Llewellyn is the founder of The Golden Sufi Center. Author of several books, he has specialized in the area of dream work, integrating the ancient Sufi approach with modern psychology. Since 2000 his focus has been on spiritual responsibility in our present era and awakening the global consciousness of oneness. He has written about the feminine, the world soul and spiritual ecology. He has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey on SuperSoul Sunday, and featured on the Global Spirit series on PBS.

Llewellyn.jpg

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

A lover's journey

<h4>LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE explores love in the time of coronavirus, and how those
 of us with a spiritual practice can turn the results into action, bringing care and compassion into our communities.
</h4>
Suddenly we are all thrown together into a time of anxiety, fear for the health of
 family, friends, loved ones and neighbors, and for the economic distress caused by this pandemic. While some countries
 have a strong safety net, many live pay-check to pay-check, or even day-to-day, the rickshaw driver without customers
 having nothing to feed his family. This is the reality of the global crisis we are all encountering. It is also a
 testing time for those of us who are fortunate to be rooted in a spiritual practice, faced with the simple opportunity
 to open towards love rather than contract into fear.
There is a story that when the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan were sweeping across
 Central Asia, destroying cities, massacring the population, fearful dervishes ran to the great mystic Shams, the
 teacher of Rumi, shouting, “The Mongols are coming, the Mongols are coming!” He calmly replied, “I have been teaching
 you to be a duck, now swim.” For those of us drawn to the path of love, now is the opportunity to put our practice
 into action, to bring care and compassion into our communities, rather than being caught in the collective patterns of
 anxiety or panic that are swirling around us. This pandemic has taught us that we are all one, no one is separate, no
 countries or borders can limit the spread of the virus. Rather we have to respond from a place of shared humanity,
 helping and supporting each other.
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">Love and care – care for each other, 
 care for the Earth – are the simplest 
 and most valuable human qualities. 
 And love belongs to oneness.
</h5>
<hr>
The most common sense response to the virus has been to self-isolate, to close
 everything except essential services. Isolation is the oldest and most tested way to prevent the spread of a disease.
 In the Middle Ages in Europe whole cities were quarantined to prevent the spread of the plague. It is vital that as
 far as possible we practice social distancing. But rather than any sense of isolation is the knowing that we are all
 in this together, that it is part of our shared journey together with each other and with the Earth. And the power of
 our love can serve as a balance to the darkness of fear, to the forces that can so easily contract us.
And in the strength of our love and our shared journey we can use this crisis as an
 opportunity, a moment to step back from the daily demands, the busyness of our outer life. With so many stores and
 businesses closed, we experience our life reduced to what is essential, and when this pandemic is over, can we
 continue with a voluntary simplicity, no longer caught in the addictions of consumerism? We can recognize that the
 Earth is sending us a message, that it is out of balance and needs our love and care and attention. We are all part of
 one interdependent living being, ancient beyond our understanding.
We can no longer afford to pollute it with our ceaseless desires, filling the air with
 carbon emissions, the oceans with plastic.
If there is a light in this present crisis, it is in the air pollution plunging across
 China; ducks, fish, and clear waters returning to the canals of Venice. And possibly the shock of the pandemic will
 warn us of the danger of denying science, of waiting until it is too late. Maybe we can finally recognize that the
 imbalance of the Earth can and will affect us all, suddenly, unexpectedly.
<a
 href="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Open_Towards_Love2_1d646f58e3.jpg">
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 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Open_Towards_Love2_1d646f58e3.jpg" />
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Love and care – care for each other, care for the Earth – are the
 simplest and most valuable human qualities. And love belongs to oneness. We&nbsp;know this in our human
 relationships, how love draws us closer, and in its most intimate moments we can experience physical union with
 another. It can also awaken us to the awareness that we are one human family, and on the deepest level love can
 reconnect us with our essential unity with all life, with the Earth herself.
Love will remind us that we are a part of life – that we belong to each other and to
 this living, suffering planet. We just need to say “yes” to this mystery within our own hearts, to open to the link of
 love that unites us all, that is woven into the web of life. Only from this place of living oneness can we support
 each other in this crisis and then walk into a future that recognizes, feels, the sacred nature of all that exists,
 and so help to bring our world back into balance. We can emerge from this pandemic with a deeper sense of our shared
 humanity and our love for our common home, its mystery and wonder. Or we can remain stranded on the desolate shores of
 materialism, as in a supermarket where the shelves are increasingly empty.
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE 
 Illustrations by JASMEE RATHOD</h4>
<hr>

Open toward love

<h4>In this article, LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE ignites our sense aligncenter of wonder with his personal experiences of a deepening relationship with food over the course of his life. He also offers us some valuable tips in “The Practice of Cooking with Love.”</h4>Let dharma be the same as food, and let food be the same as dharma … This food is the fulfillment that is the joy of dharma and the delight of meditation. &nbsp;DogenWhen I was in my teens and began to practice meditation, I also learned to cook. I have an instinctual belief that to prepare and cook one’s food with attention is an essential part of spiritual life that provides a necessary ingredient for the journey. When Dogen, the founder of the Soto Zen school, went to China to rediscover the roots of Zen, his most instructive meeting was with an old monk who was the chief cook of the monastery, who rebuked him for not understanding that cooking was a spiritual practice.Maybe it was this ancient tradition that returned when, along with meditation, I learned to chop vegetables and bake stoneground bread. I had been brought up without any consciousness of food, in the English style of cooking, in which cabbage is boiled for twenty minutes until all the goodness has long gone. With my chopping board, knives and wok, I learned to bring attention to cooking and eating. It was also an excellent silent rebellion against my middle class family background. While everyone was eating their Sunday lunch of roast beef and roast potatoes, I was sitting at the same table eating a bowl of rice and vegetables with chopsticks!I learned to cook with awareness, with a sense that food is not just something we eat but also part of a spiritual practice, a sense that cooking and meditation go together, bringing outer and inner purity. Through being attentive to the preparation of our food, we bring an awareness into a basic substance and sustenance of life. Just as being aware of the breath is central to spiritual life, reconnecting us with life’s essence, so is the simple art of cooking. What is more satisfying than a bowl of rice and vegetables that you have prepared and cooked with attention – what is a greater gift to a visitor and friend?Then one day in my late twenties, I discovered something very different about cooking. My teacher invited me to a meal she had cooked, simple Indian fritters with rice and chutney. And I tasted love. I had never known that one can taste love, but after that meal my understanding of cooking changed completely. Yes, attention as one chops the vegetables, as one stirs the pot, is vital, but there is another ingredient that adds a totally different dimension to a meal – love.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love2_a4c4e3d980.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T05:59:15.744Z" alt="cooking-with-love">If in my childhood there was little consciousness about food, there was no awareness of love. And to be given a plate of fritters and rice in which love was the central ingredient and the main taste was revolutionary. Even the idea that one can taste love was something altogether new. Other people may have known this all their lives, known the sweetness of a cake that comes not just from the sugar, but it opened worlds to me.Is there a technique for cooking with love? I do not know, except that it happens. Maybe it happens when, as with the old cook who taught Dogen, cooking becomes one’s “practice of the Way.” My teacher had studied with a Sufi master in India and learned the secrets of love, and how to work with love. Her cooking was an expression of her training and practice. But from this one meal I learned something so simple and wonderful: that one can put love into food that then nourishes both the body and the soul. This new ingredient now became central to my cooking.There are wonderful spiritual practices for cooking. One can cook with mindfulness and attention, as in the Zen tradition. One can say a mantra or dhikr when one prepares a meal, so that the food is infused with remembrance of God. But love is a simple expression of the heart. It does not require special training, only an awareness and offering of the love in one’s heart. And the food responds. The food knows that it is loved and it passes on this gift to the one who enjoys the food. A deep sharing then takes place, as if an ancient magic is part of the meal.So now, when I cook, I remember that meal of rice and fritters, I remember love. Of course sometimes I just make and eat an omelet, grill a piece of fish, and maybe I am not even consciously attentive. But if I am present in my heart as well as my fingers, then love can be present, love can be the secret ingredient of a meal. This is one of the reasons I rarely eat at restaurants. The food may taste good, but this central ingredient is hardly ever present; something essential is missing. And love is what speaks to us, both on a cellular level and in the soul. It nourishes our body on all levels.How to cook with love is for each of us to discover, because our heart is unique to each of us, just as the song of our soul is unique to each of us. And yet love is also the primary substance of life; it connects us with the divine Source of all that exists. And for me, one meal cooked with love was an experience of a lifetime. Forty years later I can still taste it.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love4_1ee55f5dc5.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:00:38.712Z" alt="cooking-with-love"><h4>THE PRACTICE of COOKING with LOVE</h4>Food and love are two of the most vital forms of human nourishment. Combining them is a simple but essential practice.Love is alive. It is so much more than just the feeling we call love; it is the animating force of life, working according to principles far vaster than our own lives. When we feel it moving, most of us try to grab on to it or chase after it, make it our own. But it is the very nature of love to move and flow. The more it flows, the more it serves. It grows as it is given.Cooking with love is natural, because through cooking we give. Cooking and serving food are two of the most ancient and basic human gifts. We serve those who eat the food with the Earth’s sustenance – Its gift – as well as with our time, effort, care, and attention. Through this gift we are in turn given the opportunity to consciously reconnect with the foundation of life.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love10_2b2ebe0270.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:01:26.213Z" alt="cooking-with-love">To practice cooking with love,&nbsp;begin with the trust and confidence that love is accessible and can be worked with. Without this fundamental understanding, love will not be drawn in, cannot season, or nourish. Cultivate the trust that love is always available to an open heart, and that through our loving attention we can create ways for love to flow.<h4><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love7_718af7646e.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:02:35.056Z" alt="cooking-with-love"></h4>As you prepare to cook,&nbsp;let your heart open to love. Let yourself feel – love comes in on feeling. A simple way to begin to access love in the kitchen is to cook for people you love – your friends, your family, your partner, the person you’re in love with – allowing your feeling for them to infuse the process. We experience love most familiarly in the love we feel for others and from others, the feelings of affinity and affection or passion that bind human beings together. Even if you are cooking just for yourself, you can bring love in, drawing on the same kindness and compassion of love that you would bring to others. This love is not self-regard, but a real, needed nourishment for the body and soul.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love8_cee65f8f1c.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:03:23.247Z" alt="cooking-with-love">As love animates all of life,&nbsp;it is not limited to our love for one another and ourselves. It can be found everywhere, in everything. It is abundantly present in the ingredients we use in our cooking, and we can access it simply through bringing our open attention to them as we work. Begin by slowing down – don’t rush. Give yourself time and space to cook. Look closely at the ingredients you are using. Consciously touch and smell them. Recognize the bright beauty of the carrot; the symmetry of a cauliflower; the mysterious, universal swirl of a fiddlehead; the simple wonder of an egg. Breathe in the scent of the herbs and be conscious of their unique properties – how one can revive your liver and another soothe your stomach. Imagine the cow, buffalo, or chicken in the meat, milk, cheese, or eggs you are cooking, acknowledging the living animal whose life has become part of your food. Feel the love from the Earth that has made all this bounty available to you.<h4><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love9_65470278c5.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:20:26.055Z" alt="cooking-with-love"></h4>The love that gives life&nbsp;to all things also comes alive through your hands. It is accessible through the simple awareness and care you bring to chopping the vegetables, stirring the pot. As you work, bring the feeling from your heart into your hands, from your hands into the food. Love is alive; it wants to flow, and through your attention you can participate in directing its flow.<h4><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love6_053ac44654.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:21:14.498Z" alt="cooking-with-love"></h4>Be attentive to the offering&nbsp;that this act of cooking is. As you pepper the stew to refine the taste, be aware that you are creating something to give, to feed, and share. Reaffirm the fundamental generosity of the Earth – how it not only keeps us alive but gives us pleasure and enjoyment through our senses of smell and taste, and how through cooking you are participating in that generosity.In our modern world we have almost entirely lost this direct relationship with food. But food links us together and to the Earth, and cooking can help us become more conscious of this essential gift of love. Everything that is part of cooking – from the fire of the stove and the herbs we season with, to the water or wine we pour – invites us to consciously participate in this circle of life that both gives and receives. The more we recognize that we are part of this wholeness, not separate from it, the more love can flow with and through us.The world needs love. It needs love to flow like water, to be breathed like oxygen. Love can be savored, as it nourishes us in hidden ways. Love is like a key ingredient in a recipe that only the grandmothers remember. And yet it is here with us, waiting to be used, simple – like salt on the shelf. It is the most fundamental ingredient of all of life.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Cooking_with_love5_69d9b106af.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:22:45.187Z" alt="cooking-with-love"><hr>Reprinted with permission from Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life. <a href="www.spiritualecology.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.spiritualecology.org</a> © 2017 The Golden Sufi Center, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee &amp; Hilary Hart.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE Main illustrations by JASMEE RATHOD</h4><hr>

Cooking with love

<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">LLEWELLYN VAUHGAN-LEE challenges us to examine the
 ceaseless demands of today’s world that so easily fill up our days. With our smart phones and computer screens we
 often remain caught on the surface of our lives, amidst the noise and chatter that continually distract us, that
 stops us from being rooted in our true nature. Unaware we are drowned deeper and deeper in a culture of soulless
 materialism.</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">In response, along with HILARY HART, he finds it
 more and more important to have outer activities that can connect us to what is more natural and help us live in
 relationship to the deep root of our being, and in an awareness of the moment which alone can give real meaning to
 our everyday existence. Over the years he has developed a number of simple practices that bring together action and
 a quality of mindfulness, or deepening awareness, that can nourish our lives in hidden ways. These activities, like
 mindful walking, cooking with love and attention, can reconnect us with the web of life, our natural interconnection
 with life in its beauty and wonder. They can help us ‘declutter’ our outer life and instead become rooted in what is
 simple and real. They can help us to return to joy. One of these practices, which combines action with mindfulness,
 is simplicity.</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Simplicity, patience, compassion. 
 These three are your greatest treasures. 
 Simple in actions and in thoughts, 
 you return to the source of being. 
 Patient with both friends and enemies, 
 you accord with the way things are. 
 Compassionate toward yourself, 
 you reconcile all beings in the world.
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">– Lao Tsu</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1">

The boat people of Southeast Asia, the Moken, have few possessions. They can only carry
 what they need in their small boats. They also have no word in their language for ‘worry’. But when the tsunami
 came, they were attentive and watchful of the water; they saw the sea first come high on the beach and then recede
 far out. They remembered their stories, their myths of what happens to the seas, and so took their boats into deep
 water and survived the tsunami. The local fishermen did not survive; their boats were destroyed. They did not watch.
 They were not attentive.
How can we be fully attentive when our lives are cluttered with so many possessions, so
 many attachments, so many desires? Will we have time to remember the stories, to watch and move our little boat to
 deeper waters? Or will we be like the local fisherman, inattentive to the need of the moment, sunk by the tsunami of
 materialism? We live in a culture in which we are constantly bombarded, our attention distracted, no longer just by
 the ‘ten thousand things’ of the ancient world, but by ten million things. Everything is demanding our attention,
 wanting us to consume, to buy, to spend our money and our time. And we do not even know the depths and subtleties of
 this web of consumerism, its powers of deception.
How can we create a space of clarity, of attentiveness? How can we return to what is
 essential? How can we remember what really matters, what gives meaning and substance to our daily lives? How can we
 return to a simplicity of life that honors the simplicity of our essential nature, that gives space for the sacred?

First, we have to acknowledge that our whole culture is caught in the grip of
 unnecessary desires and recognize the poison of accumulation for what it is. We are conditioned and pressured to
 want more and more – this is the myth of continual economic progress. This myth has become a monster destroying our
 ecosystem, taking our money and our life energy. It has polluted our consciousness with its slogans and jingles,
 designed to distort, to manipulate. And we do not even know the power of its dark magic, how much it has us in its
 grip, feeding us false promises of a better life, assuring us that ‘things go better’ with the purchase of a
 product. It has saturated every corner of our culture. We are pressured to consume packaged food and even packaged
 spirituality. We no longer know the ingredients of our lives.
Second, we have to have the strength to say “No.” To go against this toxic flow, to
 resist the power of its empty promises and the corporations behind them, we have to regain an essential simplicity,
 return to what we need rather than what we think we want. Only then can we begin to hear the music of life, be
 attentive to the inner and outer need of the Earth. Only then can we become alive with what is sacred and true.
Third, we have to learn to discriminate, to clear our inner and outer clutter. In the
 classical love story of Eros and Psyche, one of Psyche’s almost impossible tasks is to sort a huge pile of seeds.
 Like Psyche, we have to sort the many things in our life; we have to make conscious what is of value, what we really
 need. Discrimination is never an easy task. But as Psyche is aided in her task by some willing ants, we too have
 help, in the form of an instinctual wisdom, a quiet quality, that is present to us if we are paying attention. And
 it becomes easier after time and practice. As we clear more space in our inner and outer lives, we become more
 attuned to what is necessary, more aware of the deceptions and false promises of unnecessary ‘stuff ’. We see more
 clearly how our possessions take more than just space, they also take our attention.


<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">How can we create a space of clarity, of
 attentiveness? 
 How can we return to what is essential? 
 How can we remember what really matters, 
 what gives meaning and substance to our daily lives? 
 How can we return to a simplicity of life that honors 
 the simplicity of our essential nature, 
 that gives space for the sacred?
</h5>


<hr>
Personally I love the old Taoist ways, the ways of the hermits whose spirituality and
 nature were blended together, their poems a flock of wild geese crossing high in the sky. They lived an essential
 simplicity that speaks to my soul: their possessions one robe and one bowl, the decoration of their mountain hut
 ‘the moon at the window’. I have tried to recapture this simplicity in my life, but today we seem to need so many
 things just to get by. Again and again I have tried to empty my room, especially when I was younger. But family life
 demanded more and more possessions – many more than needed by a hermit in a hut – though my children would still
 complain that I threw out too many things.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload img-float-left has-img-center-in-mobile"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/simplicity2_1_2ce3341e7a.jpg" alt="simplicity-2">So
 over
 the years I have tried instead to keep an inner simplicity, an empty space in as many moments of the day as is
 possible. Now I am getting older, once again I feel the tug of this other landscape, a longing for a small cottage
 and rain-swept hills – maybe the beautiful and bleak Scottish highlands I knew as a child. But my life remains full,
 though more with people than possessions. So I keep this simplicity as an inner secret, an emptiness that I crave.

Still I have to be careful. I use modern technology: a computer, the Internet, and I
 love listening to music on an iPod. All around me I feel consumerism and its dark web of desires that so easily
 entangles us, more than we realize. And often it is not enough to clear out the physical clutter in our homes; we
 need also to bring a simplicity to how we spend our time, how we use our attention – to be mindful in how we live.

The practice of meditation and mindfulness can clear the clutter of our minds. A few
 trips to the goodwill or charity store can clear the clutter from our homes.
And then continual attention is needed so that the currents of accumulation do not fill
 the empty space we have created. And beyond the clutter of thoughts and things, we also have to watch that we are
 not caught in constant activity, our culture’s emphasis on endless ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’. We need space in
 order to watch, to listen, to walk, to breathe – to be present. The Tao Te Ching teaches the value of not
 doing:
Less and less is done until nothing is done, 
 When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
Through a quality of emptiness we can access a deeper rhythm than the surface jangle of
 constant activity. We used to be held by the rhythms of the seasons and the soil. Now we have to struggle to return
 to a rhythm and a space that are not toxic with consumption, that belong to the seasons of the sacred, where life
 still flows true to its essential nature. Simplicity, patience, and compassion can guide and keep us inwardly
 aligned. Gradually we can once again listen to the Earth, to Her wisdom and beauty; we can feel the beating of both
 Her heart and ours. We can feel again the deep belonging that allows us to be present in every moment, not as a
 practice but a simple state of being. We can remember why we are here.


