibrant, and my insides were jumping with enthusiasm. I could not wait to get my hands on the keyboard, and I looked to my source and said, ‘You win again! And I’m glad you do! I just have to write this down before I start on that ‘to do list’ waiting on my desk’.

And It cant go out without a verse can it?

Love, Love and Love some more
Love is all that it ever takes
Just keep including love
For no mistake, love ever makes

Love , Love and Love some more
Love your enemy and your foe
Only love can bring him around
As a friend onto your door

Love, Love, and Love some more
Love with all your heart
And no matter what you’ve done before
It is never too late to start

Love, Love, and Love some more
Infuse your practice with love
For then your work will be done for you
By streaming grace from above

Love, Love and Love some more
Love the process and the act
Love is the light, love is the art
It is the essence of our divine pact

Following the Inner calling

I am grateful for the enthusiasm bubbling in me as I make the choice to start writing what I am being inspired to write before I open my mailbox or do anything else for the day

I am grateful for being the bold me who heeds her inner call to write and who is choosing this moment to not get fooled by the dysfunctions of the mind which is trying to put a million different reasons into my thinking as to why I really should be doing something else

I am grateful to the universe and to my source for allowing me this space and time and luxury of being able to put all my other obligations and distractions aside and Just write

I am grateful for the inner knowing that the more I do this (make choices in seemingly busy moments to sit down and write) the more easier it will get to do this effortlessly

I am grateful for finding such a deep inner calling such that although the initial choice to sit down and actually start typing is at present a difficult one, once I start the flow is effortless and I get more than enough assurance from the universe and from observing my own bubbling enthusiasm and inner state that THIS is JUST what I should be doing now

I am grateful for the knowing that if I don’t answer my calling and use my talents then I am doing myself a sort of injustice and I am not acknowledging and appreciating the talents my creator gave me and i would in fact be depreciating my talent as well as my entire being.....and through that my creator!

Body Awareness during Yoga and a dream aftermath

I am feeling compelled beyond myself to share two related experiences with you that occurred within the span of 2 days. A very brief background to both these experiences is that in the recent past (like the last 3 weeks), I have been practicing ‘inner body awareness’, as described by Eckhart Tolle in the book, ‘The Power of NOW’, pretty diligently. It has been quite an adventure, no doubt difficult to practice but with quite instant shifts in awareness. More on this later but now let me get to the two specific events I mentioned earlier.

The first experience was that I tried to become aware of my inner body during my yoga practice. I was doing very very simple stretches on Monday morning, and it was an amazing feeling that left me with a profound sense of peace and lightness. I merely shifted my focus from the bending and stretching of the muscles and physical body parts to the bending and stretching of the invisible body (which had quite a firm presence as a connected and single energy field in the shape of my physical body). I loved this experience, and maybe it is something that many of you might already be experiencing, but for me it was the first time, although I have been doing yoga for 15 years now. So I really really wanted to share the experience and encourage you to try to combine inner body awareness as a single field of energy with your yoga or physical exercise. It filled me with an extremely deep sense of peace and well being.
The second experience I’m going to narrate occurred in the early hours of this morning. I had a very vivid dream and in my dream I was interacting with a past lover. Now just the thought of this person, lets call him M, usually has a very intense effect on me although the last time I met him was in 2001, almost 10 years ago. It’s quite a an intense romantic drama that we have shared, and in the 5 years or so that we knew each other, we have never met even once without the encounter bursting into flames of passion (sometimes love and many other times anger, misunderstandings or even mild forms of violence). Just the intensity of being in each other’s presence was too much for either of us, and I have never been able to understand what would possess us or transform us thus, and why we could never hold on to the loving part of the relationship alone. We never formally proclaimed ourselves to be lovers, (we kept breaking up and then landing up dating again and then fighting), and it was a blurred but romantically intense dance of two big egos that could just not resist each. Eventually he dumped me and I was badly scarred by the episode, but of course I recovered :-). I stopped trying to make sense of the whole thing quite some years ago and each of us have moved on with our lives, so to say, and we have not been in touch at all. He has been making occasional appearances in my dreams, but it’s just one of those things that I have stopped trying to make sense of or thing about.

