namaste

I’ve been Indian my whole life. I mean, I was born Indian, so that’s sort of obvious. This phrase “namaste” never struck me odd or weird. I just kind of went along with it telling people namaste at whatever Indian function I was being dragged to growing up. Whatever, no big deal. I never really looked into the meaning of this pretty common phrase. I just thought I was saying “Hey, what’s up” to whoever crossed my path. Little did I know that there was so much more to that phrase than just a simple hello.

My curiosity of the meaning of this phrase started picking up when I began going to more and more classes. Why the heck were these yoga teachers ending class with a namaste? I mean sure, yoga started in India and namaste is an Indian phrase, but there has to be more to it than that. There is.

Namaste is not just a phrase to greet someone. It’s about humbling yourself and respecting the other individual. Usually when the word namaste is said, there is a small bow that goes with it. The etymology of the word literally means “I am bowing to you”. You are honoring the soul, the inner-dwelling God within that person, the thing that is greater than the individual, the capital S Self…whatever you want to call it. It’s not just a simple saying after all. What does it take to truly and sincerely greet someone with Namaste?

It means that you are putting that individual before yourself. It means you are seeing the positive over the negative. It means bowing down to that person, and acknowledging the greatness that person is, the greatness that that person brings to this world and this life. It means having to lessen your ego and put yourself aside to see and honor that person as part of the Supreme.

But what does all of that mean? Why is it generally hard to see the other person in this amazing light of seeing the purity of their true inner being? It starts with us. We are constantly forming opinions whether good or bad, and those opinions start to cloud our perception of who that person or thing or entity is. We start identifying them by our old opinions and judgements we’ve formed of them (either good or bad), and thus we have created a shell. We’ve created a shell around these people and things and entities that we start to identify them with, and it’s become so thick, that it’s hard to see through that shell.

This isn’t a bad thing, We all do it. It’s just the way our mind works. We create these opinions and we start relying on those opinions to help us remember. After all, all of our thoughts are just repercussions of previously conceived notions.

How can we start having a fresh perspective on someone each and every time we meet them, so that we can start chipping away at the shell we create each and every day? How can we start seeing people for what they really are and see their true inner being?

Let’s start shrinking our egos a little bit and put our self intentions to the side, and start thinking about the other person. Let’s start to actually care and feel and really be with other people instead of being in our own worlds. But most importantly, let’s start seeing our own selves for what we truly are.

We are the greatness that exists in this universe. We are a part of something bigger than these bodies and these shells we’ve created. We are pure and loving and caring. We are amazing souls. Let’s start honoring ourselves first for what we is real within us–what is real and permanent–our pure soul.

Life is pretty amazing, and once we start realizing that amazingness then we can be sincerely humble enough to start respecting ourselves and the incredible people and things and entities this world so lovingly surrounds us with.

 

a new favorite

“Within us we have a hope which always walks in front of our present narrow experience; it is the undying faith in the infinite in us; it will never accept any of our disabilities as a permanent fact; it sets no limit to its own scope; it dares to assert that man has Oneness with God; and its wild dreams become true everyday. We see the truth when we set our minds towards the infinite. The ideal of truth is not in the narrow present, not in our immediate sensations, but in the consciousness of the whole which gives us a taste of what we should have in what we do have. Consciously or unconsciously e have in our life this feeling of Truth which is ever larger than its appearance; for our life is facing the Infinite, and it is in movement. Its aspiration is therefore infinitely more than its achievement, and as it goes on its finds that no realization of truth ever leaves it stranded on the desert of finality, but carries it to a region beyond.”

-Rabindrath Tagore
Sadhana–The Problem of Evil

never alone

I spent this summer digging deeper and deeper within myself and trying to connect more and more with my inner Self and my true, pure soul. I’ve begun to realize more and more how impermanent everything in this world is, except for the thing bigger than myself. This thing, this soul, this inner universe, this whatever you want to call it is truly a fascinating thing to study. The more personal I get with my true self, the more I realize how much strength it has. I’ve begun to realize what it truly means that I am able to live and breathe because of this invisible thing living within the walls of my body and bones.

Growing up, day in and day out my parents, family, friends, the spiritual organization I grew up in kept drilling the idea of the in-dwelling God within myself. The constant threats to always do good and be good, because “someone is always watching.” Of course, being the bratty kid that I was, I put on a show, but never really truly understood what they were trying to tell me. God’s everywhere. Cool. So what? And then, when I began this journey a few years back to truly seek truth–I mean not just want it, but really do something above and beyond to find this Truth, the layers began to unravel. This whole idea of God is everywhere began to make sense.