<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">Gradually we can once again listen to the
 Earth, 
 to Her wisdom and beauty; we can feel the beating of both Her heart and
 ours. 
 We can feel again the deep belonging that allows us to be present in every
 moment, 
 not as a practice but a simple state of being.
</h5>


<hr>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4>SIMPLICITY PRACTICE</h4>
Simplicity is the essence of life. The word itself comes from the Latin
 simplex, meaning uncompounded or composed of a single part. Simple things reflect this essential nature,
 which belongs to everything in creation. When we honor the simple things of life, we bring ourselves back to this
 oneness, our true Home.

All the practices in this book are a return to simplicity. Breathing, walking, growing
 food, cooking … these are the ‘chop wood, carry water’ of our day. If we honor what is essential in our lives, we
 connect with the life force that runs free of the dramas of our individual and collective psyche. Here we are
 connected and responsive.
Give extra attention to your
 simple daily activities, like rising from bed and putting two feet on the floor. Pause
 there. You are awake; you are alive. Take note of how you feel in your body, and how your feet touch the floor. Be
 aware as you move towards the bathroom, towards the kitchen and the coffee or tea. Be grateful for water in the
 sink, for oranges that made your juice, for milk in your tea. Drink slowly. Appreciate your food. Appreciate your
 family, the sun coming in the window, the beauty you see in your partner and children. Simplicity reveals itself
 through slowness, in quiet moments when you can see, feel, taste, touch and listen. Take time during the day to stop
 rushing. Move through the day with respect and openness.
Take an honest inventory of
 your life. Look at the things you have that take up time and psychic space. Look at your
 activities and commitments. Which of these things do you actually need? Which are habits and entanglements that take
 up space and weigh you down? Which reflect your real values, feed your soul, and touch you with love? Do you need or
 just want that new thing, that new activity, that has caught your eye? For a short time, try going without some of
 the things of your life. Maybe you don’t need them after all.
Let nature teach
 you. In nature, we are students of simplicity. The way a tree grows towards the sun, the way
 a cat stretches beside the fire, the way the seasons come round again and again without fail, can teach the
 simplicity of what is. The essential nature of our own lives – the cycle of birth, death, suffering and joy, and
 even liberation – also reflects this simplicity. We might make our lives complicated by how we relate to these –
 fighting death, avoiding suffering, searching for freedom and happiness – but that is our superimposed experience,
 not what is. Look for ways to attune to the natural simplicity of life that underlies the complications of our human
 experience.
Bring yourself back
 again and again to what is simple, to what does not change over time, to what shines steady through the fog.
 Ask yourself, do we need more than these things? Do we need more than the beauty of a crab apple tree in spring, a
 warm house in the winter, the way water sounds flowing through a stream, a cup of tea with friends? Do we need more
 in our lives than love?
Practicing simplicity doesn’t mean giving away all our things, quitting our demanding
 jobs, and moving to a mountain hut or living off the grid. It simply means being very honest about what we value in
 our lives, what sustains us, brings us joy and meaning, and devoting ourselves to those activities, people, or
 things. While we might end up having fewer possessions or changing some of our habits, simplicity compels a return,
 not a rejection – a seeing through and within, rather than looking somewhere else. When we live from a place of
 simplicity we naturally find we need less, and instead are more open to life.
Don’t be afraid of simplicity. It can feel stark and empty because it is free of
 psychological complexity and the coverings of accumulated need and desire. But our attention and our genuine
 response – awe, gratitude, appreciation, and respect – help transform that starkness into the richest of human
 experiences.
<hr class="vertical-space1">
Adapted from Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday
 Life. www.spiritualecology.org © 2017 The Golden Sufi Center, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee &amp; Hilary
 Hart. 
 Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a spiritual teacher and author, Hilary Hart is an author with
 a focus on women and feminine consciousness.

<hr class="vertical-space1">


<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUHGAN-LEE and HILARY HART</h4>


<hr>

Simplicity

<h3 style="text-align: center">
 REJOINING THE GREAT CONVERSATION
 </h3>
 <h4>
 LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE delivers a
 heartfelt plea to all of us to open our hearts and care for our Mother
 Earth, value her sacredness, and reconnect with her soul.
 </h4>
 
 <img
 class="img-float-right has-img-center-in-mobile lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Greta_303316327a.jpeg?updated_at=2023-04-05T12:03:36.165Z"
 alt="Greta"
 />We are present at a moment in our shared destiny when the Earth is
 crying out to us to help her in this time of crisis that is destroying
 her ecosystem, the fragile web of life that supports her multihued
 unity. All around us are what Thich Nhat Hanh calls the “bells of
 mindfulness” – we can hear them ringing in the unprecedented species
 depletion (such as the recent awareness of what is called the ‘insect
 Armageddon’, with a 45-75% loss of insect biomass), the oceans filling
 with plastic at a rate unfathomable a few decades ago, and accelerating
 climate change; all with unforeseen consequences. And, on a different
 level, though just as painful, is the loss of wildness and wonder, a
 diminishing sense of the sacred that nourishes our souls.
 
 
 Many of us are responding with action and ideas, even as our governments
 and corporations – with their focus on economic growth and materialism –
 are unable or unwilling to make this a real priority. This was
 forcefully articulated at the recent UN Climate Change COP24 Conference
 by the 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, who spoke truth to power
 when she said: “We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You
 have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again.”
 
 
 “You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too
 scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the
 same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible
 thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to
 tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children. But I
 don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the
 living planet. …” 
 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg)
 
 
 This last sentence brought tears to my eyes, as my soul heard her speak
 about real care for the Earth – for this living, beautiful being who has
 given us life, who has nourished us with her endless generosity, even as
 we have abused and desecrated her, raped and pillaged her body, which
 our culture regards greedily as just a ‘resource’ for our endless use
 and abuse.
 
 
 But behind Greta’s phrase, “the living planet,” is a deeper truth that
 calls out to our forgetfulness. As was known to the ancients and to
 indigenous peoples, our Earth is a being with a soul as well as a body,
 what in the West we called the anima mundi, the soul of the
 world, and what the Kogi in the Sierra Nevada in Colombia call
 Aluna, the spiritual intelligence within nature. Until we
 recognize, remember, and reconnect with the spiritual nature of the
 Earth, the primal intelligence within all life, we will be walking in
 the darkness of our forgetfulness, unable to find the way to work
 together with her, to start to heal and transform the living oneness to
 which we all belong.
 
 <hr />
 <h5 style="text-align: center">
 Spiritual Activism is an emerging field that calls for a spiritual
 response 
 to our present global crisis – to our present social divisiveness and
 ecological devastation, 
 to our self-destructive identification with an old story of
 separation 
 rather than embracing the living story of life’s interdependent
 oneness.
 </h5>
 <hr />
 
 <img
 class="has-img-center lazyload w-100 h-auto"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Rejoining2_31b3e86d6b.jpeg?updated_at=2023-04-05T12:04:14.474Z"
 alt="Rejoining2"
 />
 
 
 Every butterfly, every bee, every waterfall, every dream we have, is a
 part of this living, spiritual being. She is ancient beyond our
 understanding, even as she is crying out at this moment. The greatest
 unspoken tragedy of this time is that we have forgotten her living
 sacred presence, and this is the silent censorship that has clear-cut
 our consciousness. In the West, when the early Christians violently
 banished paganism, they burned the books that understood her magical
 nature;1 and now, as the web of life is being torn apart, we
 do not even know how to respond. We do not know how to access her
 wisdom, how to return to being a part of the great conversation that
 belongs to all of life. We remain stranded on the desolate shores of
 materialism, as in a supermarket where the shelves are increasingly
 empty.
 
 
 Spiritual Activism is an emerging field that calls for a spiritual
 response to our present global crisis – to our present social
 divisiveness and ecological devastation, to our self-destructive
 identification with an old story of separation rather than embracing the
 living story of life’s interdependent oneness. Yes, we desperately need
 to reduce carbon emissions and pesticides, to stop turning rainforests
 into ranchland or palm oil plantations. But there is also a call to
 reconnect with the sacred within creation, with the spiritual lifeblood
 of the planet. Otherwise we will just be continuing the same one-sided
 conversation that has caused this devastation. We need to work together
 with the Earth, to include her wonder and wisdom. We need to reconnect
 with her soul.
 
 <hr />
 <h5 style="text-align: center">
 It does not need governments or big organizations; 
 just individuals whose hearts are open 
 and who have heard the cry of the Earth. 
 Within our own being we can make this connection, 
 and so help to bring the sacred alive again 
 in our own daily life and the life of the Earth.
 </h5>
 <hr />
 
 And this is a work that we each can do. It does not need governments or
 big organizations; just individuals whose hearts are open and who have
 heard the cry of the Earth. Within our own being we can make this
 connection, and so help to bring the sacred alive again in our own daily
 life and the life of the Earth. There are many different ways to
 reconnect. In a recent book,
 Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday
 Life, I outline a number of simple spiritual practices, from walking in a
 sacred manner, to cooking with love and cleaning with awareness.2 Whatever our practice, this foundational work is not complicated, but
 rather simply requires our attention, real mindfulness. It can empower
 us to make a real contribution to enable humanity to rejoin the great
 conversation, the sacred relationship with the Earth that was part of
 the Original Instructions given to our ancestors.
 
 
 The Earth will continue. We are now living through the sixth mass
 extinction of species in her history. It is our shared future that is
 uncertain: whether we will keep to our ancient promise to witness her
 wonder and beauty, honor her sacred ways; or whether we will continue
 our present path, stumbling through an increasingly soulless wasteland,
 caught in consumerism, until the sea levels rise, the air becomes too
 toxic, the oceans too acidic, our souls too desolate. Again, in the
 words of the young activist Greta Thunberg, “We have run out of excuses
 and we are running out of time.” But she also said, “Change is coming.”
 The real question is whether we are open to being a part of real change
 – for hearts and hands to help the Earth, for our souls to reconnect
 with the magic and mystery of her living being.
 
 
 1Beginning in the fourth century, the early Christians
 banned or burned up to 90% of pagan or pre-Christian writings. Of some
 pagan philosophers only fragments now remain (Catherine Nixey,
 The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical
 World).
 
 
 2The chapters ‘Walking’, ‘Simplicity’ and ‘Cleaning’ have
 been published in previous issues of Heartfulness Magazine.
 
 <hr />
 <h4 style="text-align: center">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE</h4>
 <hr />

Reconnecting with the soul of the world

<h4>LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE&nbsp;&amp; HILARY HART celebrate the
 sacredness and beauty of all life, challenging us to reconnect with that source of meaning and appreciation.</h4>
You’ve traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the
 Dharma. 
 So many long days in the archives, copying, copying. 
 The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage. 
 Here! I’ve picked you a bunch of wildflowers. 
 Their meaning is the same but they’re much easier to carry.

—Hsu Yun (Empty Cloud)
Waking early, hearing an owl call from the trees, I feel part of something stretching
 out all around me, a deep vein of life’s meaning running through all that exists. How could I live without this
 heartbeat, this feeling of connection? Life speaks to me in so many ways: from a simple human exchange at the post
 office counter or at the bakery – a smile, a hello – to the evening clouds forming and reforming, pink against the
 setting sun. This is real meaning woven into my days – life’s story telling itself anew every day. It is the sacred
 alive in every moment.
We are surrounded by the sacred; it is in the core of our being and in the Earth’s. It
 is the essential nature of everything that is. The “sacred” is not something primarily religious, or even spiritual.
 It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is. When our
 ancestors knew that everything they could see was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It
 was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing, a fundamental recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine
 nature of the world. From this sense of the sacred real meaning is born, the meaning that makes our hearts sing with
 the deepest purpose of being alive.
Tragically, our present culture appears to have lost sight of this vital quality.&nbsp;
 Instead we live on the surface, separated from the real substance that has always given everyday life a depth of
 meaning. We are told to find meaning in our individual life, but all around us life itself tells us a different
 story – that we are part of the Earth, that we belong to the community of all of life in its myriad forms. Only
 through recognizing and living this sacred unity can we find and experience the real meaning that life is offering
 to us. And so we have to find ways to remember, to reconnect, to feel again what is all around us.
Meaning is what calls from the depths of the soul. It is the song that sings us into
 life. Whether we have a meaningful life depends upon whether we can hear this song, this primal music of the sacred.
 Sadly, today so much of life is covered in distractions, in the addictions of consumerism. Just as the infinite
 majesty of the stars has become hidden by the lights from our cities, the soul’s music is being drowned out amidst
 life’s constant clamor. Wonder and mystery have become less and less accessible. As a culture we seem to have lost
 the thread that connects the inner world, from which meaning is born, to the outer world, where we spend our days.
 The stories of the soul are no longer told. Instead, our dreams have become the desires of materialism. Even
 spirituality is often sold in the marketplace, another drug that promises to placate us, to cover the growing
 anxiety that something essential is missing.
To find meaning we have to reclaim our sense of the sacred, something our culture
 appears to have overlooked or forgotten. The sacred is an essential quality of life. It connects us to our own soul
 and the Divine that is the source of all that exists.
<hr>
The sacred can be found in any form: 
 a small stone or a mountain, 
 the first cry of a newborn child 
 and the last gasp of a dying person. 
 It can be present in a loaf of bread, 
 on a table, waiting for a meal, 
 and in the words that bless the meal. 
 The remembrance of the sacred 
 is like a central note within life. 
 Without this remembrance 
 something fundamental to our existence is missing. 
 Our daily life lacks a basic nourishment, 
 a depth of meaning. 
 
<hr>
The sacred can be found in any form: a small stone or a mountain, the first cry of a
 newborn child and the last gasp of a dying person. It can be present in a loaf of bread, on a table, waiting for a
 meal, and in the words that bless the meal. The remembrance of the sacred is like a central note within life.
 Without this remembrance something fundamental to our existence is missing. Our daily life lacks a basic
 nourishment, a depth of meaning.
When we feel this music, when we sense this song, we are living our natural connection
 with the Earth and all of life. Meaning is not something that belongs to us. Rather, our life becomes “meaningful”
 when we live this connection, when we feel it under our feet as we walk down the street, in the scent of a flower,
 in rain falling. I am very fortunate in that I live in nature. Early each morning as I walk, sensing the day
 awakening, I feel this simple connection: how the Earth breathes together with me, how It speaks the language of the
 soul and of life’s mystery. Here meaning is as simple as apple blossoms breaking open; as a young hawk, its feathers
 still downy; as the fog lifting across the water.
<img decoding="async" alt="" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/meaning_and_the_sacred2_1_cedbeaa489.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T05:42:34.513Z">

The chapters and practices in this small book are simple ways to reconnect so that we
 can once again feel the music, the song of our living connection with the Earth. They encourage us to slow down, to
 listen, to sense, to feel, and to be attentive. They draw our awareness from fantasies and desires to what is, where
 meaning waits. There are of course many other ways we can reawaken to the sacred in everyday life, feel the meaning
 that is present in everything, like blood flowing through us and through the Earth. As Rumi says, “there are a
 thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” It is this sacred ground that is calling to us, that needs our living
 presence, our attentiveness
We are all part of one living being we call the Earth, who is magical beyond our
 understanding. She gives us life and Her wonder nourishes us. In Her being the worlds come together. Her seeds give
 us both bread and stories. For centuries the stories of seeds were central to humanity, myths told again and again –
 stories of rebirth, life re-creating itself in the darkness. Now we have almost forgotten these stories. Stranded in
 our separate, isolated selves, we do not even know how hungry we have become. We have to find a way to reconnect
 with what is essential – to learn once again how to walk in a sacred manner, how to breathe with awareness, cook
 with love and prayers, how to give attention to simple things.
We need to learn to welcome life in all its colors and fragrances, to say “yes” again
 and again. Then life will give us back the connection to our own soul, and once more we will hear its song. Then
 meaning will return as a gift and a promise. And something within our own heart will open and we will know that we
 have come Home.
Reprinted with permission from Spiritual Ecology: 10
 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life. <a style="color: #cc5214;" href="www.spiritualecology.org"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.spiritualecology.org</a> © 2017 The Golden Sufi Center,
 Llewellyn
 Vaughan-Lee &amp; Hilary Hart.
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE &amp; HILARY HART</h4>
<hr>

