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 recognise 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 realise 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 NUMBER OF MOMENTS THAT TAKE OUR BREATH AWAY. :-)

I am also beginning to realise that every moment is a possibility to absorb and enjoy this unspeakable Miracle & that there is a lesson to be learnt in every single moment, too.

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 realised 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 as I am living all my happy & sad moments & it will be there as exactly the same energy till this body dies. It is my true self. It is who I am. I am beginning to realise 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 that to negative thoughts, but I didn’t realise I was addicted. My mind was constantly having this chatter – mostly negative. I started to feel like a traffic policeman directing the traffic jam of negative thoughts which 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, I started to think – what if I could be just the observer as when I sit on a bench in the park & observe people 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 realise that a thought not believed in has no power – absolutely none – 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 realised that under the Hate, there is the possibility of invincible Love, under the tears, there is the possibility of a deep smile, and under the foggy cold winter, there is the possibility of a warm sunny summer – for no matter what the outside world pushes at me, there is something much stronger within me that pushes right back & is happy just to be. :-) I am starting to realise 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 would not change, but what makes my life look good or bad or ugly to me is the way I look at them. Once I realised that Night will always follow every Day but equally the Day will always follow every Night, I started to look for the learning in the events.

a. Is there a message to be learnt for me in this experience?

b. What is the Gift in this situation?

c. What is 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 realised that I grow as a human being every time 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.

CARROT, EGG AND 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, 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 tablespoon 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 said 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 colour 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 realised that the happiest people in the world don’t have the best of everything, but that they just make the best of everything they have. It’s not the wealth I amass, but the lives that I can touch through it, that is precious – the world maybe different because I was important in the life of one single child. :-)

I have also come to realising 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 has been 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 free 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 our lives with smiles on our faces and Love in our hearts, just like little children. What a possibility that is to live into the New year & years to come. :-)

Wishing you the best of Health and lots of Happiness, Gratitude, Compassion & Love.

SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD

Once a teacher asked children in her Primary School class what the seven wonders of the world were and one by one the children came up with all seven. But one child stayed quiet so 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 classroom. So the teacher asked her what she thought the seven wonders of the world were, and the child replied: “The first I think is to TOUCH, the second is to TASTE, the third is to SEE, the fourth is to HEAR,” then after some hesitation the child continued: “The fifth is to LAUGH, the sixth is to WONDER,” and then there was silence. Then the teacher asked her what the seventh wonder was and she replied: “to LOVE.“ :-)

Sanjiv Suri