Grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Hi all!
I can’t believe it is October already. It feels like I just took the habit goal and started the blogging journey. Happy October! My September habit was Prayer/Meditation.
Why Prayer?
Later part of August and September were the lowest points of my year and faced a number of challenges I didn’t have answers to. I resorted to Prayer/Meditation and it did it’s miracle!
Just to give some background about myself: I do not consider myself a super religious person. At the same time, I am not an atheist. Yes, I go to temple for birthdays, anniversaries and special important occasions in my life. We perform special poojas (prayers) at home four times a year for specific festivals. I chant a couple of shlokas (verses) daily in the morning. That’s about it. However, I believe in spirituality and philosophy. I may not blindly follow rituals but I believe in the essence of spirituality and the good/meaning it conveys to the world (no matter what the religion is, the essence is the same). I call my Mom pretty much daily and sometimes twice a day – morning and in the evening before going to bed. My Mom is a strong believer in Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi’s teachings. For many years now, most of our conversations are about she explaining me how to apply these teachings in my day to day life and problems. I am blessed in this regard.
My daily habit of prayer/meditation was to spend few minutes (anywhere between 5-15 minutes sometimes more) daily in meditation or prayer or contemplation.
How did this new habit help?
Starting late August, I have been taking a few minutes from my chaotic life to meditate/pray daily. It didn’t immediately solve my problems but it helped me calm myself and focus on present. My mom has always been my pillar of strength to the extent I can remember. One day, she shared with me the below image. It a quote by Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi, who has been mom’s guide for many years and starting last year, mine as well. The quote is in my mother tongue “Telugu” but will try my best to summarize it in my own words: Misery is not because of outside world. It is within ourselves in the disguise of ego. We set expectations for ourselves and struggle to transcend them. Happiness cannot be attained from some external factors. I have heard and contemplated for a very long time (years) that happiness is within us but not due to external factors. Learning something is good but implementing it is a whole different ballgame. It is super hard.
However, the part that says our misery is because of our ego was my aha moment. I had always thought before that I am not egoistic because: I am not jealous, I always want to be good, do good and am always focused on achieving my goals and not to compare myself with others and am always happy for others. However, when I came across Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi’s words from my Mom, I was shocked. If I don’t have ego, I shouldn’t be sad but I was sad, very very sad for various reasons. This changed my thinking instantaneously.
Some background info before I get to what happened next: I mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts about a book “The untethered soul”. This book was recommended to me by my aunt through one of her friends early last year when I went through a similar phase as I did go through in August/September. My aunt’s friend (note that at that time, she and I never met and had no idea about who I am) somehow thought that this book would benefit me. This book changed my life forever. I don’t know what to call this anything other than a miracle. I immediately bought this book without knowing what it was about. I thought it was a self help book but at that time didn’t expect what it turned out to be. This book was written by “Michael Singer” and in essence summarizes Bhagwan’s teachings but written in a very practical way. All the conversations with my Amma over the years probably gave me the foundation (although it never clicked, if you know what I mean), I was able to immediately grasp what the author is trying to say. It did some magic. I read this book a few times early 2022 and then stopped reading it. I went from a state of misery to a super excited an enthusiastic state for the rest of year 2022.
Now, back to 2023 – There were a few times in 2023 where I would be sad for some reason or the other and my Amma would remind me to go read the “untethered soul” book but somehow I never picked up the book and read. So, in late August/September, when I was low, Amma reminded me again to read the book and again for some reason, I didn’t. However after the aha moment described above, I immediately picked up the book. And it might sound artificial when I say that my life changed instantaneously but it is true. It was again a miracle.
Lessons learned:
Some of the lessons learned over the month, again at unexpected times and some via unexpected means, that kept me going (I am not including the lessons learned from “the untethered soul” since that deserves its own post):
- Do not resist life. Let life unfold itself. You will find the way.
- Once upon a time, there was a poor man who prayed to God for months: “God, I am very poor. Please help me win a lottery. Please God, please, pretty please. I beg you.”. After some time, God felt sad for this poor person and told him: “Dear human, first, can you please buy a lottery ticket”.
- We find solutions at the least expected places. Don’t give up. Don’t stop trying.
- These monthly habits are my life saver. Even though I am not perfect at following these habits 100% of the time, when faced with challenges in life, these habits keep me going.
- Our family has been going to Chinmaya mission for over a decade now. I like Chinmaya mission because they focus more on the essence of spirituality than religion itself. During our first 2023 school year session, one of the questions asked to Swami Ishwaranandaji was (in my own words): “As parents we are running around like crazy with work, family, kids, studies, activities etc. How do we handle this kind of stress?”. His answer might sound standard and simple but unfortunately or fortunately, I think that is the only truth. His answer was: “Life is stressful. Everyone is probably doing something to extend themselves. Everyone has to face challenges in life. This causes stress. Skill of letting go after doing our best is the way to manage stress.”
- Mahatma Gandhi said: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”. Our family has been doing this for the past 2-3 years. I have been given the opportunity to lead the monthly sandwich Seva we perform at Chinmaya Mission for the past one year. A few families volunteer to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and donate to Seattle Gospel Mission who in turn provides these sandwiches to homeless people. Spending time to help this and making the sandwiches help provide some meaning to life.
- I stumbled upon two movies “Saina (biopic of Saina Nehwal)” and “King Richard (about Serena and Venu Williams)” and I am glad I did. Both the movies taught a few lessons. One of them was: Life is not fair. Keep smiling and keep trying.
- If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Cheers!
Sirisha