Anyway, in my last night’s dream this guy was there sitting next to me in a social gathering and after a bit of cat and mouse game of looking at and avoiding each other we finally sat next to each other and he held me in my embrace. The sparks flew, the starts twinkled, all life came alive and then he suddenly withdrew without reason (as he often used to do earlier as well). I was shocked and I plunged deep into a state of rejection and feeling stupid, all rolled into one, and then I suddenly awoke. Initially the emotional pain was unbearable, it was both wonderfully pleasurable (because of the feeling of being in his embrace again that I was still acutely aware of, but also intensely painful because of the ’rejection’ and being pushed away. Without my own realizing it I slipped into my inner body awareness (I think I did this because I have made such a regular habit of it), and WOW! My inner body felt intensely ALIVE and VIBRANT! There was no pain, no so called ‘pleasure’ either but just an infinite sense of joy and aliveness. My inner body was so so so alive that it was kicking and bursting with LIFE and I was just mesmerized at witnessing the grandeur of the feeling. I was acutely aware of being in a state of bliss with no strings and no questions attached, and being very INTENSELY ALIVE. Then a first thought came to my mind, and I literally witnessed how the moment my awareness shifted to my mind, the joy decreased and the emotional pain started to take over,….I felt like bursting out in tears, but before I actually started crying I pulled back my awareness to the single field of energy in my inner body. Emotional pain disappeared! –like magic, just like pressing a button. No tears,…..then another thought arose and before the thought even took complete shape, the emotional pain started….again close to tears…….again I pulled back the awareness to the inner body and the vibrant state of being alive came back, pain disappeared, no tears,….just the INTENSE aliveness. This oscillation happened (or I made it happen) 3 or 4 times till I was giggling inside with delight at the discovery of this amazing activity. Then I decided to ease myself out of it, and I took some deep breaths, shook myself out, and got out of bed.

The similarities in the two experiences are amazing,…how one activity that I normally find very calming and enjoyable was made infinitely more impactful by shifting to inner body awareness, and how another emotionally charged episode (such dreams usually leave me sobbing like a crazy child), transformed into one of amazing learning and discovery and enjoyment. There is a catch however. A little later in the morning, and this happened on both days, I sensed a more active pain body, and more frequent risings of negative mental chatter and irritation in myself triggered by various seemingly unrelated things. The good side to this catch however was that on both mornings I was pretty deft at catching these risings of negativity and irritation and nip them in the bud, simple by re-shifting to inner body awareness, and when that didn’t work, by sending a desperate prayer out to my source. The latter always works :-). So I sense that it is a path laden with tricks, and requires constant awareness, because the dysfunctions in the mind are only waiting to jump out again and again, when we land up ignoring it through inner body awareness. But it is an interesting path nevertheless and one I am thoroughly enjoying being on these days.

I do strongly recommend thought that before trying to shift into inner body awareness during intense moments, remember to remember to call out to God, or your source or the universe for help if you ever need to. It can get really tough and challenging to retain that focus on inner body when the mind is churning out its most devious reasons and tricks to throw you off rail and into a vicious cycle of fear and abandonment again.

And now a lil poem!

There was you and there was me
And there was the electrifying energy
But when I shifted within I saw
There was just a single ocean of charge

There was pleasure, there was pain
And there was passion that set us ablaze
But when I shifted within I saw
There was only bliss and infinite grace

There was connection, there was rejection
And there was a dance of hide and seek
But when I shifted within I saw
A vibrant and eternal, joyful presence.

Arise and Bloom

I looked up shyly to my source
And whispered in a hesitant voice,
“Dear God, I am ready to bloom,
I am ready to blossom out wide”

God looked at me with an amused smile
And said, ‘Why whisper girl?
I made you to bloom in all your splendour
I made you to dance and swirl!’

‘I made you to know myself through you,
I made you to shine in greatness
I made you to spread your wings and fly
I made you to soar with lightness

I made you to sing with the birds
I made to you strut with peacocks
I made you to spread your feathers and dance
And prance around on the rocks

I made you as I made the daffodils
That are bursting and blooming with glee
Why do you hesitate my precious love
Just let your wonderful self free

Let your nature shine through you
Let it awaken and bloom forth now
Let your nature flow through you
And drown all around you in love

Shake your feathers, flap your winds
It is your birthright to fly
Open out wide, my pretty flower
Your blossoming is also mine!’

