Have you ever heard of the term American born confused desis?
The second generation of Indian’s living in America are often called that.
The generation has parents who left India and as they looked for greener pastures in a foreign land held  to their culture, values, way of life dearly.

Connection to our roots, is connection to our source and very grounding as well.
The second generation started to loose that as their exposure to their culture reduced unless consciously catered to by their parents.

The western way of life , it’s modern and  individualistic qualities imbibed. 
The confusion begins in the mind when one feels they have to discard one for the other.
To make one right , you have to make the other wrong.
So, shunning all the ways of life and culture they reach for a western identity, discarding the eastern philosophy.

The confusion is created by what looks like a two pronged fork.
Which way is my path and  how far can I deviate from the path I originated from. 
Not realizing that one needn’t be discarded for the other.   

Let’s look closer to home. I too born in times of rising individualism, feminism, modernism started to question our traditional way of life.  What I did not understand, I did not make an attempt to understand. I simply discarded it as unnecessary and mindless. “I don’t believe all this”.  

“I cannot be bothered to do these outdated practices” were some of my reasons and justifications for turning into a new age , hip progressive individual. All this till I had children , all this till I opened my mind to know, seek and understand more. All this till I looked around me at the proof of decaying society, individual lives and confusion.

It occurred to me the other day when I had the fortune of learning about our ancient teachings, processes and how vital and relevant they are to everyday life even today. What makes a country which boasted of education institutions like Nalanda and Indraprastha for example to degenerate into the excuse of the education system we have today? It is the loss of our culture. Not only forgetting it, but also systematically destroying it with contempt.

Yes, we have a lot of atrocities, fake propagandas, thugs who under the garb of culture and tradition have led people into the gallows. Like every nation, culture and religion across time that shadow side exist.
The confusion in our Indian born confused Indians is that they have mistaken dogma for culture.
​Culture is enriching and dogma is not. Culture is rooted, dogma is not. Culture is  a knowing of your source, a contribution to the world, a respect for your ancestry, blessing for the future, a signature of your uniqueness and it’s cultivation the source of your life.

Before you shun culture and brand it in one clean sweep as dogma, do take time to invest in finding out the deeper meaning, the science and energy behind it. For energy sustains matter. While you may believe that all that is  matter , matters. The truth is far from it.

The Indian mind set had decayed over time. We are ashamed and apologetic about our culture. You are not backward if you don’t , you are certainly diminishing if you do. 

When I met my Guru many years ago I did not even consider having or needing a Guru.

I was looking for something to do, a few answerers to questions I did not know, solutions to life’s problems. She was not a soothsayer, healer, magician of any kind so she was not the person I would bank on for my expectations to be fulfilled I thought.

I had started visiting her  home for meditations once a week.
I did not know what to expect, how to meditate and what I will get out of it.

Until one evening of a rainy July.
Having a cup of tea with her we spoke about the weather, children, rains and all the mundane things of Life.

In a moment something touched me.
I could hear not my thoughts, or her words.
The feeling was overwhelming as it washed over me.
I could contain it no longer and I burst into tears.
I could see face blurred  through my teary eyes.
I could not really see a person, the person I knew as Santosh Sachdeva.

I saw something else - A presence, a field that pulled me.
I could not understand it and  mind struggled against the magnetic force that was enveloping me.

My Guru. That was the day I knew it.
I did not know what it meant but, I knew it.
I see her as Shiva.

Everything I thought I knew , everything I believed started to dismantle. 
Like the  Rudra rupa, all chaos broke loose inside me, a churning that began to destroy the concepts, constructs of my mind.

All hell broke loose within me.
Then,  I would touch upon such silence where all would simply fade away.

A thought and then the thought would dissolve.

Shiva the all pervading within him all worlds are created and destroyed and he alone is.
She had a few words to say, I recognized what she did not say in words was changing my world.

Everything flowed in the space between two words.
I see her as Shakti

Her steps imprinting every corner of my universe.
She moves with unrelenting movement weeding out, and breaking through all binding.
Her love and gentle gaze soothing my soul like the great mother whose has limitless compassion. Sometimes she tore me down , sometimes she embraced me.

My body comes alive, I felt the  life force  in my breath, I even hear her gentle whispers as I sit in her space .
 