Meaning and the sacred

<h4>LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE explores the beauty of silence, and the need of the hour for love and compassion. He invites us to listen to the song of unity, and embrace a world waiting to be born.</h4><h4 style="text-align:justify;">1. How can we reconnect with our deeper selves, our essential nature?</h4>There are many ways to reconnect with our essential nature. Any spiritual practice, prayer or meditation that takes us beneath the surface of our daily life, beneath the clutter of the mind and the demands of the outer world, can be a place of reconnection, a place where we can rest inwardly and be nourished by the deeper roots of our being. And if we need an added ingredient to help us in this work, silence is most valuable, especially in today’s world where noise surrounds us more and more. To learn to be present in an inner and outer silence is a doorway to what is real within ourselves and in the world around us.And as our world appears to spin more and more out of balance – temperatures and sea levels rising, species depleted – there is a pressing need to return to a this deep place, a place of belonging where real healing and transformation can take place. Returning to our essential self, we may find a balance resurfacing from deep within, a balance that reconnects and restores us, and also allows us to contribute in unseen ways.One of Carl Jung’s favorite stories was The Rainmaker, in which a world out of balance, in a time of drought and suffering, was healed not through activity but through a rainmaker retiring to a hut in silence. Three days later the rain came and the drought was over. When he was asked how he brought the rain, he replied, “Oh, I can explain that. I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order, they are not as they should be by the ordinance of heaven. Therefore the whole country is not in Tao, and I am also not in the natural order of things because I am in a disordered country.“So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao, and then naturally the rain came.”If we are to participate creatively in these toxic times, to bring rain to a land where the inner and outer wells have run dry, first we need to be present “in another country where things are in order.” And this “other country” is not so far away. It can be found in the Earth beneath our feet, and in the space between the in-breath and the out-breath where the soul is present. But first we need to reconnect, to return to this place of balance. And the simplest way is through stillness and silence.Silence draws us inward, away from the clutter and distractions of our outer life, to the deeper roots of our being. Here our soul nourishes us, here we can be replenished, and here we can help replenish our world. The Earth is dying from the ravages of our culture, of our materialistic nightmare that pollutes the air we breathe, the water we drink, and starves our soul from its natural connection to the sacred. In the silence we can drink deeply of the waters of life that are still pure, we can commune with the primal forces of nature, we can return to what is sacred and essential to our life and to the life of the Earth.Here, in this “other country,” the air is not toxic, and the miasma of today’s world in this post-truth era is not blurring our vision. The laughter of children rings true. Stillness is here, and the seasons are in balance. Every in-breath and out-breath is sacred. The breath, the soul, the Earth and its seasons, are linked together, nourished by each other. It is a time to heal.Sitting here at my window, I look out onto the wetlands. I watch the tides rise and fall, the sun red in the morning, sometimes breaking through the mist. Traffic may pass on the road just beneath me, the early morning milk truck, but the silence remains. As I get older I am less and less drawn to activity, more of me remains in stillness, sensing the Earth, watching the birds at my birdfeeder – I love the woodpecker with his bright red crest. Now it is springtime, apple and cherry blossoms already carpeting the ground.<h4 style="text-align:justify;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Silence_and_Compassion2_683ed4489b.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T07:31:10.200Z" alt=""></h4><h4 style="text-align:justify;">2. How can we create or reimagine a more compassionate world from within the current structures?</h4>There is a world waiting to be born, a world founded upon cooperation rather than competition, a world that honors all life in its diversity and wonder. A compassionate world in which we return to what is simple and essential and remember the “Original Instructions” given to our ancestors and held by Indigenous Wisdom Keepers about “how to get long with all of creation.” And this world, which seems so different to the broken structures of today’s divisive and exploitative culture, is not so far away. It is a world seen through the eyes, the consciousness of oneness, rather than the consciousness of separation. It is a simple shift from “me” to “we.”Oneness holds the essential vision that we are one living, interconnected ecosystem – a living Earth that supports and nourishes all of its inhabitants. If we acknowledge and honor this simple reality, we can begin to participate in the vital work of healing our fractured and ravaged world and embrace a living unity that is our human heritage. This is the opportunity that is being offered to us, even as its dark twin is constellating the dynamics of nationalism, tribalism, isolationism, and all the other regressive forces that try to divide us.Oneness is not a metaphysical idea but something essential and ordinary. It is in every breath, in the wing-beat of every butterfly, in every piece of garbage left on city streets. This oneness is life – life no longer experienced solely through the fragmented vision of the ego, through the distortions of our culture, but known within the heart, felt in the soul. This oneness is the heartbeat of life. It is for each of us to live and celebrate this oneness, to participate in its beauty and wonder. And through our awareness, and actions born of this awareness, we can help to reconnect our world with its original nature.There are many ways to experience and participate in this living oneness. But if I have learned anything after half a century of spiritual practice, it is the power of love. Love comes in so many forms and expressions. There are the simple acts of loving kindness towards friends and family, members of our community, or strangers. Love reaches across boundaries, expressing what is most essential and human: what unites rather than divides. “Small things with great love,” are more potent and powerful than we realize, because they reconnect us with the spiritual roots of life and its transformative and healing energies. Because life is an expression of love, each act of love is a participation and gift to the whole.Cooking a meal with love and care, listening to another’s troubles with an open heart, touching your lover’s body with tenderness, or going deep in prayer until you merge in love’s infinite ocean – in all these acts, we live the love that unites us. And through our loving, we nourish life in unseen ways.And at this time of ecological crisis, as we are tearing apart the fragile web of life, there is a vital need for us to love the Earth, to bring her into our hearts and prayers. We have a spiritual as well as a physical responsibility for “our common home,” and she is calling out to us, crying for our help and healing.”We need to reawaken to the power of love in the world. It is our love for the Earth that will heal what we have desecrated, that will guide us through this wasteland and help us to bring light back into our darkening world. Love links us all together in the most mysterious ways, and love can guide our hearts and hands. The central note of love is oneness. Love speaks the language of oneness, of unity rather than separation.<hr><h5 style="text-align:center;">In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh: “Real change will only happen when we fall in love with our planet. Only love can show us how to live in harmony with nature and with each other and save us from the devastating effects of environmental destruction and climate change.”</h5><hr>Love can open us to our deep participation in the life of the whole; it can teach us once again how to listen to life, feel life’s heartbeat, sense its soul. It can open us to the sacred within all of creation and can reconnect us with our primal knowing that the Divine is present in everything – in every breath, every stone, every animate and inanimate thing. In the oneness of love, everything is included, and everything is sacred.And from there, we can begin to respond. We cannot return to the simplicity of an indigenous lifestyle, but when we let love guide us we become more aware of the oneness of life. We recognize that how we are and what we do at an individual level affects the global environment, both outer and inner. We can learn how to live in a more sustainable way, according to a deeper understanding of sustainability that rests on an acknowledgment of the sacred within creation. We can live more simply, saying no to unnecessary material things in our outer lives. We can also work inwardly to heal the spiritual imbalance in the world. Our individual conscious awareness of the sacred within creation reconnects the split between spirit and matter within our own soul. Also, because we are so much more a part of the spiritual body of the Earth than we realize, within the soul of the world.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Silence_and_Compassion5_b0ce1e3b8f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T07:32:16.181Z" alt="Silence and Compassion">Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love draws us back to love, love uncovers love, love makes us whole, and love takes us Home. In the depths of the soul we are loved by God. This is the deepest secret of being human, the bond of love that is at the core of our being and belongs to all that exists. And the more we live this love, the more we give ourselves to this mystery that is both human and divine, the more fully we participate in life as it really is, in its wonder and moment-by-moment revelation.Love and care – care for each other, care for the Earth – are the simplest and most valuable human qualities. And love belongs to oneness. We know this in our human relationships, how love draws us closer, and in its most intimate moments we can experience physical union with another. It can also awaken us to the awareness that we are one human family, even as our rulers become more authoritarian, our politics more divisive. And on the deepest level, love can reconnect us with our essential unity with all of life, with the Earth herself.The Earth is a living oneness born from love, being remade by love each instant. And we can be part of its spiritual transformation, its awakening. The Earth is waiting and needing our participation. It has been wounded by our greed and exploitation, and by our forgetfulness of its sacred nature. It needs us to remember and reconnect, to live the oneness that is our true nature. And love is the simplest key to this oneness, this remembrance. Love is the most ordinary, simplest, and most direct way to uncover what is real – the innermost secrets of life. It is at the root of all that exists, as well as in every bud breaking open at springtime, every fruit ripening in fall.Love will remind us that we are a part of life, and that we belong to each other and to this living, suffering planet. Love will reconnect us to the sacred ways known to our ancestors, as well as awaken us to new ways to be with each other and the Earth. We just need to say, “Yes,” to this mystery within our own hearts, to open to the link of love that unites us all, that is woven into the web of life. And then we will uncover the love affair that is life itself and hear the song of unity as it comes alive in our hearts and the heart of the world.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Silence_and_Compassion4_9be4e62baf.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T07:33:22.963Z" alt=""><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE Illustrations by JASMEE RATHOD</h4><hr>

Silence and compassion

<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<h3 style="text-align: center">
 REJOINING THE GREAT CONVERSATION
</h3>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<h4>
 LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE delivers a heartfelt
 plea to all of us to open our hearts and care for our Mother Earth, value her
 sacredness, and reconnect with her soul.
</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 We are present at a moment in our shared destiny when the Earth is crying out
 to us to help her in this time of crisis that is destroying her ecosystem, the
 fragile web of life that supports her multihued unity. All around us are what
 Thich Nhat Hanh calls the “bells of mindfulness” – we can hear them ringing in
 the unprecedented species depletion (such as the recent awareness of what is
 called the ‘insect Armageddon’, with a 45-75% loss of insect biomass), the
 oceans filling with plastic at a rate unfathomable a few decades ago, and
 accelerating climate change; all with unforeseen consequences. And, on a
 different level, though just as painful, is the loss of wildness and wonder, a
 diminishing sense of the sacred that nourishes our souls.


 Many of us are responding with action and ideas, even as our governments and
 corporations – with their focus on economic growth and materialism – are
 unable or unwilling to make this a real priority. This was forcefully
 articulated at the recent UN Climate Change COP24 Conference by the
 15-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, who spoke truth to power when she said:
 “We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in
 the past and you will ignore us again.


 “You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of
 being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas
 that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull
 the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even
 that burden you leave to us children. But I don’t care about being popular.
 I care about climate justice and the living planet. …” (<a
 style="color: #333333" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg" target="_blank"
 rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg</a>)


 This last sentence brought tears to my eyes, as my soul heard her speak about
 real care for the Earth – for this living, beautiful being who has given us
 life, who has nourished us with her endless generosity, even as we have abused
 and desecrated her, raped and pillaged her body, which our culture regards
 greedily as just a ‘resource’ for our endless use and abuse.


 But behind Greta’s phrase, “the living planet,” is a deeper truth that calls
 out to our forgetfulness. As was known to the ancients and to indigenous
 peoples, our Earth is a being with a soul as well as a body, what in the West
 we called the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and what the Kogi
 in the Sierra Nevada in Colombia call Aluna, the spiritual
 intelligence within nature. Until we recognize, remember, and reconnect with
 the spiritual nature of the Earth, the primal intelligence within all life, we
 will be walking in the darkness of our forgetfulness, unable to find the way
 to work together with her, to start to heal and transform the living oneness
 to which we all belong.Every butterfly, every bee, every waterfall, every
 dream we have, is a part of this living, spiritual being. She is ancient
 beyond our understanding, even as she is crying out at this moment. The
 greatest unspoken tragedy of this time is that we have forgotten her living
 sacred presence, and this is the silent censorship that has clear-cut our
 consciousness. In the West, when the early Christians violently banished
 paganism, they burned the books that understood her magical nature1; and now,
 as the web of life is being torn apart, we do not even know how to respond. We
 do not know how to access her wisdom, how to return to being a part of the
 great conversation that belongs to all of life. We remain stranded on the
 desolate shores of materialism, as in a supermarket where the shelves are
 increasingly empty.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />
<h5 style="text-align: center">
 Our Earth is a being with a soul as well as a body, 
 what in the West we called the anima mundi, the soul of the
 world, 
 and what the Kogi in the Sierra Nevada in Colombia call
 Aluna, 
 the spiritual intelligence within nature.
</h5>

<hr />
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <img alt="reconnecting-soul-world2" class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/reconnecting_soul_world2_12c1313a98.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T08:21:43.169Z" />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 Spiritual Activism is an emerging field that calls for a spiritual response to
 our present global crisis – to our present social divisiveness and ecological
 devastation, to our self-destructive identification with an old story of
 separation rather than embracing the living story of life’s interdependent
 oneness. Yes, we desperately need to reduce carbon emissions and pesticides,
 to stop turning rainforests into ranchland or palm oil plantations. But there
 is also a call to reconnect with the sacred within creation, with the
 spiritual lifeblood of the planet. Otherwise we will just be continuing the
 same one-sided conversation that has caused this devastation. We need to work
 together with the Earth, to include her wonder and wisdom. We need to
 reconnect with her soul.


 And this is a work that we each can do. It does not need governments or big
 organizations; just individuals whose hearts are open and who have heard the
 cry of the Earth. Within our own being we can make this connection, and so
 help to bring the sacred alive again in our own daily life and the life of the
 Earth. There are many different ways to reconnect. In a recent book,
 Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life, I outline a number of simple
 spiritual practices, from walking in a sacred
 manner, to cooking with love and cleaning with awareness.2 Whatever
 our practice, this foundational work is not complicated, but rather simply
 requires our attention, real mindfulness. It can empower us to make a real
 contribution to enable humanity to rejoin the great conversation, the sacred
 relationship with the Earth that was part of the Original Instructions given
 to our ancestors.

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<hr />
<h5 style="text-align: center">
 Spiritual Activism is an emerging field 
 that calls for a spiritual response to our present global crisis – 
 to our present social divisiveness and ecological devastation, 
 to our self-destructive identification 
 with an old story of separation rather than 
 embracing the living story of life’s interdependent oneness.
</h5>

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 The Earth will continue. We are now living through the sixth mass extinction
 of species in her history. It is our shared future that is uncertain: whether
 we will keep to our ancient promise to witness her wonder and beauty, honor
 her sacred ways; or whether we will continue our present path, stumbling
 through an increasingly soulless wasteland, caught in consumerism, until the
 sea levels rise, the air becomes too toxic, the oceans too acidic, our souls
 too desolate. Again, in the words of the young activist Greta Thunberg, “We
 have run out of excuses and we are running out of time.” But she also said,
 “Change is coming.” The real question is whether we are open to being a part
 of real change – for hearts and hands to help the Earth, for our souls to
 reconnect with the magic and mystery of her living being.

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 1 Beginning in the fourth century, the early Christians banned
 or burned up to 90% of pagan or pre-Christian writings. Of some pagan
 philosophers only fragments now remain (Catherine Nixey,
 The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World).


 2 The chapters “Walking,” “Simplicity” and “Cleaning” have been
 published in previous issues of Heartfulness Magazine.

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<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: center">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE</h4>
<hr />

<h4>LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE reminds us of the ever-present cycles of Nature, and with them an understanding of time and the sense of sacredness that comes with being in tune with all that is natural. He reminds us that time is essential to life, and thus important to honor in our day-to-day life, instead of the rushing and disconnection associated with our modern-day urban lifestyle.</h4><hr>The sacred is an essential quality to life. It connects us to our own soul and to the Divine that is the source of all that exists. The sacred can be found in any form: in every drop of dew on an early morning spider’s web, in the call of wildfowl at dusk. It speaks to us in a myriad of ways. In my own garden it is in the scent of honeysuckle and the hummingbird drinking nectar, or the chipmunk scurrying after the seeds fallen from the bird feeder. It is also present in every prayer, every song of praise and thanksgiving. The remembrance of the sacred is like a central note within life. Without it something fundamental to our existence is missing. Our daily life lacks a basic nourishment, a depth of meaning.The “sacred” is not something primarily religious or even spiritual. It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is. When the First Peoples felt that everything they saw was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing. We all have within us a sense of the sacred, a sense of reverence, however we may articulate it. It is a part of our human nature.We each carry this primal knowing within our consciousness, even if we have forgotten it. A relationship to the sacred is older than any formalized religion, even though it lies at the foundation of many religions. It is a fundamental recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the world. It is a felt reverence, an inner sense – we even speak of “a sense of the sacred.” If we remember the sacred, we will find ourself in a world awake in wonder. However we may call this mystery, it permeates all of creation. It may be more easily felt in certain places, in ancient groves, beneath star-filled skies, in temples or cathedrals, in the chords of music. But this is a mystery that belongs to all that exists – there is nothing that is separate from it. As such, it celebrates the unity that is within and around us, the living oneness of which we are a part. Our sense of the sacred is a recognition that we are a part of this deeper all-embracing mystery.The sacred is not something static or easily defined. It belongs to the wonder of life and its deepest meaning. It is also part of the flow of life, its constant change. And yet it has cycles, patterns of meaning. Both creation and the soul have their seasons, their times of light and dark, times of birth, blossoming and abundance, times of fruition, decay and apparent barrenness. It can be helpful to recognize these changing seasons of the sacred. Then we can see how the deeper patterns within our own life follow these rhythms – how we are part of this ever-evolving mystery.The sacred is a quality of the soul, of our inner being and the inner being of the Earth. The experience of the sacred follows the rhythms of the soul and of the Earth, the cycles of becoming, the seasons of life. In today’s world we are caught in an image of time as an endless flow of minutes, ays, and years that never return – a river of time that is always passing. We rarely think anymore of time as cyclical, of the days as a movement of light and dark, or the years as a pattern of returning seasons – most of us do not live on the land with its rhythm of sowing and harvesting. We have also almost forgotten how the outer movement of time can reflect the time of the soul. Few still mark the year with the saint’s days, or the prayers, rituals, or dances that belong to sacred days. Nor do we hear the monastery bells that, before the arrival of clocks, divided the day for both the monks and the medieval farmers, a day that began with Matins and ended with Vespers.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/sacred_time2_e2cd7d2ab2.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T14:15:49.022Z" alt=""><hr><hr><h5>The sacred is a quality of the soul,&nbsp; of our inner being and the inner being of the Earth.&nbsp; The experience of the sacred follows&nbsp; the rhythms of the soul and of the Earth,&nbsp; the cycles of becoming, the seasons of life.</h5><hr><hr>This deeper cycle of sacred time, which was known to our ancestors, linked the greater and lesser events of their lives – the days, the seasons, and the years:<hr>To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:&nbsp; A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;&nbsp; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, The Bible<hr>This deeper rhythm of time is the rhythm of the sacred. To be in the presence of the sacred is to be present in a time very different from what we experience in our rushed days with the constant demands of the clock. It allows us to listen to a rhythm of meaning, understanding our place within patterns of time that link the growth of a seed to the phases of the moon and the movement of the stars. To live in sacred time is to be present in how this greater pattern connects with our own soul, our inner being, in which every breath is a sacred moment.But despite our forgetfulness, despite our heated or air-conditioned homes and offices, our disconnection from the soil, the seasons still speak to most of us, from the first warm breath of Spring to the cold wind of Winter. The seasons remind us of our deeper roots and the rhythms that are our heritage. As we get older we can also begin to sense the same seasons in the passage of years, from birth and childhood to old age, when our body’s energy lessens before time returns us to the earth. In the unfolding of our soul we can recognize similar patterns. In previous times and cultures this inner unfolding was marked by initiations, by sacred rites of passage. Now, for most of us there are few outer initiations. Instead, if we pay attention, we can come to feel the seasons that define our own soul. We can learn to respect and appreciate the way time speaks to us, how its wisdom is within us.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/sacred_time3_dc8f58df01.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T14:18:28.453Z" alt=""><hr>Putting aside our daily concerns and our mind’s clutter, we can learn to be present to the presence of the sacred in each moment. Every moment is unique, offering its own way to connect to what is deepest within us, to the wonder and mystery of being fully alive.Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,&nbsp; a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.&nbsp; If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,&nbsp; this is the best season of your life.Wu-Men<hr>Adapted by the author from Seasons of the Sacred: Reconnecting to the Wisdom within Nature and the Soul. Golden Sufi Center, 2021.

Seasons of the sacred: sacred time

<h4>
 LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE
 is a Sufi and spiritual ecologist who is passionate about the sacredness
 of the Earth and the oneness of all beings. Here he discusses our current
 environmental crisis in the light of problems and solutions, and initiates
 a call to action to contribute to a brighter future.
</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Walking in the wetlands I encounter a family of river otters playing in the
 water, then, sliding their sleek bodies onto the land, they tumble over each
 other in the sand, as a blue heron watches nearby. In their primal world
 there is neither truth nor falsehood, just life present, unfractured.



 Once, long ago, we walked in this landscape, were part of this ecology of
 place. With songs and prayers, dances and dreams we were also alive in
 life’s wholeness. But today our human world is not like this, its
 consciousness long lost, held only by a few Indigenous people and others who
 live close to the Earth. And in recent years social media has increased the
 noise of discord and distortions, half-truths, falsehoods, and conspiracy
 theories. Our collective consciousness has become fractured, different
 voices shouting while the planet burns.



 And yet, even as our patterns of disbelief poison the Earth, the land, the
 sea, and the air, even as we deny our responsibility for the coming
 catastrophe of climate change, or in some ways, more dangerously, think that
 we can “green the economy,” continuing our fantasy of eternal economic
 growth, this landscape is still present. It can be heard in every dawn
 chorus, seen in the “v” of geese flying south, in the fox found curled
 asleep in my garden. The Earth has not forgotten what is real, even if we
 are increasingly lost. Buds still break open in springtime, leaves turn
 golden in autumn. And our bodies still awake every morning into this world,
 even if our minds are quickly caught in other patterns. While our attention
 is drawn to our smartphones, sunlight filters through the clouds.


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<img decoding="async" alt="" width="523" height="349" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/watching_river_otters2_f11ddfc1f9.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T06:45:37.698Z" />


<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 And in our hearts there is a thread that connects it all together – the
 heart that knows the meaning of love and companionship, care and community.
 Our hearts can recognize the simple magic in birdsong, the essential beauty
 of a sunrise, the joy of a child’s laughter. Our hearts have not forgotten
 that we are all a part of one living community, bonded together since the
 very beginning, since the early days when we walked and played, sang and
 dreamed in harmony with the Earth and its magical nature. That thread is
 still present, even if it is covered over by the confusions of today, by our
 materialistic dreams, even by contemporary techniques that promote
 well-being. Like the otters playing in the water, it is too simple to be
 caught in distortion, too primal to be fractured. It can be found in the
 most ordinary things, a bowl of soup cooked with love and attention, a few
 kind words exchanged with friends or strangers.