Next, Ayurvedic School happened, and my world was turned upside down. Every day in class, Dr. Lad would drop these huge truths like they were no big deal. Talking about what real meditation was, about the Seer, Seeing, and the Seen, and so much more philosophy that I wasn’t sure what to do with. But, the core of it was the same thing that I’ve been taught my whole life…you’re never alone.

Everything that I studied growing up, the spiritual books I read, the teachers I was learning from were all saying the same thing–that your body is just that, your body, nothing more and nothing less. It took 24 years to figure this out, and I’m still trying to grasp my mind around it all. I am never alone. My real Self is the higher Self, it’s bigger than just Nishita, it’s bigger than my body, than this daily life of routine. When this Truth finally started to sink in, little by little this summer, my perspective started changing.

There really is more to life than just the stuff we surround ourselves with in our tiny little bubble. This world is huge, and life is the gigantic container for it all. But even bigger than that is your true self, the capital S Self that encompasses life. And to get reconnected with that, that is something I want to do–to find my way back to the ultimate source. That is what life is all about.

It’s just reassuring to know that I’m not alone in all of that. There’s a source inside of me that is waiting to give me that strength. It’s flooding with the energy I need to continue and carry on. It’s constantly looking out for my best interest and cheering me on to succeed in everything that I do. It’s that little Jimney Cricket within us that is the source of all things wonderful and positive and good.

This feat is not impossible friends. With the right tools and the right understanding anything is truly possible. Straight from my senior year yearbook, “See the invisible, do the impossible.
Never has this quote meant so much more than it does now…and I’ve only barely scratched the surface. When you start believing in that invisible, literally nothing is impossible.

temporary

How long is considered short-termed? Whatever that increment is, I feel like I’m constantly trying to aim for it. I can’t say that that’s how I want to live my life, even though I fall into the trap on an every day basis, and it’s so easy to live for the short-term. The deeper I delve into life this summer, the more I realize that the things I do, think, feel are based on me wanting to be happy in that moment, but not really thinking about the rest of the day, week, or even my life. Sure, it’s really great to be happy in the moment, but if that is constantly fluctuating, what’s the point? If the next moment I’m going to be unhappy, confused, frustrated, was that one moment of happiness worth it? To be completely honest, I don’t know if it is.

I can tell you that what I want is to be happy in every moment the rest of my life. And what’s the key to that? Well, in theory, it’s pretty simple.

There’s this idea of temporary versus permanent. What is permanent in this world? Physically, on a gross level, nothing really. We are constantly changing; one day we will deteriorate back into the Earth from which we came. Our jobs, family, schools, environment is always changing. Ever internally, we can’t really rely on our thoughts and emotions, our mind because they too are constantly changing as well. Unfortunately, not many of us have the power to harness our mind’s energy and be able to control. On the flip side, our mind controls us. Our intellect controls us. Our senses control us. We are constantly chasing after all these things, the latest shoe, the best tasting dish, a great education. What is all of that doing to us? What are we gaining from it? Up to a certain point, we are benefitting. However, we are benefitting on a pretty gross level. We are just feeding our senses. And sure, that is giving us this in the moment happiness, but it also can give us in the moment frustration, anger, hatred, confusion, and so many other emotions. What use is this if we really truly want to be happy? Is this the way to eternal happiness? Is this what is going to make our souls–our true and pure selves happy? I can’t say that it will.

On this current adventure I am on, I heard a really interesting thing the other night. The speaker was talking all about what we attach ourselves to in terms of temporary and permanent. In terms of permanence, what is more true? The mind? Or the soul? As permanent as the mind seems, it is in constant fluctuation; chasing what the senses want and getting in the way of our true nature. The soul on the other hand is the truest aspect of ourselves. It is true happiness and bliss and perfection. But, unfortunately, we have lost sense of our true self as the soul and the God within (or whatever lingo you wish to use).

We need to stop attaching and identifying ourselves with the temporary, ever-changing things in this world. Bind to something that is constant and permanent. True happiness isn’t a hard thing to achieve. It just takes a lot of work.

It takes a lot of soul searching. Literally. Reconnect with your true self. Ask yourself what is real and what is not, what’s temporary and what’s permanent. Everything is relative; and it’s okay to live in this relative world, because that’s just what we have to do. What’s important is we learn to be aware of the relative, and learn how to move past that and into the permanent.

That permanent is something bigger than ourselves. Seek your path and find your way back to your true self.