For me the whole is Her.
The Ardhanashwera the complete ,as One .
What else can I seek for I found the One.     

This year in March I lost a dear friend.
​
 She was my Yoga teacher and a friend for many years. She was young, not even made it to her forties.
She was battling with an illness which was maintainable and did not pose any immediate threat to her life. In fact she would have been on lifelong medication from conventional medicine point of view. Her quality of life compromised, however it was not considered fatal.
Destiny, Luck or Choices depends on how one looks at it landed her in a complicated situation. I was fortunate to have spent a lot of time with her and engaged with her situation for three weeks. She was recovery slowly but surely and on one Sunday morning of March she never woke up.
I write this to share with you what came up for me. I believe we all have essentially the same feelings , emotions when we lose a friend . This may help you if God forbid you ever experience something like this or if you have had such an experience before  it will help you to understand that you feelings that so personal are also universal.
Here are certain Natural thoughts and feelings

1. Making sense of it and trying to be okay- This is a coping mechanism that helps with rationalizing the event. It helps one deal from time to time and briefly with it.
2. Anger- Trying to find someone or something to blame it on. Anger is a high energy emotion and sometimes used by our mind so we do not fall to the opposite end of depression and helplessness.
3. Fear-  It brings up the whole relationship we have with Life and more importantly death. The inevitability of Life stares us in the face. If you look a little deeper, we are afraid to lose our Life .. Yes. But, we are more afraid to lose our loved ones. We want nothing to change knowing fully well that at any time things can.
4. Personalizing- This is what joins the people left behind. One personalizes it especially if you are of the same age or even gender. Like my friend had a little child so all mothers felt the connection to it. The points of connection become points of connection to pain.
5. Still feeling connected to the departed soul- This is common for people who were close. If the friend was around you a lot , one feels their presence even after. It can make a person uncomfortable when alone. My personal take is that there is a possibility that the person wants to be connected you as you feel the pain of disconnection. Do people reach out after they are gone? No one goes, so yes that is a possibility.

Here is what we tend to do

1. Distract ourselves with emotions and feelings that help us not access what we truly feel.
2. Escaping into work, shopping, binging, spiritual pursuits. Most times these keep us distracted.
3. Trying to “Be positive”. Contrary to popular belief it is the single most self destructive behavior. It is an invention that has nothing to do with honoring what you are feeling. A facade that crumbles eventually or leaves you deeply disappointed with yourself. Simply because the gap between what you feel and what you project is wide.  

So, how do we deal with it?
I will share what I am doing. It is what I think works for me. Perhaps it will be helpful to you.

1. Allowing myself to feel what comes up. The sadness, upset, hurt, loss. “None are wrong” feeling. If we give our self-permission to feel, we most often do not dwell on those feelings for long.
2. Allow not so good days. I understand that days will turn to hours, to moments of not feeling good with regards to this.
3. Have one person you can talk to.    Someone who did not know the departed soul preferably. A listener and someone who does not give you advice and who you do not feel judged around. I am fortunate to have someone like that. Get help professionally if you don’t.
4. I allow myself to feel her presence, not as a paranormal activity. Just to feel the Love and Caring she was when alive and continues to be even now. It gives one perspective eventually that distance and separation is only felt physically. Love and Oneness with all of Life anywhere is very healing .

 
Be kind to yourself, Gentle and Patient. I also remind myself a line from a book called Buddha’s sword I read long back. This too shall pass.     
 
       

Art has long been a medium of our Creative expression. 
It also is a medium through which we can Have Information on the following: 

• Art expresses the deepest aspects of our psyche, our compulsions and reference points that we have carried that shape our present experience and future projection.
  In this way it becomes a medium of glimpsing the past present and future. Past being the point of creation for the individual. We then can start to shift our conditioning and beliefs if we wish to have a different experience of the future. This makes it a effective therapeutic model. 
• Art therapy also gives on an insight into the elements that govern the person. Balance and Harmony of elements influence our emotional and physical states. There by giving one clues of "Prakriti" of  the individual
• Art therapy is a simple and an  effective way to Release emotions, trauma and fears.
  This aspect is helpful to address basic health matters. 

 
I had the opportunity to work with some children when I was a pre school teacher.
Giving the child an opportunity to express through art and build a pictorial scenario that was conducive to the child's overall development.Indeed heartening to see dynamic progress. 