 Science has presented us with the basic truths of the coming ecological
 catastrophe: Together with a warming planet it has documented an insect
 apocalypse and oceans filling with plastic. If we are to survive together
 with the Earth we have to recognize that our present way of life is
 unsustainable, and act from this knowing to reduce carbon emissions and stop
 destroying wild places.



 But we also have to find the thread that connects back with a deeper truth,
 a knowing older than our rational mind. Sadly, because so much of our
 response comes from the same rational consciousness and its technological
 inventions that created these patterns of distortion, even though this
 landscape is all around us, it is difficult to reconnect, “to arrive where
 we started / And know the place for the first time.”



 With so many voices clamoring for our attention, to whom do we listen, and
 more important, whom do we trust? A few fundamental truths are becoming more
 and more self-evident: The interconnected and interdependent nature of the
 biosphere, and how we are all a part of this living wholeness; how our
 present dream of material prosperity is destroying the environment at an
 accelerating rate, causing ecocide as it tears at the fragile web of life
 that supports us all; how governments and big corporations are too addicted
 to the present ideology of progress and profit to effect real change,
 instead increasing economic and social divisiveness; how the voices of young
 people who are crying out for a future being stolen, and suffering the very
 real trauma of climate anxiety, are more attuned to the moment than those in
 positions of power.


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<img decoding="async" width="523" height="533" alt="" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/watching_river_otters3_9b443b8394.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T06:54:02.211Z" />


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 Those of us who have looked through the cracks in our present civilization
 know that it is over, past its use-by date, but also that possibilities for
 radical change and transformation are present, like green shoots amidst a
 dying wasteland. It is possible that this century will be one of increasing
 insecurity, disturbance, chaos, even social breakdown, and then out of this
 a new civilization will gradually emerge a civilization that will emerge
 organically in harmony with nature. Quite different to now. This Great
 Unraveling that can lead to a Great Turning has the potential to return us
 to a life-sustaining culture that once again recognizes how all of creation
 is sacred. And now is the time to begin planting seeds for this
 transformation, seeds that can germinate in the darkness and difficulties of
 the coming years and belong to the foundations for a future seven
 generations or more.



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<hr />

<h4 class="text-center">
 
 It is a doorway into a way of being 
 with each other and the Earth 
 that carries the secrets of our
 shared existence, 
 where we are a part of a living tapestry 
 that stretches to the stars and
 beyond.
</h4>


<hr />
 


<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Those alive today may never see this emerging civilization, but like the
 cathedral builders of the Middle Ages who laid their foundation stones
 knowing that it could be many generations, even centuries, before their
 buildings would be completed, this should not deter us. We have the
 opportunity to lay the foundations for a way of life more aligned with the
 deeper truths of the Earth and our own sacred nature. And I believe a simple
 step into this landscape, which is always present, though hidden by today’s
 world of clicks and memes, will help us find what we need. It is a place
 where we all belong.



 Watching the river otters playing, tumbling over each other in such
 intimacy, I know that there is a deeper truth to our journey together with
 the Earth, a truth older than any belief or ideology, and far from the
 discords of today. It does not offer a solution to today’s problems, because
 it is too simple and radical. It is a doorway into a way of being with each
 other and the Earth that carries the secrets of our shared existence, where
 we are a part of a living tapestry that stretches to the stars and beyond.
 And it is here, all around us, present in the most ordinary things.



<hr class="vertical-space1" />
 


<hr />

<h4 class="text-center">Illustrations by ARATI SHEDDE</h4>


<hr />

Watching river otters: visioning a life-sustaining future

<h4>LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE mourns the forgetting of our connection with the Earth, inviting us once more to remember, reconnect and rekindle the sacred of that relationship in our lives.</h4>The pandemic has confronted us with a world seemingly out of balance, a health crisis easily becoming an economic crisis. Here in California, a summer of raging wildfires has brought climate crisis to our doorstep, the air dense with smoke, the sun rising red, ash falling. As the world spins more and more out of balance there is a pressing need to stay inwardly aligned, to keep our feet on the ground and our hearts open. We cannot afford to contract into fear or be caught in the miasma of disinformation and distortion, to be swept along by the strange currents of this time. It is essential to have a simple spiritual practice to remain centered, whether watching the breath, a prayer, or just resting in silence.The remembrance of the heart is one such practice. Through our remembrance, the Divine becomes alive within our heart and comes to meet us in our daily life. We bring a quality of love into our ordinary life, nourishing our environment in hidden ways. But remembrance also implies forgetfulness; we remember what we have forgotten, being with the Divine as a living presence, in friendship, companionship. Initially, for an individual, awakening is always an act of grace, given as a gift to help us begin our journey home. We are given a taste of our pre-existing state of divine oneness, or presence. Spiritual practice is then a simple way to remain awake from the forgetfulness caused by the illusions of the world, and gradually lift the veils that separate us from the light within us and around us.Because our present culture has lost touch with the knowing of how we are interconnected with the Earth, what the Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing,” we have forgotten how deeply we affect the Earth as a living being. We are belatedly realizing how our global industrial growth and consumer society are negatively impacting our physical environment, destroying the web of life on an unprecedented scale, pushing the planet’s life support systems to the edge. We do not yet realize how our collective consciousness also impacts the Earth. Earlier cultures lived in harmony with the Earth, recognizing how it was alive spiritually and magically as well as physically. With their prayers and rituals they communed with the Earth and its many inhabitants, keeping the balance between the worlds and never forgetting the Great Spirit present in creation. Their song, dance, drumming infused the Earth with their awareness of its divine nature, their sacred symbols belonging to both the outer and inner worlds. In this way, since the very beginning, they helped the Earth come alive as a magical being, just as our own spiritual practice can help us individually to bring alive our awareness of our divine nature.<hr><h5 style="text-align:center;">The remembrance of the heart is one such practice. Through our remembrance, the Divine becomes alive within our heart and comes to meet us in our daily life. We bring a quality of love into our ordinary life, nourishing our environment in hidden ways.</h5>&nbsp;<hr>In the first days, when human consciousness awakened on the Earth, maybe two hundred thousand years ago or longer, something changed, shifted within the spiritual body of the Earth. The light of human consciousness, mythically imaged as fire stolen from the gods, communed directly with the light of the Earth; the human soul and the soul of the world, anima mundi, sang together. The Earth awakened in a new way; a different quality of Earth consciousness was born. And as the first peoples danced and sang their stories and creation myths, the magic of the land awoke. This was also the time of the naming, when shamans or wisdom keepers were given the names of creation, which gave them access to their magical power, the healing properties of plants, the wisdom and powers of animals.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Remembrance_sacred_earth2_433f160b98.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T05:39:41.035Z&quot;" alt="Remembrance-sacred-earth">In this earlier time there was a knowing that has now become deeply hidden – a knowing of the sacred purpose of creation, of its beauty and wonder. And this knowing was continuously coming alive, speaking to human beings in all the myriad voices of the world around, in the streams and storms, in the cries of the birds and the animals, in the first language of life1. And the awakening Earth was cared for by the first peoples, by their ceremonies and prayers, and later by their sacred art – drawings of bison, horses, deer, and then by stone circles aligned to the midsummer rising sun, or temples whose statues often imaged the fertility of the goddess. In this way, human consciousness and Earth consciousness met in a sacred manner and nurtured each other, the light of the human soul and the light within creation helping both humanity and the Earth to evolve, to sing together.And so, for millennia, the Earth and humanity evolved together, until we began our journey of separation from the Earth, when God retreated into heaven, the soil stopped being sacred, and we began to forget. Now our creation myth is the Big Bang of science, but where in this story are the salmon swimming upstream, and the bear hibernating in winter? Where are the spirits of the mountains and rivers, felt in the winds and the water? Where are the power and the wonder, the magic that can come alive through our senses, through our direct relationship with the land and its inhabitants? What have we lost? What have we forgotten? And what does this mean to the Earth Herself that our prayers are no longer present?Sadly, tragically, our forgetfulness of the Earth’s magical nature, and the fact that so few of us practice the rituals that sustain this relationship, have meant that this magical living dimension of the Earth has receded from consciousness. For most people it remains only in myth or children’s stories. Its song is no longer heard; its sacred meaning has been forgotten. And the Earth Herself has suffered, Her light withdrawing.Now, the Earth is dying physically and spiritually. We cannot return to the dances and stories of our ancestors – they belong to a different time and place. But the simple act of our remembrance of Her sacred nature can help in this moment. And the heart’s remembrance is always love. Love is life’s greatest gift and our greatest gift back to life. And, as the poet Mary Oliver writes so poignantly, “There is only one question: how to love this world.” We can help the world remember what our culture has forgotten – how the soil, the seeds, the rivers and the stars all carry a central message of love. In all its diverse forms, its different ways of being and breathing, the living Earth is a celebration of love. And now it is calling out to us, crying to us to remember its sacred nature.&nbsp;<hr>1 In The Spell of the Sensuous (1996), David Abram describes how “for the Inuit, as for numerous other peoples, humans and animals all originally spoke the same language.” He quotes an Inuit woman:&nbsp;In the very earliest time when peoples and animals lived on earth... All spoke the same language. That was the time when words were like magic...Those who are recognized as shamans or medicine persons “most fully remember the primordial language, and are thus able to slip, at will, out of the purely human discourses in order to converse directly with the other powers.” Adapted from A Handbook for Survivalists: Caring for the Earth, A Series of Meditations. Available as a free PDF at www.goldensufi.org. © 2020, The Golden Sufi Center&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE</h4>&nbsp;<hr>

Remembrance & a sacred earth

<h4>LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE looks back on a life of learning about love in its many forms and faces, from the most human to the most esoteric, and what it means to him that love is the source of all that exists.</h4>One of my favorite practices, a prayer, is to imagine placing the world within my heart and feeling the love that infuses everything – every bird and butterfly, the trees and the ocean, the chipmunks that have just reappeared in the garden after their hibernation, the bleary-eyed child waiting for the school bus I pass on my morning walk. Everything, every dream, every cloud passing, is infused with love, is an expression of love. Love is the source of all that exists, is all that exists. This primary mystical awareness is stamped into my soul and consciousness, following me throughout the day, and especially in the early hours of the morning, when prayer takes me, when the world of thoughts has faded away and the heart’s presence is all that matters.Scientists may tell us that our universe began thirteen billion years ago with the Big Bang, when from an infinitely hot and dense single point matter came into existence. But mystics know a different truth: from the unborn and undying emptiness, existence is constantly being created as a flow of light and love that then becomes physical form. And this love remains the foundation, the essence of everything – every particle and every star. It is the primary energy, power, presence within the created world. And it is our divine nature, always evolving and changing within our body and soul, even as it remains constant.In today’s world, we associate love with personal relationships. We seek for it in a lover, experience it through the tenderness of a mother’s touch. We often associate it with passion, desire, or sex, even though its essence is quite different. I never knew love in my own childhood, never heard the words, “I love you.” I don’t think my parents even knew they existed. Instead, it was a cold middle-class childhood of boarding school and cold baths, endless sports on muddy fields. But in my late teens love came calling, singing out its name, drawing me deep within the heart.Love calls to us in many different ways. As Rumi says:sultan, saint, pickpocket love has everyone by the ear dragging us to God by secret waysWhile most people seek love in the tangle of human relationships, I first experienced love and the longing for love sitting at the feet of my teacher, a white-haired Russian woman who had just come back from India where she had been trained by a Sufi master. In her small room beside the train tracks in North London, this invisible essence was present, tangible. This is what was awakened in me through the simple practice of sitting at the feet of my teacher and meditating on the heart, following the ancient Sufi tradition of divine love, the secret of secrets.Love speaks to our soul and to our body. Love includes all the senses – taste and touch, smell, sight, and sound. Love by its very nature includes everything. It can be found anywhere, because it is everywhere. The mystic uncovers the simple secret: that in truth love flows through everything – sweet, tender, aching, knowing, as well as dark and passionate. And as this primal energy, this greatest power, awakens within us, within our heart, our soul, always it draws us deeper into its own mystery, into the secret of oneness, what the Sufis call the unity of being.My own journey took me from formlessness to form. As an intense young man, when I first met my teacher I only looked for love within the heart in deep meditation. But then I fell in love and was awakened to the beauty of a woman, to the feminine side of love and longing. I had been drawn into this mystery by the eyes of a woman and a longing in my heart. The tangle of her hair, the softness of her body, had taken and taught me what spiritual texts could not. Divine love is a spiritual and physical experience, and in a woman the two are united, body and soul. The Indian poet and princess Mirabai knew this secret. She was in love with Krishna, her “Dark Lord,” and she left her palace to dance before him. She had experienced the soul’s rapture with her Dark Lord, and speaks of the body’s “hidden treasures”:O friend, understand: the body is like the ocean, rich with hidden treasures.Open your innermost chamber and light its lamp.Within the body are gardens, rare flowers, the inner Music; within the body a lake of bliss, on it the white soul-swans take their joy.And in the body, a vast market – go there, trade, sell yourself for a profit you can’t spend.Mira says, her Lord is beyond praising. Allow her to dwell near your feet.In her words of rapture are one of the deepest mysteries of the feminine: how in her body are “gardens, rare flowers, and the inner Music.” This is not just erotic imagery, but alludes to the secret of creation, and the beauty and wonder that belong to this essential substance. Without this quality of the feminine there would be no joy, the magic of life would not be present. Colors and fragrances would fade into dull gray days.And now, as an old man, I find this secret of creation all around me. It walks with me beside the bay in the early morning, as I follow the quails scurrying down the path, the baby rabbits hopping out of sight, the coyotes stalking in the nearby field, and the glimpse of a river otter, its nose just above the water. And in the depths of night I know this love both in the emptiness and the world of forms.<figure class="image image-style-align-center"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/love_and_prayer2_dc62540697.jpg" alt="image name alternative"></figure>I was born a stranger to love, did not know its meaning, even its existence. Over twenty years passed in a grayed-out world before desire for Truth took me to love. And now, all that is really left a lifetime later seems to be this quality of love that sustains me. After so long a journey – often tired, longing just to rest – I return to love. Or love returns. And this love includes everything. It belongs not just to a human relationship, or to an inner relationship with God; it is a love that is everything, that flows through all that exists – sweet, tender, aching, knowing. Or just a simple presence within the heart, a soft warmth that sometimes brings bliss.And love is free, a gift to each of us. Even if it costs blood and a broken heart, it is still free. Love is life speaking to its beloved and the beloved speaking to life. And in that conversation so many things can happen, so many miracles can be born – the small unsuspected miracles that we often do not notice, like a moment of sunlight through the clouds, a flower blossoming from the sprout of a seed, a smile from a stranger. This world is steeped in this divine quality that is waiting to be born, to be brought into existence, to be loved into being. And just to be a part of it is enough, is a story that sings in the heart.Yes, the world is full of discord and suffering, tears and blood, the bomb falling on a marketplace, the mother whose starving child is dying in her arms. This pain is real. And I do not attempt to understand how this is all born from love, is an expression of love. I do remember once, when I was deeply praying for those suffering, a still voice came into my heart saying “You think I do not love these people?” But how all suffering belongs to God and is also an expression of divine love is a mystery my mind cannot grasp, even if my heart has been taken to places where only this deeper oneness is real.<figure class="image image-style-align-center"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/love_and_prayer3_adadc0f698.jpg" alt="image name alternative"></figure>And so, when I wake in the night and pray for the world, I am especially drawn to places of darkness and pain, to war and injustice, those fighting or demonstrating for freedom, those without food or shelter. And in my heart I also feel the Earth being torn apart – species and wild beauty lost. Through it all the love remains, the one constant, the only true solace, the deeper knowing of our divine nature: that we are all born from love and will return to love.This journey has taken me from formlessness to form, to life’s unending multiplicity, beautiful, numinous, and most ordinary. And then back into the infinite emptiness of the beyond. Love cries and often my heart feels broken. I sense that love is really all we have to give, and the meaning behind every experience that touches the soul. Love is life’s greatest gift and our greatest gift back to life. And especially at this time, life, the Earth, is calling out to be loved, to be held in the heart, so that this thread of love that is present throughout creation can support it in its crisis, so that a new story for humanity and the Earth can begin to be woven into the fabric of existence.So, in the night, in the empty hours after midnight, traditionally known as the “Hour of God” or “the Night Prayer,” when prayers are especially powerful, I turn my attention to the Earth and the heart, to the flow of love that comes from the beyond into existence, knowing only that this is a mystery to which I belong, felt in the tender touch of a loved one as well as the vast spaces where stars are born.<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/love_and_prayer4_2a7d348a49.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4><hr>&nbsp;

