thoughts about alternative ways... Happy New Year & in this New Year I am going to share with you a part of my spiritual journey – if it can be called a journey at all – as it is not about destination & movement but about stillness & silence. A spiritual journey is impossible to put into language but I have tried… I try to think of each day as the very first day of my life & possibly also the last … How do I behave? There is less and less space for anger, hatred & revenge… There is more and more Love, Gratitude, Compassion and Awe just like a small child… I start to notice every single cloud, every single drop of dew on a blade of grass, every single flower, every single bird… I start to find that just by noticing these things that I never noticed around me, my perspective on life is changing & for me it is a miraculous possibility to live into. ☺ At first I thought that I had to give up everything I have & find the courage to find the peace I seek but I am starting to realize that there is no seeking to be done, that WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR IS WHERE I AM LOOKING FROM – that there is nothing worthwhile to give up, no distance to be covered, no path to be followed, that I am Love itself. That I don’t need to work at being Spiritual – It is who I am. ☺ I am now beginning to realise that in this Universe there are no boundaries, LIFE can only be lived with a smile in the present moment (and this moment is endless) & IT IS NOT ABOUT THE NUMBER OF BREATHS WE TAKE BUT ABOUT THE MOMENTS THAT TAKE OUR BREATH AWAY. ☺ I am also beginning to realize that every moment is a possibility to absorb and to enjoy this unspeakable Miracle & there is also a lesson to be learnt in every single moment. 1. ONLY ONE CONSTANT – I used to say that there is only one constant in life and that is “change”. In the search for my true self I realized that this constant is something else – It was there when I was in the womb, it was there when I was a teenager, it was there when I became an adult and it is still there living all my Happy & sad moments & will be there and as exactly the same energy till this body dies. It is my true self. It is who I am. I am beginning to realize now that in life, IT is the only thing that does not change – everything else is like the flowing water in a river – it constantly changes…...the body as well as the self image of myself changes every single moment. 2. MY BIGGEST ADDICTION: I think my biggest addiction was to allow negative thoughts to enter my mind but I didn’t realize I was addicted. My mind was constantly having this chatter and a lot of it was negative. I started to feel like a traffic policeman directing the traffic jam of negative thoughts that were all around me. Moreover positive thoughts didn’t stick & negative thoughts didn’t seem to go away. Maybe that is the nature of the mind. Thanks to Dalai Lama & Mooji & Sri Sri Ravi Shankar I started to think – what if I could be just be the observer as when I sit on a bench in the park & observe people
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come & go but without any attachment to those people – the thoughts may come & go but I would not attach myself to them. I would not create a relationship with them. I am now starting to realize that a thought not believed in has no power – absolutely no power – but a thought believed in can potentially even start a war or change the world. ☺ 3. LOVING MYSELF ( NOT MY EGO ) IS THE MOST SELFLESS ACT: It allows me to disconnect from my ego & connect to my own inner divinity to know that I have never been alone and will never be alone – that I am one with the universe. ☺ In the process I have also realized that under the Hate is the possibility of invincible Love, under the tears is the possibility of a deep smile and under the foggy cold winter is the possibility of a warm sunny summer – for no matter what the outside world pushes at me, within me there is something much stronger that pushes right back & is happy just to be. I am starting to realize that if I want to change anything in the world then I have to start with changing myself first. 4. EVENTS WILL HAPPEN: Once i understood that in life events will happen and they would not change but the way I looked at them made my life look good or bad or ugly to me. Once I realized that night will always follow every Day but equally Day will always follow every Night, I started to look for the learning in the events. a) Is there a message for me in this experience? b) What’s the Gift in this situation? c) What’s the most loving and kind thing I could do now? d) What would I do if there was nothing to fear and I knew I could not fail? I have realized that I grow as a human being everytime I venture out of my comfort zone so now whenever life throws me out of my comfort zone – I say “ Hurrah, what an opportunity to grow “. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a Butterfly.
THE CARROT, THE EGG & COFFEE Once a girl went to see her Grandma and told her that her life was not going too well and that she was very depressed and did not know what to do. The grandma took her granddaughter’s hand into her wrinkly hand and took her to the kitchen and seated her. Then she put three pots of water to boil and when the water was boiling she put a carrot in one, an egg in the second and a table spoon of coffee in the third and let them boil for a while. Then she switched off the fires and asked her granddaughter what she had observed. The granddaughter was first perplexed but then she observed that the carrot went in hard but when exposed to boiling water came out soft, the egg went in soft but when exposed to the same hot
water came out hard but the coffee dissolved itself into the water and changed the color of the water itself. For a moment there was total silence but then the Granddaughter’s eyes suddenly lit up and a big smile came to her face. ☺ And I realized that the happiest people in the world don’t have the best of everything but they just make the best of everything they have. It’s not the wealth I amass but the lives that I can touch that is precious – the world maybe different because I was important in the life of one single child. ☺ I am also realizing that the true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade I never expect to sit & once the expectation is not there, every moment of my life is starting to become an unspeakably perfect miracle. I think each one of us is created for a reason & there are generations yet unborn whose lives will be shifted and shaped by the actions we take TODAY. Let’s take these actions with Love, Gratitude & Compassion so that we may live this year beyond the Ego. Let us be mindful (keeping our minds empty of the negative chatter at the same time), notice every single cloud, every single flower, every single bird. May this year have many moments that take our breath away. May we always live them with smiles on our faces and Love in our hearts, just like little children. What a posibility that is to live into the New year & years to come. ☺ Wishing you the best of Health and lots of Happiness, Gratitude, Compassion & Love in this wonderful New Year. ☺ THE REAL 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD Research at Harvard lays out a recipe for everyday Happiness which should not take more than 30 min every day: Once a teacher asked children in her primary school class what the 7 wonders of the world were and one by one the children came up with all seven. But one child was quiet and the teacher asked what she was thinking. The child first hesitated and then said she did not think the seven wonders of the world were the ones that had been put on the white board in front of the class room. So the teacher asked her to say what she thought the seven wonders of the world were and the child replied “ the first I think is TOUCH, the second is TASTE, the third is TO SEE, the fourth is to HEAR,” then after some hesitation the child said “ the fifth is to LAUGH, the sixth is to WONDER” and then there was silence and then the teacher asked her what the seventh wonder was and she said “ TO LOVE “. ☺ Sanjiv Suri, President & CEO, Zátiší Group ■ sanjiv@zatisigroup.cz
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