A very helpful way to work  with children and adults including ADHD And  ADD children, even with individuals exhibiting aggressive behaviors. Hence it becomes a handy tool for Channeling emotions in a constructive way.

If the mind understands in pictures. Art therapy also helps access the depths of the mind to access Belief systems governing our lives currently.
If we wish to have a different experience in Life, then the inner Picture also requires to be different.
It all boils down to our Relationship with Life.

Art therapy not only gives you the fundamental belief a person tends to function from, it also  assists in changing the Paradigm of belief that is more functional for us.

A wonderful , Fun and Effective tool to work with Children and Adults alike! 

The stress in recent years In the Self Help and Coaching circles has been  on Thought...
The quality of our Thoughts is said to create our experience...   
Positive thinking has spun out more books in recent years and become a commonly used term in  household conversation ...
The question is, does  Thought alone that create our reality?
 I think we may be missing another important ingredient ...

There is no doubt that Thought is a vital component
It enhances the quality of Life and somehow seems to Signal a message into the field ...
Sending out a message that is congruent to what we desire in and as  our Life is then an important element ...
However, If we are not Feeling equal to our thought,
the thought is just a message out without a feedback and response ...

Feeling creates an inner environment thus a magnetic field that acts as a magnet to the corresponding thought ...    
Simply put Thought and Feeling in sync creates the desired Reality ...

Let us get very clear on our real Nature.

Nature goes beyond identity. 
Our identity is our definition of ourselves.
It is our Ego.
The projected part of us and the one we have come to identify with so much that most people believe this is the sum total of who they are.

This part is always changing , evolving and dissolving
Death, Pain, Hurt, Upset, Power , Control, Loss  are the many experiences of the Ego 

Our real nature is timeless, without definition , obscure and abstract. 
That which is eternal, constant and evolving .
Stillness, Equanimity, Creation , Limitlessness are the experiences here.  

When Ego and Our Nature are congruent, we are Completely present in our Lives and living as the greatest expressions of ourselves. 

While we are functioning from lower harmonics of emotions playing out through our ego.
Our personality self is resonating a certain frequency  and broadcasting  a specific message which brings into a field a specific experience.
 
Not only that we are also connected to a certain field of emotion. 
If you are sad or depressed .. You are being a certain frequency matching with similar frequency.

Not only are you sad .. you are equal with all that is sad. 
So, you are emitting a sadness  from and as the field.
It is as though you are plugged in, experiencing and  transmitting   only now with greater magnitude.

The longer you stay plugged in , the longer you take to notice this and choose different.
The more intensity you got to use to elevate your self from lower emotions. 

If you are having an elevated emotion for example ... feeling Inspired.
You will be plugged into the field of inspiration. 
Ideas, Inovation and Possibilities light You up.
It is the Same thing,  just with an elevated emotional state.
Living from Inspiration is a Higher harmonic. 
   
One great question I came across in Access Consciousness is 
"Who does this belong to?"
   or "Who am I Being?" 
You will realize you are being a lot of people as You!


It will give you the objectivity and you will become the Observer rather than the participator 


When you recognize that you have an Emotion.. then the Emotion need not have You 

Closing in on another year.

For some it was great, for others not at all nor anything to speak of. 
However, each day in time is a part of our personal evolution. 
Each day had within it, choices and experiences that shape who we are today, and our future.
We all are going through our personal evolution and shaping; and we are going through it as a whole as well.
Both influence each other. 

What you are influences what gets created in the world and
what happens in the World influences You. 
Although they seem a simultaneity out  of our Scope of Participation.
They are in fact two different paradigms of living Life.

If we are influenced by our Enviroment.
You are living life as the influenced, perhaps a victim in the hands of the external stimuli.
We cannot participate, have a choice or even aspire to go beyond our personal limitations. 
If we Live and Be as though our inner environment is all that we can actually have Influence over through Daily choices and practice, then we are bound to see the fallout in our external environment.
Your personal Energy influences all Energy.   
Our commitment to ourselves as we not only enter a New year, but also a New Cycle of the following decade can be this. 
How committed am I to myself?
What can I do and Be to enhance my personal Energy?
How do I choose to live.. As influenced or the Influencer? 
What would be the Greatest expression of me in this moment? 
Wishing you all a Wonder filled 2017 !