Love and prayer

&nbsp;<hr>&nbsp;<h4>LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE &amp; HILARY HART explore the contemplative, spiritual value of walking in Nature, and share with us a simple walking practice.</h4><hr>In the busy-ness of our contemporary life, we are drawn into ceaseless activity that often separates us from the deeper dimension of ourselves. With our smartphones and computer screens, we often remain caught on the surface of our lives amidst the noise and chatter that continually distract us, that stops us from being rooted in our true nature. Unaware we are drowned deeper and deeper in a culture of soulless materialism.At this time I find it more and more important to have outer activities that can connect us to what is more natural and help us live in relationship to the&nbsp;deep root of our being, and in an awareness of the moment which alone can give real meaning to our everyday existence. Over the years I have developed a number of simple practices that bring together action and a quality of heart-centered attention, or deepening awareness, that can nourish our lives in hidden ways. These activities, like walking, cooking with love and attention, can reconnect us with the web of life, our natural interconnection with life in its beauty and wonder. They can help us ‘declutter’ our outer life and instead become rooted in what is simple and real. One of these practices, which combines action with awareness, is walking.<hr><h3 style="text-align:center;">Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.</h3><h3 style="text-align:center;">—Thich Nhat Hanh</h3><hr><hr>I have always loved to walk early in the morning, to sense the Earth at the beginning of a day, to feel Her pulse, Her beauty and magic, before thoughts and demands clutter my day. Waking early, I have a hot cup of tea, meditate in silence, and then, as soon as the first light comes, I walk down the hill to the road beside the wetlands where I live. Sometimes the frost is sparkling around me, sometimes the water is clouded with fog, an egret appearing white against the reeds. This is another time of silent meditation, walking, breathing, feeling the Earth. I try to be as empty as possible, just to be present in the half-light, aware of what is around me. Prayer, meditation, presence, awareness – these are just words for a practice that immerses me in a mystery we call nature. Here the sacred speaks to me in its own language, and I try to listen.Now I live beside the wetlands, and the tidal water is part of this meeting, this communion. Other times, in other landscapes, it has been rivers and streams, the sounds of waterfowls’ wings, the dawn rising across meadows. Or in forests, a different bird chorus, animals skittering across the path, a deer and her young. Always it is a listening awareness, a deep receptivity to what is around me, an honoring of a world other than people. It is a remembrance of what is essential, elemental, and its nourishment carries me through the day. It is a return to the sacred, sensed and felt, without words or thoughts – a primal consciousness as if of the first day.This is a practice that has been with me since my teens – when I first started to meditate I also needed to walk. It was not taught or learned, but came as a need, a way to be, an antidote to much of the world around me – a world of people and problems, demands and desires. When one foot follows the other and the day has hardly begun, it seems these demands cannot touch me, as if I am immersed in something simpler, more essential. Placing each foot on the earth is a practice, but a practice that comes from my own roots, not a book or a teacher. Later I came to hear it called “walking in a sacred manner,” and it is sacred, a return to what is sacred. But it also is deeper or more primal than any purpose. Nature speaks to me and I listen. Nature calls and something deep within me responds, and I just need to give it space. I am part of a life far greater than any ‘me’.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/walking2_img_326f62d35e.jpg?updated_at=2023-03-31T13:33:15.303Z" alt="walking2_img"><hr>The Earth gives us sustenance: the air we breathe, the food we eat. She is generous in so many ways, even as we forget Her and abuse Her. But there is also this deeper nourishment, this invisible, intangible giving. My early morning walk is a communion – if I am receptive, it is a wine drunk deeply. It comes through Her landscape, moss dripping from the trees, white and pink blossoms welcoming spring, the cry of a sea bird. Those first rays of sunrise are always a blessing. I do not understand this with my mind, but my soul feels it, needs it. Once again we are back at the beginning, in that elemental world we never truly leave. Our present culture may have forgotten it,&nbsp;disowned it, covered it over, may pretend we no longer need this communion, but my soul and my feet know otherwise. This is the landscape of the soul as much as it is the wetlands stretching towards the ocean. But it is also any landscape we walk. A walk on city streets is made of the same elements: feet touching ground, the rhythm of walking, breathing, the same sky overhead, the wind touching the face.I would like to say it is easy, but so often I have to remember to reconnect, to empty the clutter of the coming day from my mind, my everyday thoughts. I have to stay in a place of awareness, sense my feet, feel the air, listen. I have to remember that I am not separate but part of everything around me. I have to push aside this great myth of separation, the great untruth. We are the air we breathe, the earth we touch, the same one life, alive in so many ways. We are the Earth awakening in the early morning, just as we are the buds breaking&nbsp;into color in the spring. To be fully alive is to feel how we are part of this embracing mystery. My morning walk is a remembrance, a reconnection, experienced in the body and felt in the soul.<hr>So often I have to remember to reconnect, to empty the clutter of the coming day from my mind, my everyday thoughts. I have to stay in a place of awareness, sense my feet, feel the air, listen. I have to remember that&nbsp;I am not separate but part of everything around me.<hr>&nbsp;<h3 style="text-align:center;">Walking Practice</h3><hr>Walking reinforces our connection to the Earth, one step at a time. Attuning to the rhythms of one’s feet, the swaying of one’s arms, the in and out of breath, the ways walking moves us through time and space, helps develop this relationship, reminding us consciously and unconsciously just how much a part of nature we are. Nature is cyclic and rhythmic, and walking – when we are not focused on where we are going – attunes us to this non-linear reality.Walking practice is perhaps best begun alone, when the intimacy of nature’s communication can be sensed without distraction. Just as when we meet a lover in the early part of a relationship, we do not want to share that meeting with others. Choose a time when you can be alone, when listening, hearing, and sensing can take place. Perhaps the start or the end of the day, before life’s clamoring takes hold or after it lets go. Lunchtime or an afternoon break from work might be more difficult, but if that is the time available, then make sure the walk is long enough for you to let go of work thoughts or tensions of the day.Turn off the cell phone, or better yet, leave it at home or the office. There is a way that the vulnerabilities that come with being alive have been squelched by our daily-life safety tools, like cell phones. If you can be without the protection and constant access they provide, try it. Social media will not miss documentation from your walk.Find a park or a path through quiet woods if you can. Let the rhythm of your steps soothe your mind and create a space for listening. Feel how your feet connect with the earth, how the air moves through your lungs. Follow your attention as it is drawn inward and outward both – to the inner movements of your body and to the feeling of warmth or cold, the sight of birds, the sound of a distant plane. Let your thoughts and impressions move through and out, as part of the natural rhythm of walking. Just as we come back to the breath in silent meditation, return your attention to your feet and their meeting and letting go of the ground.Commit to walking every day if you can. Walk without expectation, with an attitude of openness and gratitude. If you feel a longing inside you – a need to connect, a desire to be closer to nature – let it motivate and guide you.The nineteenth-century existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote in a letter to his niece, “Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”This is the first of the practices from Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee &amp; Hilary Hart’s <a href="https://goldensufi.org/press/">Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life</a>, 2017. It is reprinted with written permission from the authors.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE &amp; HILARY HART</h4><hr>

Walking

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Louisa May Alcott

Power

Luigi was born and lives on the island of Capri with his family. From a young age has always been interested in spirituality. He is a Heartfulness trainer.

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Luigi Ferraro

<h4>
 LUIGI FERRARO lives on the beautiful Isle of
 Capri in Italy’s Bay of Naples. He has been a Heartfulness yogi for over 45 years, and shares with us his
 experience of the search for a Universal Truth.
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Life’s circumstances led me at a young age into a religious education for the priesthood. At the age of ten I entered
 a religious institute where I remained until I was eighteen, when the study of philosophy undermined the foundations
 and certainty of my Christian faith.



I wandered around in total darkness for several years, in an anxious and painful search for a Universal Truth that
 would satisfy my existential doubts.



As luck would have it, I got to know some people who practiced meditation under the guidance of an Indian Master, and
 in November 1976 I was introduced to the Heartfulness system of meditation on the heart.



I started this practice with all my doubts and perplexities. The idea of a Master did not suit me. But the
 naturalness of the system attracted me, and as I practiced I felt different and lighter. Without any effort, all my
 doubts vanished into thin air to make way for a dimension of heartfelt awareness.



A year later, in March 1978, I arrived at Shahjahanpur at the feet of Babuji. As soon as I crossed the threshold of
 the gate, I was immersed in a state of sacred bliss that continued throughout my stay. From the depths of my being,
 there was a grateful recognition of his divine Essence. I had come home.



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 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/heartfelt_awareness2_700x484_0cf00a2c71.jpg">
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Those moments marked the path by giving me the ability to move beyond the turbulence of daily life, allowing me to
 focus on the source from which we descend.



My experience is of an enlightening path, with new dimensions discovered day after day in the whirlwind of life. The
 tangible support of the living Master has offered me all possible help to advance spiritually toward the heights
 possible in our human condition.



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Heartfelt awareness

Luke is a Holistic Lifestyle Coach in the field of Integrative Medicine. He uses a holistic approach towards prevention, weight and disease management with expertise in cancer care. His programs are personalised according to lifestyle and revolve around the 4 pillars of good health: quality sleep, balanced nutrition, emotional detox and adequate exercise. He works with doctors who are continuously involved in research on both prevention and recovery. His global practice involves clients from the US, UK, Europe, India, the Middle East, the Far East and Australia.

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Luke Coutinho

<h4>LUKE COUTINHO is a holistic lifestyle coach, practicing in the field of
 Integrative Medicine. Here he shares his experiences and knowledge of how what we eat makes a difference to
 physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.</h4>
I believe that right nutrition, cooked and served the right way, within the framework of
 the laws of nature, has the ability to shape us, heal us, and prevent problems in so many ways. It stands to be one
 of the most important verticals of holistic health. Each of us have 5 selves – physical, emotional, mental,
 spiritual and intellectual – and everything that we put in our mouths helps shape each of these selves; right from
 the way we look, think and speak to the way we fight or prevent illnesses, age, feel, and so much more. What we eat
 is not only manifested physically in our body but also mentally in our thoughts.
Decades ago, when food was much cleaner, more wholesome, closer to nature, and naturally
 grown, diseases and mental stress were rarer and milder forms were known. With the gradual decline in the quality of
 food and the prevalence of processed and refined foods in every home, we also started to see a gradual increase in
 diseases, poor immunity, skin and hair health, infertility, metabolic conditions, obesity and emotional ill health.
 Yes, there are other factors responsible, but nutrition has a major role to play. “Food is medicine” – not just for
 our body but also our emotional health.
Foods contain energy, and the right kind of food is what fuels every cell the right way.
 While a clean and wholesome diet contains highly vibrational foods, processed, putrid, burnt, refined foods are low
 vibrational foods. This impacts every aspect of our body, mind and spirit. This fact was also known by our ancients,
 as the ancient yogic texts talk about three types of food – Sattvik, Rajasic and Tamasic. Many
 people have reported how their anger, frustration, mood, focus or concentration improved the moment they shifted to
 clean eating. Their prayers and spiritual practice were also enhanced, and meditation went deeper with cleaner
 eating habits. This is also why a heavy, greasy meal at a restaurant leaves you feeling sluggish the next day. Food
 is meant to energize and fuel you, not drain and rob you of energy.
<h4><img alt="we-are-what-we-eat" class=" img-float-left has-img-center-in-mobile"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/we_are_what_we_eat2_7744bce3e9.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T07:55:23.403Z">FOOD AND IMMUNITY</h4>
The right food can feed our immune system and the wrong food can cripple our immunity.
 Immunity, being the first and last line of defense, is the most important barrier we have against diseases. Why do
 most ancient remedies for curing a fever, cold, cough, flu, headache, stomach ache, or any physical suffering,
 revolve around food as the first step? Because food heals us, right from a spice or herb to various concoctions and
 dishes.
<h4>FOOD SHAPES THE QUALITY OF OUR THOUGHTS</h4>
Foods not only make you look and feel differently but can also impact your thinking,
 personality and character. There is a direct link between food and mood. Our body relies on nutrition to manufacture
 the right number of neurotransmitters and hormones that make us feel food. Certain foods can stimulate emotions like
 anger, frustration, anxiety, grogginess, while other foods help you feel calmer, composed, grounded etc.
Why do kids (or even adults for that matter) who consume a lot of sugary foods end up
 being more cranky, restless and hyper? It’s because that’s what sugar does to our body and brain. It lights up brain
 activity just like any other psychoactive drug.
Food also impacts our libido and sexual desire in a huge way.
<h4>FOOD AND SLEEP</h4>
Certain foods have the ability to calm us down, making the process of drifting off to
 sleep much easier, e.g. magnesium-rich foods. Other foods can act as potent stimulants. They wake up our mind, make
 us jittery and anxious, and give us an uphill task to fall asleep.
<h4><img alt="we-are-what-we-eat" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/we_are_what_we_eat3_2e39ae893c.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T07:56:34.072Z">FOOD AND OUR SKIN, HAIR AND NAILS</h4>
Skin, hair and nails are also made up of cells, and the health of our skin, hair and
 nails depends on the quality of nutrition reaching these cells. It’s an inside out approach. Acne, skin allergies,
 early onset of wrinkles, hair greying, brittle nails, hair fall and thinning, can speak volumes about the kind of
 food the person is eating. Sometimes, ensuring enough intake of biotin-rich foods is enough to fix a hair fall
 issue. No amount of creams, lotions, conditioners and serums will help if the foundation of heath, i.e. food, is not
 on point. The right nutrition makes it possible to have that glow on the skin, lustrous hair and strong nails.
<h4>FOOD AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE</h4>
While physical appearance is multifactorial, food can largely determine your body shape.
 A pot belly could mean one is overdoing sugar, high fructose corn syrup, alcohol, foods rich in bad fats etc. And it
 doesn’t always have to be fat; sometimes wrong foods can also result in a bloated belly. Contrary to that, give your
 body the right kind of exercise, sleep, nutrition and stable mental health, and you will work yourself towards a
 strong and lean body.
<h4><img alt="we-are-what-we-eat" class=" img-float-left has-img-center-in-mobile"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/we_are_what_we_eat4_9b2706bd3f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T07:58:14.703Z">FOOD AND MIND</h4>
Your food choices are the most influential variables that you can control when it comes
 to health, vitality, and functionality of your brain. When it comes to nourishing the brain, improving cognitive
 skills, enhancing memory, managing brain disorders like dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and ADHD, food is given
 huge importance.
<h4>FOOD AND EXERCISE</h4>
Food is energy that fuels trillions of cells in our body. Lack of energy leads to
 fatigue, and that can largely impact not only the quality of a workout but also the motivation to exercise. Yes,
 there are fake forms of energy like sugar, caffeine and other stimulants, but what we are talking about is real
 cellular energy.
So, the next time you reach out for something to eat, know that it’s about more than
 fulfilling your hunger. What you eat reflects who you are and vice versa. It is possible that with a quality,
 balanced, wholesome nutritional plan, your body will gain the ability to manage diabetes, fatty liver, thyroid
 conditions, hormonal imbalances, cancers, depression, autoimmune diseases, and getting off statins and other meds
 (keeping doctors in the loop) with a lot more ease. It may or may not take away the disease, but it will surely help
 steer you in the right direction. After all, good food has always been used as medicine and most of the best
 medicines can be found in food.
<img alt="we-are-what-we-eat" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/we_are_what_we_eat5_95405c64b1.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T07:59:48.769Z">Having
 said that, what we eat is just half the story. How we eat, how much we eat, our emotions, thoughts, feelings, and
 our relationship with food also impact how we digest, absorb and assimilate a meal. So, it’s necessary to focus on
 each of these aspects to extract the maximum worth from nutrition.
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by LUKE COUTINHO 
 Artwork by ANANYA PATEL</h4>
<hr>

We are what we eat

<h4>LUKE COUTINHO practices in the space of Holistic Nutrition, Integrative &amp; Lifestyle Medicine and is the founder of You Care, an online wellness market. He shares some simple wellness tips to help us benefit from the food we eat every day.</h4><hr>Do you remember growing up and having a cold, cough, fever, wound, stomach bug, or flu? The first line of action for our parents or grandparents was to delve straight into the kitchen pharmacy and brew concoctions for immediate relief. Our ancestors relied heavily on the power of food as medicine. If there is one learning I have had over the last decade consulting people across the world, it is this: food, when cooked with quality ingredients and served within the frameworks of nature, possesses the power to heal.It is not to say that food alone can heal you, because every disease or lifestyle condition is multifactorial. But when you couple clean eating with quality sleep, adequate movement, rest and recovery, emotional wellness, and your spirit, you help the natural in-built intelligence of your body work for you and aid prevention and recovery. It is another reason why deep and advanced cellular nutrition is one of our key lifestyle pillars.<h3>Eating local versus global – which is better?</h3>It is one of the most commonly asked questions. Yes, eating local food is excellent. It is not only beneficial for health, but also support our farmers and the yield of our soil. If you live in a country that is diverse, eating local is important. Different foods grown in different climates suit body temperature, skin, hair, genes, and immune system.For instance, we have witnessed the magic and wisdom in Indian food. Of course, there is a right and wrong way to cook anything, but, in essence, a staple Indian diet is well-balanced, wholesome, and nutritious, because it involves an array of fresh ingredients and freshly ground spices. Yet, we come across people who label it unhealthy, deem it too oily, spicy, or acidic. The truth is that the food isn’t the culprit. It is our sedentary lifestyle, poor quality oils, adulterated ingredients, and overeating that are the main culprits.<hr><hr><h4>When you couple clean eating with quality sleep, adequate movement, rest and recovery, emotional wellness,&nbsp; and your spirit, you help the natural in-built intelligence of your body to work for you and aid prevention and recovery.</h4><hr><hr>Think about it. For our ancestors, disease at its lowest and the happiness quotient was at its highest. They lived fulfilling lives and found joy in simplicity.Many Indian herbs and spices have now become global superfoods. Traditional Indian meals like dal, rice, and vegetables; one-pot khichdi with salad; bhakri (millet tortilla) with dal; vegetables with a dash of garlic chutney or raw mango pickle are all complete meals.While appreciating this ancient wisdom, we can also stop putting ourselves into a box of only local food. Why? Most medical and lifestyle conditions are not local but global – such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s.If foods that are not local can help manage your condition, why not eat them? For instance, kiwis originated in China, are commercially grown in New Zealand, and are scientifically documented to help with DNA repair. For those undergoing chemotherapy or radiation, kiwis are excellent.The point is, embracing local foods is super important. But if certain global foods can help with your medical conditions, be open to them.<hr><hr><h4>We need to consume certain foods moderately, or cut down on them, to avoid an array of lifestyle ailments. Studies have consistently linked the large amounts of refined sugar, particularly in sugary beverages, to obesity and excess belly fat.</h4><hr><hr><h3>Stop making food the enemy</h3>Following a diet shouldn’t deprive you of food. Instead, it should mean eating more of what’s good for you and less of what’s not. Fad diets may seem like they help you shed the initial few kilos, but they are not sustainable. They deprive you of macro and micronutrients and cripple your metabolism. You will hit a plateau or put all that weight back on (the yo-yo effect). The first step is to understand that food is not the enemy. You need to improve your relationship with it.Yes, all of us eat a cookie or two sometimes, but that is not the reason why the world is sick today. The reason is overconsumption, eating with greed, using food to cope with emotions, and so on.We need to consume certain foods moderately, or cut down on them, to avoid an array of lifestyle ailments. Studies have consistently linked the large amounts of refined sugar, particularly in sugary beverages, to obesity and excess belly fat. Foods containing high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may cause you to become resistant to leptin, a hormone that signals your body when to eat and stop eating. Foods rich in refined sugar are commonly linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, depression, dementia, liver disease, and certain types of cancer.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/are_you_eating2_bcaec60cab.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T05:16:35.099Z" alt="are-you-eating2"><hr><h3>Cut down or avoid</h3><ul><li>Refined sugar</li><li>Refined carbs</li><li>Diet sodas</li><li>Excess salt</li><li>Fast foods</li><li>Pesticide-laden fruits and veggies</li><li>Junk and processed foods</li><li>Aerated drinks</li><li>Binge drinking</li><li>Dairy and gluten if you are intolerant to them</li><li>Refined oils</li></ul>Even if you enjoy eating junk once in a way, ensure that most of your nourishment comes from natural sources.<h3>How does food influence your mind?</h3>We are what we eat. What you feed your body nurtures your five inner selves – physical, emotional, mental, intellectual, and spiritual. It is why ancient Ayurvedic and yogic texts speak about three types of food – sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic.There is a direct link between food and mood. Our body relies on nutrition to manufacture the number of neurotransmitters and hormones that make us feel good. Certain foods can stimulate emotions like anger, frustration, anxiety, and grogginess, while other foods can help us feel calmer, composed, and grounded. Excess sugar can make you irritable and jittery. On the other hand, fermented foods, raw veggies, fruits, and whole grains, help you feel calmer and grounded.<h3>Foods that boost neurotransmitters</h3><ul><li>Serotonin – known as the happy hormone, it is responsible for feelings of well-being and happiness. Rich sources include banana, pineapple, nuts, kiwi, tofu, whole egg, and fresh cheese.</li><li>Endorphins – help us change our perception of pain and stress. Rich sources of endorphins include chocolate and spicy foods.</li><li>Dopamine – helps us feel motivated. Rich sources of dopamine include avocados, chocolate, spinach, almonds, all types of seeds, and yogurt.</li><li>Acetylcholine – sparks creativity, muscle action, and reaction. Rich sources of acetylcholine include beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, green peas, radish, spinach, strawberries, and whole eggs.</li><li>GABA – helps us feel calm and focused. Rich sources of GABA include non-GMO soy, rice, mushrooms, potatoes, and fermented foods.</li></ul><h3>7 healthy eating habits you can adopt today</h3><h4>#1 Eat a rainbow</h4><hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/are_you_eating3_17c6d51f43.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T05:17:29.660Z" alt="are-you-eating3"><hr>The more colorful your plate, the more diverse your gut microbiome. The more diverse your gut microbiome, the better your immunity. Balanced meals help your immune system fight inflammation, swelling, bacteria, infection, and viruses. Follow simplicity. Keep your meals simple, wholesome, and diverse. As clichéd as it might sound, some of the most effective nutrition strategies revolve around incorporating whole grains, pulses, lentils, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, cold-pressed oils, and ghee, among other wholesome foods. Eat a rainbow for at least two out of three meals.Divide your plate into three quadrants:<ul><li>The largest quadrant will consist of starchy and non-starchy vegetables</li><li>The second-largest quadrant will consist of quality protein (animal or plant-based)</li><li>The smallest quadrant will consist of carbohydrates that come from grains and cereals</li></ul>Your portion intakes may vary based on your unique requirements, medical conditions, and <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/boost-your-vitality" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">health goals</a>.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/are_you_eating4_5fd4da4e49.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T05:18:28.135Z" alt="are-you-eating4"><hr><h4>#2 Chew your food</h4>Master the art of chewing. Digestion begins in the mouth. Eat your food slowly and mindfully. When you bite every morsel, your saliva has digestive enzymes like amylase, lipase, and protease that help you break down this food. It allows you to extract maximum nutrients from the food you eat. The action of chewing and producing saliva signals your stomach to start the production of acids and other enzymes to aid digestion. When you eat too quickly without using your teeth to break it down, you send partially digested and larger chunks of food into your stomach. It can lead to acidity, indigestion, and other gut issues.<h4>#3 Align your nutrition intake with movement</h4>If you sit for long hours, keep a check on what you eat and control your portion size accordingly. But is it okay to be a couch potato? NO. Sitting is the new smoking. So keep moving. Even if you work at a desk job, take regular breaks, and engage in simple stretching. Choose fun workouts that you enjoy — dancing, aerobics, Zumba, swimming, yoga, and keep that body moving. If you are just starting, fast-paced walking or jogging daily for 30 minutes can help. Do not over train or undertrain. Prioritize rest and recovery.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/are_you_eating5_43d9a42270.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T05:19:14.717Z" alt="are-you-eating5"><hr>#4 Differentiate physical and emotional hungerStress can affect the way you eat. Chronic stress is associated with a greater inclination toward high sugar and high-fat foods which are major risk factors linked with obesity. While emotional eating may make you feel good and fulfilled at that moment, eating to counter negative emotions will leave you more upset than before. This cycle repeats until you address your emotions at their root. Eat when physically hungry and not emotionally.#5 Do not starve yourselfStudies show that food deprivation can cause nutritional deficiencies. Self-imposed dieting can do more harm than good. Avoid looking online and following extreme fad diets without knowing their side effects. Seek professional advice if you must. Find a holistic nutrition and lifestyle plan that suits you best. Remember, you are a unique bio-individual.#6 Don’t eat your dinner like a birdYour dinner should be the lightest meal of the day, but don’t eat like a bird. Make it a balanced meal by adding quality protein, fats, and carbohydrates. If your goal is to lose weight or manage your blood sugar, don’t go no-carb, go low-carb instead. Use your judgment.#7 Follow the circadian rhythm way of eating and livingIn my free-to-download eBook, A New Way of Living – Circadian Rhythm, I speak about our biological clock, the circadian rhythm. It is the sleep-wake or day-night cycle that determines how the body carries out different processes at different times.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/are_you_eating6_1_b44bd1de11.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T05:20:08.730Z" alt="are-you-eating6-1"><hr>Following the circadian rhythm of eating and fasting can benefit your overall health and well-being. Try some of these rules when it comes to eating.<ul><li>Want to drink tea or coffee? Have it after three hours of waking up. Avoid drinking it in the second half of the day, as it is a stimulant that may affect your sleep routine.</li><li>Your metabolism fires up and is at its peak at noon. So consume your maximum calories at breakfast and lunch. Let dinner be your lightest meal.</li><li>Eat your last meal of the day as close to sunset as possible (around 7 pm). Fast until sunrise to give yourself a good natural 12-hour break. This is known as circadian fasting.</li><li>Keep a two-to-three-hour gap between dinner and bedtime.</li><li>Do not snack mindlessly. Keep a fixed time. Avoid midnight snacking because your body slows down toward evening and needs rest. It is not designed to digest food around the wee hours of the night. It will disrupt your circadian rhythm.</li><li>Eat at fixed times, no matter how busy you are. Unusual eating times can disrupt your circadian system and affect your health. Studies point out that food intake is a major external synchronizer of peripheral clocks. Your eating pattern can influence fat accumulation, mobilization, and the effectiveness of any fat loss plans. Timing is everything when it comes to circadian rhythm syncing.</li></ul>Don’t wait for tomorrow. Do it today. Eat smart, move more, sleep right, and breathe deep until then.<hr><hr><h4>Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4><hr>