Turning my inner world around

I am grateful that today I got up with disturbed energy and beliefs, because I became aware of my pain body (like Eckhart Tolle calls it), and my dysfunctional beliefs taking over, my unwanted habit patterns trying to re-establish themselves, and the unwanted flavours arising in my inner world (as Rishiji would remark). I am grateful that I stayed with this awareness and that I remembered to pick up the book, 'Power of now', and read a few paras. I am grateful I could stay with the my inner body awareness for the rest of the morning. I am grateful that because of that, I could witness with a certain level of detachment the drama's playing out in my inner and outer worlds. I am grateful that these drama's therefore did not really have the pinch and punch that they would have normally have had and that so many possible 'mini dramas' that could have sprouted in the outer world, just made a half hearted appearance in my inner world instead and then fizzled out when I did not feed them further. I am grateful for my Sun God and for the sunshine that stayed with me through the entire experience, I am grateful for the undercurrents of love that could not just help being there. I am grateful for spring in the air. I am grateful for my higher levels of awareness and sharpness and quickness in catching the arising of those dysfunctional thought patterns of, 'poor old me', 'look the world (x,y,z) is out to torture me', 'how difficult life's circumstances (and people in it) are', 'it is so and so's fault', 'it has to be somebody's fault', etc. etc. .....whew!

I am grateful that so many unwanted flavours of my inner world decided to spring a joint attack on me today, because TODAY I was prepared for it! Tee heee..i am grateful for taking a warrior attitude, and adopting a 'Hero' metaphor and asking myself, 'Is this how a Hero will react?'.........I am grateful for shaking away the possibility of being a wimpy complaining whining cat and TAKING FULL RESPONSIBILITY for how my day will unfold today! I am grateful for taking full responsibility for what the atmosphere in my inner and outer worlds will be. I am grateful for the strength of my determination, and the valour with which I have picked up my sword to thrash away these silly thought patterns which arise and to choose with faith to keep my eyes and focus fixed on the Sun instead as the image of my source shining bright for me, no matter what! I am grateful for life and I am grateful for the new warrior me. I am grateful for the realization that aggression and attack can indeed be a part of a spiritual journey, and that I can use my warrior self to cut through the web of my own dysfunctional thoughts to see the sun shining beyond, rather than to launch an ill-informed attack on equally ignorant others, harmless messengers of growth, or innocent bystanders.

I am grateful to shed the 'scholar' 'seeker' as the only metaphors to use to visualize my inner selfs unfolding on my spiritual journey. i am grateful to take on the new and wonderful, responsibility laden, metaphors of 'hero', 'warrior' and 'magician' as well!

Thank You Universe for sending so many wonderful teachers and teachings, experiences and laboratories, learning and enjoyment in the way. Oh lovely source, you are always always there when I reach out for you, and I have a feeling that you are there even when i dont bother to reach out and just how wonderful is THAT?!

Love, Light, Blessings, and Excitement at the unfolding of the dark ages into light!

To my Parents

When I look inside myself
I see both of you there
And I can sense from your presence
How deeply indeed you care

Whether you are near or far
Your life intertwines with mine
That when I have to define myself
There is no clear defining line

Together we live, together we grow
I thank you for your presence
I thank you for gracing my life
Through your loving essence

I pray that all be well with you
No matter where you go
As sparkling blessings gently descend
From the heavens onto you below

I thank you for all you are
And for all you have ever been
I thank you for all that you have done
Which I may or may not have seen
I thank you for your kind efforts
For your selfless love and care
I thank you for the light you shine
And for unconditionally being there

I thank you for knowledge and opportunities
I thank you for wisdom and advice
I thank you for hugs, I thank you for smiles
I thank you for being so nice

I thank you for love and for fun
I thank you for playful times
I thank you for wonderful holidays
I thank you for reading my rhymes

I thank you for teaching and coaching
I thank you for cajoling and pushing
I thank you for hearing and listening
I thank you for holding and comforting

I thank you now, I thank you always
I thank you from deep inside
I thank you for everything we that we share
On this vibrant and colourful ride

A Sacred Pause

Today I am grateful for this pause in my life,
This little pause that I can always take
This little pause between my breaths
The sacred space that I can ALWAYS make

For now I am grateful just to be
To be myself and demand no more
To be the peaceful centre of my world
To be the stage where I witness this show

Right now I am grateful that I am allowing
Allowing the grace to flow through me
Allowing all is to unfold as it may
As I watch like a child, full of glee.