Are you eating for your mind, body, and soul?

Lynn lives in the Highlands of Scotland and is semi-retired. Trained as a Youth &amp; Community Development Worker, she worked in education for over 10 years before moving to counseling specializing in addiction. She was the CEO of an Addiction Service for over 30 years and during this time served on the board of COSCA and trained addiction counselors across Scotland. She is also a Heartfulness trainer.

Lynn Geddes.webp

Lynn Geddes

<h4>LYNN GEDDES explores the importance of what we think and how our thoughts create our own unique reality. She also shares a way to change that reality by working with intentions and manifestation.&nbsp;</h4>&nbsp;<h4 style="text-align:center;">Whether you think you can, or you think you can't— you're right.&nbsp; —Henry Ford</h4><h4 style="text-align:center;">We see what we become and we become our world.&nbsp; —Deepak Chopra</h4>&nbsp;Like you, I am a unique individual. There are no two people in the whole world who are exactly the same. Could it be that this is because the world I inhabit, the world I perceive, is created by me and only me?&nbsp;Based on my beliefs, reinforced by my experience, and enlivened by my feelings, the world I come to know, to live in on a daily basis, is actually a projection of my thoughts. And this makes it totally unique.Over 30 years’ experience in counseling, specifically addiction counseling, has led me to an awareness that resonates with the famous Henry Ford quote above. Clearly there are many factors involved in creating our individual world and how we inhabit and experience it. And one of the core elements, in my experience, is what we think.&nbsp;Time and time again I have witnessed self-fulfilling prophecies in action. An individual experience, the beliefs that support the thinking, and the intensity of the feelings that are associated with the experience all add to the power of creation.&nbsp;As we develop a particular way of being—character or personality for ease of understanding—our very own individual way of perceiving the world develops and we inhabit our own reality. This in turn gives us our unique experience of life. This individual experience of life is further enhanced by the feelings associated with that experience, and the cycle is complete by reinforcing our thinking of “me, my life, my world, my reality.”&nbsp;If we take the beliefs that support our thinking, it’s worth investigating what created those beliefs in the first place. Quite often they are not actually ours—we may have inherited them from our parents or peers. If we believe something to be true and yet have no evidence to support that truth, is it really part of our world or does it belong in someone else’s world?&nbsp;If we take an experience, the associated feelings that grow and enhance that experience in turn form and affect our character or personality. Good or bad feelings give us the discernment of good or bad experiences. We experience the feelings, and if they are repeated often enough, they become part of our world, our way of being. So, an experience that is actually neither good or bad, becomes good or bad depending on the feelings we associate with it. How we think or remember it.Finally, if we think that the feeling associated with an experience&nbsp;is true, it becomes our reality, our life. We have created a unique way of being that is ours. Can or can’t – either way we’re correct.Following these steps of creation, some of us more consciously than others, it is possible to create a way of being through manifesting.Simple easy steps, when repeated, are given energy by invoking feelings. They are unique to you, and you can develop a new way of being, new beliefs and experiences, that in turn create a new reality.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">An experience that is actually neither good or bad,&nbsp; becomes good or bad depending on&nbsp; the feelings we associate with it.&nbsp; How we think or remember it.</h4><hr><h3>Create an Intention with the 3 Ps</h3>Make your own statement that is:Personal: it is only about you. Present tense: it has not been, and is not to come. Use the power of now. Positive: feel what it’s like to have the experience you are manifesting, really feel it as you repeat the statement.Start with:I AM—that’s the first two Ps taken care of.Now, feel what the experience will bring you.Say it frequently, every day, for 6 months. Release the experience of creation and see for yourself how it manifests.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:30.56%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/What_We_think2_942812cc38.jpg"></figure>P.S. Some thoughts never result in much; they never make it to the finish line. This usually happens because the belief system may not be based on your personal experience, but has been taught to you by another person. Or maybe it is not positive, e.g. “I can’t…”&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Illustrations by JASMEE MUDGAL</h4><hr>&nbsp;

What we think

Lynne Azarchi

LYNNE AZARCHI is the
 Executive Director of the Kidsbridge Tolerance Center in New Jersey. It is
 the only youth-oriented tolerance center in the US. The center focuses on
 providing an immersive learning experience for children from kindergarten to
 eighth grade around the strategies of bullying prevention, diversity
 appreciation and respect. In this interview with
 EMMA IVATURI,
 Lynne talks about Kidsbridge, key principles that every classroom carries,
 and the importance of empathy in a learning environment.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: What are the origins of Kidsbridge?
 



 LA: Kidsbridge
 was started twenty years ago by a young man whose mother was a teacher. He
 started the organization in her honor, realizing that more than ever before
 there was a need to teach children and educators diversity appreciation and
 bullying prevention. We started with the concept of a multicultural museum to
 teach children about respect and kindness, and ten years ago the museum
 opened. It is now called the Kidsbridge Tolerance Center. Since then, we have
 built upon the original concept with activities that address kindness,
 respect, sensitivity to people with disabilities, victim empowerment for
 bullying, and being an UPstander.



 As the years have passed, we have adapted in order to keep up with the fact
 that society and kids are changing so quickly. As a result of our research and
 assessments, our activities have improved a lot. For example, we had a Kid
 Heroes room, but then learned from our research that not every kid feels that
 they can be a hero, so that activity evolved into being about personal
 strengths and working with others as a team. Other activities have evolved
 from teachers’ comments or parents saying something.



 By listening to people, and supporting our activities with research, the
 Kidsbridge activities are now research-informed and evidence-based. We can
 show statistically significant improvements in empathy, empowerment, and moral
 reasoning as a result of our programs. We do assessments and make sure each
 activity is effective.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="319"
 height="319"
 alt=""
 class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/learning_empathy4_dc53547779.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T04:50:10.622Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 By listening to people, and supporting our activities with research,
 the Kidsbridge activities are now research-informed and
 evidence-based.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: What is an UPStander, and how do you encourage every child to be
 one?



 LA: We start with
 personal strengths. Kids self-identify with the things they’re good at, so we
 help them discover how those individual strengths can be used in some way to
 be an UPStander. Not everyone can be a leader, but they can help others as a
 follower or a supporter. We have an activity where we provide strategies and
 tactics on how to approach a bullying or name-calling situation.



 We’re hoping that when kids come to the Center feeling, “I can’t do this, this
 is too scary, I’m not prepared,” they will practice skills and tactics. Then
 they will start to think about the challenges in advance, so that when an
 UPStander opportunity arises, they are ready. Then they can work together with
 their peers and adults.



 With teachers, we arm them with the latest research and activities, so that
 they can create caring classrooms. Anybody can be an UPStander.



 Q: What are some of the principles you use when working with
 children?



 LA: Many schools
 have assembly programs and classroom programs to address bullying, but the
 research indicates that these programs don’t work. I call it “finger wagging.”
 So, what happens in an assembly, if you say, “Okay, bullies, stop bullying!



 Targets, go tell an adult. UPstanders, intervene”? I think that kids already
 know the right things to do, but they’re not practiced in them, and they’re
 afraid to do them because of peer pressure. So this is why our pedagogy is
 very effective.



 The pedagogy of Kidsbridge is small face-to-face group discussions and
 activities – no electronics, interpersonal – because that’s how kids learn. So
 they learn from our activities, our scripts, our wonderful facilitators, and
 they also learn from each other.



 We work with The College of New Jersey’s Psychology Department. The college
 students administrate pre- and post-surveys, and the data are analyzed in the
 psych lab, so that we know whether our activities are working or not. We hone
 our activities as a result, and they are now evidence-based. We see a
 statistically significant improvement in attitudes like empathy, empowerment,
 moral reasoning, stereotype awareness and religious diversity.



 Last semester, we did a Heartfulness and Mindfulness activity with the kids,
 and we are very proud to include this activity. Why? Because research says
 that children are increasingly under stress and that’s very upsetting.



 Having statistically analyzed the effects of the program, we can proudly
 report that the Heartfulness and Mindfulness activity significantly reduced
 stress. The results show that the survey participants demonstrated significant
 improvements in three aspects: Observe, Accept without Judgment, and Act with
 Awareness. The results imply that this new program is beneficial for both
 middle and elementary school students.



 Q: What are some of the benefits teachers have reported in their
 classrooms?



 LA: Children report
 that they feel more comfortable standing up, that they know what to do next
 time, and that it’s not as hard as they thought it would b e .


Here are some quotes from teachers:


 “The students were engaged, on task, and the group was organized. The
 facilitators maintained control and continued to enforce objectives. The
 assignments opened up their eyes to diversity and bullying prevention.”



 “The activities were great for this age group. They learned how to speak to
 others, and who may be different. They also came up with ideas on how to help
 others. I love Kidsbridge! Please come back.”



 “The students really enjoyed the heart and mind role-play. The breathing
 technique was wonderful. Nice calming activities.”



 “The objective was achieved. The facilitators tapped into their background
 knowledge and experience with mindfulness and meditation. The students
 responded well and were fully engaged.”


I found the teachers loved these mindful activities.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="468"
 height="470"
 alt=""
 class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/learning_empathy2_27952b220d.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T04:51:46.356Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 We see a statistically significant improvement in attitudes like
 empathy, empowerment, moral reasoning, stereotype awareness and
 religious diversity.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: What are some essential tools for children to develop so they can face
 the challenges in this day and age?



 LA: Let’s
 consider the types of problems we see today. Increasingly, Muslim children are
 bullied and harassed. Of course, they get support from home, but we’re hoping
 to teach them and their teachers how to respond when they’re teased and
 bullied, using some of the strategies.



 We have taken strategies from The Youth Voice Project by Charisse Nixon and
 Stan Davis, who researched what works for kids: Make a joke, walk the victim
 away, make a distraction, go to an adult. So we really focus on strategies
 that are useful for Muslim children, gay children or children of color, as
 bullying and cyber bullying are especially increasing for these children.



 It’s also important to energize the teachers, so they feel confident with a
 teacher’s guide and follow-up activities to take back to their classrooms so
 as to create a caring community.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="432"
 height="704"
 alt=""
 class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/learning_empathy3_35d4fdd268.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T04:53:25.198Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 And with the increase in bullying and cyberbullying, (and the pressure of
 increased testing), Heartfulness and Mindfulness are even more important than
 ever today. The kids are more often online, anonymous, and some of them feel
 fearless in being mean online. Kidsbridge recognizes how important
 Heartfulness is in providing our children with tools to calm down, breathe and
 focus on what is important, so they don’t feel overwhelmed or hurt themselves.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-illustrations-by-arati-shedde">
 Illustrations by ARATI SHEDDE
</h4>

<hr />

Can learning empathy prevent bullying?

Lynne is an authority on the new science and consciousness, an award-winning author, and the architect of the Intention Experiments. A highly sought after public speaker, Lynne has also appeared in many documentaries. She is editorial director of What Doctors Don’t Tell You, and is consistently listed as one of the world’s 100 most spiritually influential people.

lynne-mctaggart.webp

Lynne McTaggart

<h4 style="text-align:justify;">LYNNE McTAGGART is one of the central authorities on the new science of consciousness, and the award-winning author of seven books, including the internationally bestselling The Intention Experiment, The Field, The Bond, and The Power of Eight. Here, Lynne is interviewed by PURNIMA RAMAKRISHNAN about the transformative power of intention, the profound impact of group intention, and the potential for individuals to create significant change in their lives and the world.</h4>&nbsp;Q: Lynne, welcome. You are known for your pioneering work in the science of intention in <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/the-journey-of-total-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">consciousness and healing</a>. You’ve explored this science behind intention so deeply. Can you share how you personally define the power of intention?&nbsp;LM: Okay, well, first of all, it’s important to understand that our thoughts aren’t locked inside our heads. They’re trespassers, and they can go out and affect other people and things. We’ve seen that from countless studies on everything from single-celled organisms to human beings. In my own work, I’ve seen that we can affect everything from making plants grow faster, to purifying water, to lowering violence in war-torn and violent areas, and even healing people of things like post-traumatic stress disorder. And I’ve seen it in big groups and small groups. Essentially, thoughts are energy, just as everything else in the body is a collection of energy and energy fields of different varieties. And those thoughts can go out and affect things.I see an intention as a focused thought. You and I are having about 80,000 thoughts a day, and most of them are undirected, most of them are negative. And they oftentimes undermine our life because we’re focusing on negative outcomes, instead of intending for what we want.So, I always teach intention as a respectful and very specific request to the universe. And I find it gets amplified in small and large groups.Q: During your intention experiments, have you encountered any surprising results? Are there poignant moments, epiphanies, which have made you stop and think? What has defined or redefined your expectations of these intention experiments?LM: I think many of the peace intention experiments really surprised me. I wasn’t at all sure they were going to work when we started in 2007. We started with simple things, trying to affect the light emissions of a leaf. And then we moved on to seeds, trying to make them grow faster. And then we moved on to water, trying to purify water, then trying to lower violence in areas.My first experience of something mind-blowing was the seed experiments. I did my very first seed experiment in 2007 when I was speaking in front of an audience in Sydney, Australia. I worked with the University of California’s Dr. Gary Schwartz, a noted psychologist who has a special laboratory with the Laboratory for Consciousness and Human Evolution. He prepared four sets of seeds, each set with 30 seeds, and had his team photograph them and send them to me. And I showed these to the audience and allowed them to select one of the four seeds to send an intention to. So we sent an intention to seed group A for ten minutes. After we were done, I called Dr. Schwartz and told him we were done, but I did not tell him which seeds we sent the intention to. I told him as that was the cue for him to plant the seeds.Five days later they measured the seeds. After they’d measured them, I unblinded the study and told them which seeds we’d sent an intention to. And lo and behold, those seeds grew taller than any others.We did this five more times in different locations with different-sized audiences. And every single time the seeds that were sent an intention grew taller than the controls. But here’s the fascinating part—I was with my audience in Sydney, Australia, and the seeds were back in Tucson, Arizona, 8,000 miles away. Plus, we weren’t sending an intention to the seeds themselves, only to a photograph of the seeds, a symbolic representation of the seeds. So I realized from that very early time that we essentially create a psychic-internet when we make an intention in a group scattered around the globe. That I could see over and over again with the other intention experiments.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Essentially, thoughts are energy, just as everything else in the body is a collection of energy and energy fields of different varieties. And those thoughts can go out and affect things.</h4><hr>Another one that blew my mind was a Sri Lanka peace intention experiment we ran in 2008, when Sri Lanka was in the midst of a 25-year civil war. We did a peace intention for 10 minutes a day over eight days with 15,000 people participating from around the globe. Now, during that week, to my alarm, violence went up rather than down. And I had a professor of statistics doing the analysis. It then plummeted after that. But a more interesting thing happened. The government won a few decisive battles during that week that turned around the entire course of the war. For some time, both sides had been at a stalemate. Then, within a few months, the government was able to take back the north, which was held by the rebel forces. And a few months later, that 25-year intractable war was over.Now, did we do this? Well, it turned out that during the week of our intention pivotal battles occurred, and that was cause for an extraordinary surprise. When you do one experiment like that, it means nothing. There are too many variables in a war. But when you keep doing it and keep getting results, as we’ve done with peace intention experiments, they start becoming interesting.For instance, in 2017, we ran an experiment to lower violence in St. Louis, Missouri, officially the most violent place in America. And we chose a neighborhood called Fairground that was the most violent of all. We had very accurate police data. I once again asked Dr. Jessica Utz from the University of California to analyze data from several years beforehand to six months afterward, to look at the effect of our intention. She found that violence had been going up in all areas of St. Louis, and continued to go up everywhere except the neighborhood we intended where violence went down by 43%. And so it’s happened over and over again.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/intention_revolution2_38d89b0431.webp" alt="intention-revolution2.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_intention_revolution2_38d89b0431.webp 110w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/small_intention_revolution2_38d89b0431.webp 353w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/medium_intention_revolution2_38d89b0431.webp 529w," sizes="100vw"></figure><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">I always teach intention as a respectful and very specific request to the universe. And I find it gets amplified in small and large groups.</h4><hr>Perhaps the one that amazed me the most is an intention experiment I did that same year, at the end of 2017, with eight Arab cities and a large audience of Israeli Jews. I had special equipment so we could put cameras in eight different locations in Arab cities. Each different Arab city had an audience there. And the ninth camera was with an audience of Israeli Jews. I asked them all to make an intention to lower violence in an area of Jerusalem that was suffering from a high degree of violence.Before that, I had to broker the entire thing, as nobody was speaking to anyone else. They started talking, because I could call on the different places. They would talk to me, and then they would also communicate with the people in all the other locations. And they started sending love to each other, they started sending “Your God is my God,” talking about beautiful visions of people coming together from both sides. There was a big love fest. I found that every time I put together polarized and hated enemies, they seemed to come together after these intention experiments.Since 2008, I’ve run 41 intention experiments, and 37 have shown measurable significantly positive effects. I also surveyed the people involved, and for those who responded, about 40% have reported more peace in their own lives. They’re getting along better with estranged partners or parents or children. They’re getting along better with bosses and coworkers. They’re feeling more love for everybody, and around 50% consistently report they feel more love for everyone they meet.Essentially, they’re hugging strangers and peaceful things happen in their lives. Also, about one-third have reported an improvement in a health condition or a downright cure. So that is the biggest and most amazing effect, the mirror effect of these intentions: the people who are sending intentions are being healed as much as the targets.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">So that is the biggest and most amazing effect,&nbsp; the mirror effect of these intentions:&nbsp; the people who are sending intentions&nbsp; are being healed as much as the targets.</h4><hr>Q: I was blown away by the seed experiment. How has the scientific community embraced this, or conversely, what are the challenges you’ve faced to try to share this with them?&nbsp;LM: I'm not interested in the scientific community because they aren’t going to accept it. Scientists are supposed to be explorers and very few of them really are. There are a lot of reasons for that. People lose their positions at universities for stepping out of the accepted paradigm. So I don’t need to convince scientists. There are enough scientists who are true explorers, who are fascinated by my work, and who have helped to measure the work.I work with people at prestigious universities to run the intention experiments—Princeton, Penn State, University of California, University of Arizona, and others in Europe. I choose people who are open-minded enough to do decent research.There are skeptic organizations who attack my work, but they attack it in the flimsiest of ways. My book, The Field, had more than 400 solid scientific references. I had interviewed exhaustively—frontier physicists, biologists, etc.—and had them check every last fact in that book to make sure I had written it correctly. The skeptics have said the book was based on nothing more than Star Wars, which is just incorrect, close-minded, and ignorant.So, I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in getting this information out to people so they can understand that we have extraordinary capabilities waiting to be unleashed, and we are very different from what we are told in mainstream orthodox science.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/intention_revolution3_b56b5be71b.webp" alt="intention-revolution3.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_intention_revolution3_b56b5be71b.webp 214w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/small_intention_revolution3_b56b5be71b.webp 500w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/medium_intention_revolution3_b56b5be71b.webp 750w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;Orthodox science is only 300-plus years old, and new studies and discoveries are being found in universities, in little pockets of academia here and there, that are completely transforming the way we think about ourselves and our world. And we’re far greater than we’ve been told!Q: Thank you for that very candid response. For someone who’s intrigued by your work, who’s curious about your work, and who wants to start applying this <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/how-to-manifest-peace" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">power of intention</a> in their own life, how can they begin?LM:&nbsp;They can join my community and my website. When they join, they receive some basic tools and information about how to do intention and how to form a group. They can also read my books. <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/the-intention-revolution" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Power of Eight</a>, the last book published on this topic, has basic descriptions of how to do intention in a group. For people who really want to learn more, I have a whole series of foundation courses.I also have a <a href="https://lynnemctaggart.com/courses/intention-masterclass/the-power-of-eight-intention-masterclass-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">year-long masterclass</a>, my kingpin course, where I work with people live and interactively for a year. Participants start working in groups after six weeks, and each group meets once a week. Under my instruction, they use intention for relationships, for health and healing, for finances and career, and for life purpose. There’s specific information and instructions, and I coach them throughout the year.So there are all kinds of things at all kinds of price points, including free, and every intention experiment is free. I feel everybody should be able to participate.Recently, Gaia released a documentary about my work with large and small groups, The Power of Eight, plus the intention experiments. They interviewed the various scientists who’ve worked with me, and numerous people who have had extraordinary healings with The Power of Eight, too. And it will culminate in an intention on February 1, 2025. I’m going to have a live audience at Gaia’s headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, and we’re also going to livestream it around the world.It's an invitation. So everyone can take part by going to <a href="https://lynnemctaggart.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://lynnemctaggart.com</a>, where there are instructions.Q: I am really looking forward to it.To be continued.

 Unleashing our extraordinary capabilities

The intention  revolution

Madhu is a long-time Heartfulness practitioner and trainer, who works at Kanha Shanti Vanam in PR and security, and as a personal secretary to Daaji. Earlier, he worked in the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh’s office and has won numerous award in public service

Madhusudhan.jpg

Madhusudan Reddy

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<h4 style="text-align: justify;">MADHUSUDAN REDDY&nbsp;explores the role fear plays
 in holding us back from success. He also shares some tips on how to overcome fear and develop courage and
 confidence.</h4>
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Everybody wants to be successful, but we succumb to things that are hurdles on the path
 of success. Though our hearts aspire for success, there is always some fear consciousness deep inside that keeps
 pulling us back. So if the fear is removed at the outset, we will come closer to success.
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">The whole world&nbsp;sometimes kills your enthusiasm. 
 In those times it is better&nbsp;to follow 
 your inner voice than listen to others.
</h4>
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We have fear of failure, fear of enormous future. We fear people may ridicule us – that
 either we are too old for the job or too young and immature, that we don’t have the required qualifications or we
 are inexperienced, that we lack the intelligence. Thinking that we are inadequate in some way, most of us lose the
 opportunities we have in hand. When we hide behind such pretexts, opportunities are closed to us.
How to get rid of fear and fill yourself with courage? Take time and question yourself:
 What is the cause of my fear? Why am I taking shelter behind these pretexts? If you want to be successful, taking
 risks is unavoidable. So how to take those risks now?
The whole world sometimes kills your enthusiasm. In those times it is better to follow
 your inner voice than listen to others.
When you are in complex situations, even if others discourage you by saying it is
 useless, continue to try. Think on your own. Once you understand the facts thoroughly and take the risk, it can pave
 your way to success. But make sure that on your own you try to understand the situation. Once you understand the
 situation thoroughly, you will be able to take the right decision and never lose the opportunity that you have.
You may as well fear quick success, not failure, because if you want to multiply success
 it is unavoidable that you will face failure. Do not lose courage when you fear the loss of face you may have. You
 may fear that you will lose your reputation, or you may not have courage to speak in a meeting because you think
 everybody will laugh at you. Instead say to yourself that the future is full of best prospects, that you will
 certainly reach the goals you cherish, that you will face any kind of situation courageously, and then you may
 witness everything happening in your favor.
Gradually courage will become a part of you, and there will be no place for fear, anxiety and negativity inside you.
 Even when there is a challenge or a problem, you will not need to develop courage afresh. All fears and doubts will
 disappear. We are all inherently powerful but somehow we are discouraged by what others say.
If you observe carefully, all power is within you.
All the help that you require is also in you.
If you think you are successful, you will become successful.
If you think you are a failure, you will become a failure.
So chose what you want to be.
What is courage?&nbsp;Courage allows us to transcend all kinds of fears – fear of death, fear due to discomfort in
 the body, fear of hunger, fear of insults, fear that others may disagree, fear of evil powers, fearing other’s
 anger.
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<h4>From Fear to Courage</h4>
<ol>
 <li>When the mind is pure you will naturally feel courageous. When you lose this
 purity many things create fear.</li>
 <li>If you believe in yourself and respect yourself, you become courageous.
 Self-confidence removes fear. Instead of thinking about weaknesses, focus on your strengths.</li>
 <li>Subtle intelligence works like a medicine that cures diseases. Try to acquire the
 self-knowledge that removes fear. Constant practice helps to overcome all sorts of challenges.</li>
 <li>Develop right thinking and you will not even fear death. Lord Krishna in the
 Bhagavad Gita says, “Duty if done without any desire even in a small way will protect us from the greatest
 fears.”</li>
</ol>
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Cultivate a pure mind, a moral life, self-confidence and mental restraint in daily life,
 in order to live happily devoid of fear. Courage can take you to heaven in a moment. Do not run away from the
 difficulties in life; difficulties&nbsp;run away and vanish when you&nbsp;face them boldly.
Desire, anger, greed, pride, illusion and envy create a lot of fear, taking frightening
 forms and restricting consciousness. They do not allow you to reach your goal. In the ancient texts they are
 compared with poisonous animals such as sharks, cobras, crocodiles and scorpions. In order not to be influenced by
 them, do some spiritual practice that will enable you to digest all these poisons. Then you can get to that urn of
 immortality, the nectar. Face your enemies within.
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">Use the tears of your eyes to cultivate your
 dream. 
 Convert that which is burning you into a lamp and 
 encourage the heart to share the light. 
 Wake up! Your destiny is calling you. Fear nothing.
</h4>
<hr>

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Life is a struggle for everyone. Success lies only in that struggle. Set your first step
 on the mountain; take things head on; have a strong hold on your way to the goal. Those stones that stop you can be
 your foundation. Mold those who chase you to grow to move forward.
Use the tears of your eyes to cultivate your dream. Convert that which is burning you
 into a lamp and encourage the heart to share the light. Wake up! Your destiny is calling you. Fear nothing.
If it is day, the sun says, “I’m there,” if it is night, the moon says, “I’m there,”
 blessing us with the necessary courage. Therefore, when fear knocks open the door of courage.
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When fear knocks

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<h4>MADHUSUDAN REDDY explores how success comes through discipline, and provides
 simple effective ways of cultivating that discipline in daily life.</h4>
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Beautiful dreams, pure thoughts, a simple personality, and sustained self-confidence are
 important qualities of every successful person in this world. But beyond these qualities, that which guides every
 human life, from the most famous to the simplest, is discipline. In this era, when the world has become a global
 village, the stark reality is that we are witnessing a progressive deterioration of discipline, discrimination, and
 values.
Today’s children are tomorrow’s citizens, and youth is the backbone of any country. Are
 our student communities and youth losing their vitality?
Nature is the first school of any human being, and teaches so many lessons in life: for
 example, the skill of a spider in weaving its web; the patience of ants in constructing an anthill; and the way a
 mother bird teaches her babies to fly. Behind all this is discipline-filled action. There is no life that does not
 involve discipline. Rewards, awards, and accolades are not the things that make us recognized by this world. If Sachin
 Tendulkar and Lionel Messi have such huge fan followings today, it is because their personal discipline has made them
 who they are.
Some people argue that success can be achieved through talent without discipline, but
 that sort of success is temporary. So if discipline is critical to reach the shores of success, why do we lack it?
 Here are some thoughts:
Our lack of meaningful relationships in this age of the nuclear family, single-parent
 families, and internet-based living.
Our education system is mostly confined to book-reading and churning out students as
 rank-producing machines. We have not yet developed a value-based education policy, although the UN has done so and
 people are now waking up to the need for it.
Many youth have gone headlong into the addictive culture of social media, ragging, drugs,
 alcohol, and sex, forgetting their goals and aspirations.
Where respect for mothers, fathers, and teachers was earlier cherished, they are no
 longer automatically respected. They need to earn respect. Everything is being challenged.
Every day we read about so many crimes in our newspapers: students attacked by acid,
 others who are victims of ragging etc., and all these actions are symptomatic of a lack of discipline and respect for
 others. Students come to the cities to become IAS or IPS officers, but they forget their goals, having no thought for
 their parents’ hardships. They are attracted to the open urban culture, but even if society needs to change, is it the
 best way?
Think about it. If you try to demonstrate against corruption, as an ordinary person,
 nobody will listen to you. If you give instructions as a disciplined officer, however, things can happen in no time.
 It is discipline that made Gandhi a Mahatma in the eyes of the world. Edison was a successful person because of
 discipline.
A boy who had a newspaper run went on to become Abdul Kalam, the President of India.
Discipline was vital to their success. Discipline is not just for securing success in
 examinations, but it is the prime quality to achieve anything in life. Here are some ways to cultivate that
 discipline:
Let your everyday routine start with discipline. Say you plan to wake up every day at
 4:30 a.m. For two days, you wake up with the help of an alarm. On the third day, make a commitment to automatically
 wake up at 4.30 a.m. without the help of the alarm.
Time is of the essence. Recognize how much time you are wasting, and work to make the
 most out of every minute in a day.
Time cannot be saved like money and needs to be utilized properly.
Reduce your dependency on distractions Examples of these include the 5 Cs: Cinema,
 Cricket, Cable, Chatting, and Cell phone.
We are the product of the people with whom we surround ourselves. It is important to be
 with people who motivate us to be our best.
Forget about your weaknesses. Keep trying. If there are no results, don’t feel
 disappointed. Even if success is late, the happiness that comes out of it is everlasting. Even if the path is full of
 thorns, overcome them with your efforts; forget about problems when you are on the way to achieve. The world itself
 will be following you, glorifying you.
All the best.<img class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/secret_success2_2453aab2c1.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T05:21:26.529Z" />

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<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by MADHUSUDAN REDDY</h4>
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The secret of success

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<h3 style="text-align: center;">In conversation with MADHUSUDHAN REDDY</h3>
<h4>At a young age, MADHU has already made a difference in his native Telangana, India. He is a modern-day karma yogi,
 dedicated to the service of others.</h4>
Q: Madhu, tell us why you have chosen a career in
 social service. 
MR: I have always been passionate
 about social service and involved in service activities since my student days. I am also a founding member of a couple
 of service organizations – the Hrudayaspandana Foundation and Pariniti Unite for Rural Development (PURE).
The aim of the Hrudayaspandana Foundation is to help poor people receive quality medical
 services to treat severe life threatening diseases, with special focus on heart problems. PURE provides holistic
 services to village dwellers, from improving their farming practices to quality education and hygienic lifestyle.
During my student days I convinced many people about the importance of organ donations,
 and out of those 15,000 went on to pledge eye donations. I also organized several blood donor camps and primary
 medical camps in urban and rural areas, in collaboration with the NTR trust and the Red Cross. In addition to this, I
 participated in social responsibility campaigns and found lifetime donors for over fifty orphaned children.
Q: How did you get into this work?

MR: From my childhood I have been
 fascinated with helping the needy. This brought me into service activities from a young age. During my school days, I
 would spend my savings to pay for the needs of very poor children. Later, I started participating in service
 activities in collaboration with NGOs.
Now I have started a couple of NGOs with the help of many friends and well-wishers.
 Through the Hrudayaspandana Foundation, we have organized successful heart surgeries and vascular intervention
 treatments, and through PURE, we have adopted three villages in Telangana and are putting all our efforts into
 improving the standards of education and lifestyle of the children and women. We plan to extend our participation into
 women’s health and agriculture extension activities.
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 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/service2_df1aa7734a.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T09:50:23.066Z" />
Q: Tell us more about the village you have
 adopted.
MR: PURE has adopted the village
 of Chegur, in Rangareddy District. Our first initiative is to upgrade the government schools so that they are on par
 with any corporate school.
The first school has been decorated and reorganized in line with the beautiful village
 of Shilparamam (a famous arts and crafts village created in Hyderabad), and the teachers, staff and students are very
 excited about their new environment. We distribute two school uniforms, geometry boxes, school bags, notebooks and
 shoes to all 650 students of the school.

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<h5 style="text-align: center;">God created us equal, but situations might have
 intervened to make us less fortune or more fortune.
 I feel that it is very important for us to demonstrate
 our true brotherhood and share what is with us.
</h5>

<hr>
PURE has also provided those facilities that are found in corporate schools, including
 clean drinking water, clean toilets, a good kitchen, smart boards for every classroom, modern computer labs and
 science labs, with the latest furniture for staff and students. The school grounds have been planted with many plants
 to make the environment greener and contribute to a healthier, happier learning environment. With a firm will to offer
 a high-quality education, digital classes have been organized. To expand the vision of the students, guest lectures
 are being organized by experts from various fields.
We plan to employ teachers to encourage and prepare the students for higher education in
 the near future. The second phase of development will begin once all the schools are upgraded.

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 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/service2_df1aa7734a.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T09:50:23.066Z" />

Q:What has helped you personally to develop a
 caring, sharing attitude towards others who are less fortunate than you?
MR: Some incidents from my
 childhood provoked me to be more caring for those who are less fortunate than me. God created us equal, but situations
 might have intervened to make us less fortune or more fortune. I feel that it is very important for us to demonstrate
 our true brotherhood and share what is with us. This is the only thing that gave me true joy during my childhood.
Q:If you were to give three tips to people on how
 to develop love and compassion for others humans, what would they be?
MR: I believe that compassion is
 in the character of every human being. We just need to get rid off greediness. When we realize that we are from one
 creator, we understand that there is a divine relationship among us. Then we experience true joy in serving other
 human beings. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of
 others.”
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Interviewed by ELIZABETH DENLEY</h4>
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A life of service

<h4
 id="h-madhusudan-reddy-shares-some-ideas-on-how-to-approach-our-goals-so-that-they-become-more-achievable-he-also-explains-a-way-to-respond-to-success-and-failure">
 MADHUSUDAN
 REDDY
 shares some ideas on how to approach our goals so that they become
 more achievable. He also explains a way to respond to success and
 failure.
</h4>

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 Victory and success are melodious events in everyone’s life. Success can
 be understood as a smile emanated from the innocent strings of our
 heart. The perennial freedom we experience in life is a clear symbol of
 success.



 Sheer hard work and determination are glittering reflections we can
 observe from the history of successful people. Despite many challenges,
 they overcame all their problems and remained as a mountain amidst the
 sea. They could withstand the pressure of turbulent waves and reach the
 destination of success.&nbsp;



 The American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, joined the steel sector as
 a laborer at 11 years of age and rose to the top level. He also helped
 100 other people to become billionaires. His determination helped others
 grow. A famous musician once received a standing ovation from the
 audience, who surrounded him afterward to share its appreciation. One
 lady approached him and said that it would have been marvelous to have
 had such skill bestowed upon her by God. The musician replied, “It is
 not an impossible task, nor did I bring it along with me at birth.
 Practice with focus for ten years and you will become a perfect musician
 like me. The only thing required for this is practice.”&nbsp;



 So, invest hard work to give shape to your dreams. We can excel if we
 put in hard work. If we fail to reach the expected results, we can try
 to refine our efforts, introspect upon our mistakes, and see to it that
 they do not recur in future. We move forward in the direction of
 attaining our goal.&nbsp;



 If there is no chance to improve the results, we can tutor our mind that
 we are benefited only up to this extent.&nbsp; If that is done, we
 prevent the experience of depression. We remain energetic despite
 half-baked attainments.&nbsp;



 Phased efforts will yield good results. Put in all-out efforts and leave
 the result to God. Fill your heart with this feeling, as thinking about
 the results will consume valuable time.


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<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 Working hard is good,
 but the
 source of that hard work is thought. Fill your mind with good
 thoughts, and you are bound to receive good results.
</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Work hard, and believe in hard work to achieve your goal. When the
 results come, don’t club your analysis with the elements affecting the
 work. Defeat is also a lesson. There is no need for overwhelming joy
 upon success and depression upon failure, nor a need to attribute them
 to other factors. &nbsp;Real victory lies in receiving success and
 defeat with equal breath.



 Don’t waste minutes, because many minutes make an hour, hours make days,
 days make months, and months make years. Wasting time has its own
 adverse impact on performance. Utilize time properly and become
 victorious.



 Working hard is good, but the source of that hard work is thought. Fill
 your mind with good thoughts, and you are bound to receive good results.


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 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/success2_700x905_45cb4b1efe.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T07:16:09.153Z" />



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 There was once a person who was very frustrated in life. He reached
 Delhi Railway Station filled with depressive thoughts that death was the
 only solution to his problems. Because his train was late, he turned his
 attention to a book stall, and in his loneliness he noticed one book. He
 thought, “Let me finish reading this book before I leave this world.” He
 selected a page randomly from that book, and as he read he found a
 change – his feelings and face were bright. A magical power surrounded
 him. His joy knew no boundaries.&nbsp;



 That journey to his village began shaping him into a great personality.
 This person, who went from ground zero to become a great social
 activist, was none other than Anna Hazare. He received laurels by
 developing his village as an example to other villages in the world.



 Do not focus too seriously on failures. They are quite natural. They add
 beauty to life. How can we imagine life without failures? Struggles give
 us strength. Where is the melody of life without these struggles? Do not
 feel belittled by failure. Try a thousand times. Even then, if you come
 across failure, try again, so that success is eventually yours.


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<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 Feel your goal as your
 life, and think deeply on it. Invite
 dreams on it, work on it, and try to fill every muscle and nerve
 of your body thinking about your goal. That creates a path to
 success.
</h4>

<hr />

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 All the power of the universe is within you. We close our eyes with our
 own hands, then cry that darkness exists. Be aware that darkness does
 not surround us. Simply remove your hands so that, right from the
 beginning, you can experience the illuminated world. There is no
 darkness.&nbsp;



 We label ourselves as worthless, weak persons. Do you know how many
 capacities, innumerable strengths, and potential magics are embedded
 within you? Where is the scientist who knows our full human potential?
 Only a microscopic part of it is hitherto seen. So don’t try to degrade
 your personality. How will you come to know how much more is yet to
 surface? Behind you, there is a sea of power. Those who realize this
 become victorious. Visualize the process of evolution from an ameba to a
 human being. Who created this? Is it not your own self-determination?
 Still, do you say that your self-reliance is without any power? The
 strength that brought you up to this level can further improve your
 personality. The character that strengthens your self-determination is a
 quintessential element.&nbsp;



 We all aspire for one thing in life, victory. We do not invite defeat in
 either our intellectual or our spiritual paths. But only a few taste the
 flavor of success, though everyone invites victory. Some of us
 experience middle-level success, while many experience defeat. First,
 decide what you want to become. Then, put in your all-out efforts. It is
 important to note that mistakes are committed by everyone, not only the
 people who experience defeat. The defeated ones leave the work at a
 point where they observe it to be critical.



 We may commit mistakes now and then with the sheer ambition of reaching
 the goal successfully. Such mistakes have no impactful effect on us,
 because we never think they won’t come in our way. We have witnessed and
 studied many wars in history. They armies experienced defeat on both
 sides. Successful persons are always above the feeling of victory or
 defeat.&nbsp;



 To achieve success, you need focused direction, effort, and
 self-determination.&nbsp; Success is yours if you fix the trajectory of
 your focus and your journey. Try to understand and realize what you want
 to achieve. Find ways and means to reach that goal. You can reach it no
 matter how big it is. Divide the goal into sub-goals and allocate
 definite timeframes, whether one week or one month, and complete the
 tasks. Then you will come out victorious.


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Let success be yours

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<h4>
 MADHUSUDAN REDDY
 share some insights on the
 value of concentration in bringing about success in any field, and also how to cultivate it.
</h4>



<hr class="vertical-space1">



“All strength is within you.&nbsp; Believe in this.&nbsp; Do not think you
 are weak.&nbsp; Stand up and express the power within you.&nbsp; The only weapon to express this is
 ‘concentration’.&nbsp; Please note it.”



<hr class="vertical-space1">



<h3>What is
 concentration?</h3>



To create love and interest for the goal you select is concentration. It is also enthusiastic eagerness and
 curiosity. If you do not evince keen interest in the work you select, will you concentrate?&nbsp; It equally
 applies to education. The happiness and enthusiasm reflected in your personality will amplify your capacity. You
 can achieve success in any field with the help of improved levels of concentration.



To enhance concentration, develop absolute love for your goal, followed by education, industry, and maintaining
 control. There are no magical or mystic tactics available. Searching for an easy track to boost concentration
 can be compared to lighting a lamp to see the darkness. It is illogical and ridiculous to assume that
 concentration will be created without enthusiasm.



Recently, a few people have said to me, “I am not able to recall anything I studied.” Concentration and memory
 are interdependent. Variability in levels of remembering can be directly attributable to dithering and
 differential concentration levels.



Slapdash interest is the prime reason for loss of concentration. We watch a movie or a cricket match on
 television without any disruption or pause when we love to watch it. We don’t show the same interest when
 watching programs we don’t like. “Liking” and “disliking” play a crucial role in determining the level of
 concentration.&nbsp;



<h3>How to
 concentrate&nbsp;</h3>



To achieve healthier concentration levels, cultivate the seeds of good thoughts and deeds in the garden of your
 heart strings, by tidying and weeding out unwanted thoughts.&nbsp;



To evolve good thoughts in your mind, follow the thrilling stories of great people.&nbsp; It will push you
 gradually in a forward direction.



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It is not possible to invalidate all the thoughts in your mind at once.&nbsp; Even if you stop thinking for one
 moment, it is an achievement. So, catch hold of some good thoughts from the beginning. Then endeavor hard to
 accomplish success in your chosen areas.&nbsp; You will experience tremendous happiness when you notice that
 unwanted thoughts are tossed out of your mind. This experience of happiness is unparalleled.



To achieve all this, try to learn yogic meditation.



Concentration happens when you thwart your mind from numerous distractions. Immense power is generated in your
 mind once you can concentrate. The power is spawned from within you.&nbsp;



Concentration is possible when you focus on one thing. Then you will not feel overtaxed with work. Start by
 attempting it. Automatically, the practice will become a habit. Through continuous industry, you will raise your
 level of concentration.



Your mind has great strength and power. Just as the rays of the sun passing through a lens can ignite a fire,
 your mind also can surpass your expectations when it is concentrated on the field of your choice.&nbsp; &nbsp;




Initially I believed that aggression must exist to achieve my goals. But with age, that idea has gone out of my
 mind. Aggression takes away strength; only with a quiet and undisturbed mind will you achieve the preferred
 results.



Our shastras remind us that extravagance in anything is hazardous and unproductive, whether it is eating in
 excess, sleeping in excess, or talking in excess. Great people have achieved success only by devoting time in
 silence.



<hr class="vertical-space1">



<hr>



<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 To achieve
 healthier concentration levels, cultivate the seeds of good thoughts and deeds
 in
 the garden of your heart strings, by tidying and weeding out unwanted
 thoughts.&nbsp;
</h4>



<hr>



<hr class="vertical-space1">



You may observe that control of your tongue is very crucial in achieving anything. You will control your mind if
 you control your tongue. It will greatly help you to achieve your goals with increased levels of concentration.




Simply, concentration is the power you provide your mind to make sure it thinks along the lines you desire. Try
 to increase your levels of concentration while listening in class or at work, the same way you concentrate on a
 movie or a book you really like.



<h3>Education and
 learning</h3>



While learning, increase your focus toward the content you read and listen to. The mind needs to be aware, and
 for this it is important to keep your mind clean, just as you keep your surroundings hygienic.



Then, apportion a certain amount of time to reading your book – an hour, for example – and completely devote your
 time toward that content only.&nbsp; It is not effective reading if you are hasty and simply refer to the
 contents.



Concentration is required for both referring to and reading a book. Referring to a book may result in a certain
 level of understanding, whereas a complete reading may result in a much deeper understanding. This deeper
 understanding will enhance your interest in reading further. If you have questions, or require clarification,
 discuss with others.&nbsp;



None of us like all things. All colors do not attract us. Similarly, school students may not demonstrate equal
 interest in all subjects. Nevertheless, it is important to try to give attention to them all, keeping the future
 in view. If you start reading with interest about a subject you have neglected, you may develop a fondness for
 it.



A well-known person who demonstrated these qualities of concentration was Vikram Sarabhai, the physicist and
 astronomer who is regarded as the Father of the Indian Space Program.&nbsp; He conducted research on cosmic
 rays, gravitational force, and various planetary motions. In reply to a question posed by a journalist regarding
 the secret behind his success, he replied that it was possible only with sheer determination and concentration.




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 <figure><img decoding="async" width="500" height="559" alt="" class="lazyload has-img-center"
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 </figure>
</div>


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So, even a great scientist says that his work is possible only with the concentration! Some students become
 scared of studies, foreseeing difficulty, and the fear ringing in their minds will take away half their zeal to
 study and work. It is the prime reason for a decline in concentration. If we allow depression, complaint, and
 frustration into our minds, progress will decline. Meditation, physical exercise, and yoga are very important
 ways to maintain a sense of well-being and enthusiasm.



The major foes to concentration are living in the past and anticipating the future. We often do this. So try to
 remain in the present and concentrate on your agenda – success will be yours.



By concentrating all these powers, we can unearth all the knowledge in the world. We just need to be aware
 how to know. There is no limit to the talent of human beings. Simply learn how to focus it on a single
 point. That is the secret behind all this.

The first step to success

<h4>MADHUSUDAN REDDY is passionate about the future of the children of India, and urges parents to take the time to love and shape them so that the whole country may benefit.</h4>India has such an ancient tradition of respecting elders, parents, and teachers.&nbsp;But unfortunately, we are now witnessing a situation contrary to that culture.&nbsp;The reason is our own neglect. A famous quote says, “It’s easier to bend a plant than a tree,” which means something that cannot be bent in the budding stage can never be bent. Parents and carers have the role of teaching their children values, like respecting elders, cooperation, aptitude toward learning, maintaining discipline and peace from early childhood, but it requires time and patience.&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Parents and carers have the role of&nbsp; teaching their children values, but it requires time and patience.&nbsp;</h4><hr>Today, parents find it hard to spend 4 to 5 hours a day with their children, so the children feel alone. As a result, they are drawn to many enticements and unwanted cravings. Then, parents also suffer. In contrast, what happens when parents give their children what is good for them? What happens when they support them in all matters and provide guidance and advice?&nbsp;Let me tell you a story. A couple went to Taj Hotel with their daughter for lunch. They ordered vegetable soup for her, but when the soup arrived the girl said to her mother, “Mom, I can’t drink this soup.” Her mother called the waiter and requested him to bring mushroom soup instead. The waiter brought the mushroom soup but the girl said that she couldn’t drink that either.&nbsp;The girl’s parents chided her harshly. The girl was sobbing and said, “The soup is very hot, how can I drink it without a spoon?” The parents had scolded her without understanding her difficulty, and the reason was lack of communication. No matter how small the problem, if children learn to open their hearts and talk, they can successfully solve many problems in life.&nbsp;An English child says, “I can achieve anything.” An American child and a European child say the same. Can our Indian children say the same? Even the parents of our children can’t say that. In other parts of the world, parents instill confidence in children from the beginning. It can be said we do not have that here.&nbsp;Parents have a great psychological influence on their children. What happens when they rebuke them, pointing out that they are not good at studies, they are they are not coming first? From childhood, parents, carers, and teachers confine their minds to a limited sphere by saying “you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” so enthusiasm melts away. Not every student can secure first place. Does it make the others worthless or insignificant? Children may prosper in many areas.&nbsp;So look to your children’s talents and skills. They may not all do extremely well in studies, but they may become good artists, singers, poets, sportsmen, or politicians. Guide your children in the direction where their interest lies. Explain to them gently. If you think their direction is not correct, also speak gently so they understand you better. Then let them decide. The world’s greatest intellectuals like Einstein and Thomas Alva Edison were expelled from school. Everyone can do something creative – that is the secret of our creation.&nbsp;Many parents spend large amounts of money for their children’s education, anticipating a bright future. Do they also attempt to know what habits their children are adopting while studying? Ninety percent of parents fail in this.At first, habits are delicate like a spider’s web. As time passes, these habits bind us like iron fencing and steel ropes. So, it helps to inculcate good habits from childhood. To nurture them, parents must also follow them. Personal and social cleanliness, discipline, punctuality, working with a sense of cooperation, respect for elders, kindness and humility in behavior are some of the fine qualities to be adopted from childhood. Mostly, it is parents’ responsibility to inculcate these in their children. In Japan, some institutes are also taking the responsibility, giving proper training from childhood to produce good citizens. Schools there are also traveling on the same path.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Our_childrens_Future2_d8b0dc47c1.jpg"></figure>Today, many people think that intelligence and virtues are inherited, and that without them it is impossible to achieve success in any field. Knowingly or unknowingly, parents and teachers plant such ideas in the minds of children. Truth be told, children brought up under the guidance of the best teachers can reach a high level in any field. And the best teachers aren’t those who possess doctorate degrees or awards. It is enough that they love as a mother loves and understand the subject. If a teacher gets angry and blames the students for every little thing, what will be the future of those children? Today, 70 percent of teachers take good care of students who flourish well in their studies and ignore those who are lagging behind. The foundation of a child’s future is not stable when it is built with such insecure bricks. It is better to develop the talent of each child in their specific field.&nbsp;Many parents feel their responsibility is over when their children start school. Sometimes they shower love and give money when it is asked for, without asking why that money is required. Sometimes they get angry and do not help their children. Some parents compare their children with others and belittle them for falling behind, damaging their self-confidence. The behavior of parents is perplexing for children and has a strange effect on their minds. Gandhiji said, “There is no school equal to a good home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”Appreciating and rewarding good work are good traditions, but showing love to children does not mean letting them behave as they like. Restraint is essential in the process of shaping children. When they are disciplined for their mistakes, they will realize those cautions are for their good, and will not be dissatisfied with the way they are treated. Parents need not be too strict nor too lenient, avoiding extremes. &nbsp;We see envious behavior in children now and then. If a mother appreciates one child, the other feels jealous. So, when parents give everything on an impartial basis, be it food, love, or care, their children will feel happy.When parents show a loving and empathetic attitude, and become worthy of admiration, children imitate them. Children are full of potential to channel their inner capacity in the right direction according to the love and moral guidance given to them by their elders.&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Children are full of potential&nbsp; to channel their inner capacity &nbsp;in the right direction according to&nbsp; the love and moral guidance&nbsp; given to them by their elders.&nbsp;</h4><hr>A mother’s love is extremely important for the healthy emotional development of her children. Among those who observed this was René Spitz. He brought to light the death of 34 children in an orphanage, explaining that “The children have all the facilities they need, except a mother’s love.”&nbsp;Today, children develop a lot of mindsets and values from movies and TV serials. If the parents are viewing the TV, the children will follow suit. It is not that everything on the screen is bad, but experience shows that it fails to bring about a desired change in people.&nbsp;The tender hearts of children are like fragile seeds. It is the responsibility of parents and teachers to see such tender hearts blossom like jasmine. And the development of any country depends on the strength of its youth. So think about your children and spend time with them.&nbsp;

Our children’s future

Mahatma-Gandhi.jpg

Mahatma Gandhi

Needs not greed

Real wealth

Mahek is a psychologist at the Turning Point Rehab, Surat, India. She holds a Master’s in Forensic Psychology, London, has worked at Birmingham Prison, and after practicing CBT at victim support NHS, UK, she moved to India.

Mahek-Pathan.jpg

Mahek Pathan

MAHEK
 PATHAN
 explores the physical, mental, emotional, and social impacts of
 addiction on individuals and their families. Mahek is a psychologist
 with the Turning Point Rehab. She holds a Master’s degree in Forensic
 Psychology and has worked in the UK prison system. After practicing
 CBT at victim support in the NHS, UK, she moved to working in clinical
 psychology in Surat, India.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 The Personal and
 Social Impacts of Addictive Behaviors



 People suffering from addiction experience many different life
 complications. When they start abusing drugs and alcohol on a day-to-day
 basis, they have physical health complications, such as
 liver cirrhosis, heart problems, lung diseases. I have seen clients
 coming in who have lost a crazy amount of weight, because of daily
 consumption of drugs and alcohol.



 There are also a lot of
 mental health issues, like depression,
 anxiety, substance-induced psychosis, where they experience
 hallucinations or paranoia. I see people experiencing PTSD,
 post-traumatic stress disorder, as well. Alcohol and drugs actually have
 a very great impact on both physical and mental health.



 Addiction also leads to spiritual bankruptcy. I have seen clients who
 have been raised in a decent household, never lied, never cheated, never
 done anything wrong, then once they become addicted, they lie to their
 parents, and steal money from their homes. It creates a lot of problems
 with interpersonal relationships among family members.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />
 <img alt="thriving-addiction2" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thriving_addiction2_378055a6d3.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T10:50:56.561Z" />
 
<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 I have seen people getting violent, physically aggressive, abusive, and
 negligent after abusing alcohol and substances. Even when they are not
 abusive, they have a role to play in the family, and negligence can also
 have a severe impact. Addiction is a family disease; if it impacts an
 individual, it impacts the entire family.



 When clients complete a rehab program, it’s better if they stay in the
 recovery phase for some time. But it’s very difficult for their families
 to believe that they are recovering. When a client goes home, family
 members often say things like, “Look what you’ve done.” This adds to
 their problem, especially for those suffering from PTSD. It’s very
 complex. It affects the entire family dynamic. As Dr. Deshpande says,
 “Love, care, and empathy really work wonders for the entire family.”



 The Role of
 Rehabilitation



 Addiction is a chronic disease. It is something that must always be
 managed as long as one is alive. As soon as the clients admit they need
 treatment, there are different forms of therapies available.



 Rehabilitation seems to be the best treatment program, because it helps
 not just to physically abstain, because the substances are not
 available, but also provides a safe space for the person. Rehab is a
 place where there is motivation, and where a counselor is always
 available.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <img alt="thriving-addiction3" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thriving_addiction3_068e42b7dd.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T10:51:54.613Z" />
 
<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 After the detox comes counseling sessions, group therapies, and family
 counseling sessions. Even after the client has completed the
 rehabilitation program, support groups and meetings really help.
 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), EMDR, hypnotherapy, etc., also work
 wonders. Even after a client has completed a rehabilitation program,
 regular counseling sessions will help them understand deeper inherent
 feelings, thoughts, and processes.



 People who are addicted usually suppress their feelings. So, we teach
 our clients to express their feelings in a healthier manner so that they
 don’t have to depend on substances to deal with them. I think this helps
 to maintain their recovery for a very long time.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center"
 id="h-we-teach-our-clients-to-express-their-feelings-in-a-healthier-manner-so-that-they-don-t-have-to-depend-on-substances-to-deal-with-them-i-think-this-helps-to-maintain-their-recovery-for-a-very-long-time">
 We teach our clients to
 express their feelings in a healthier
 manner so that they don’t 
 have to depend on substances to deal with them. I think this
 helps to maintain their recovery for a very long time.
</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 I also understand that addiction is actually about personality. It’s not
 about the substances. A lot of people use drugs for recreational
 purposes, but only certain people get hooked. An addictive personality
 has the tendency to get hooked, so they also find substitutes for the
 substances as well. For example, if they try to leave alcohol they may
 get hooked on cigarettes. I have seen a lot of clients who have actually
 changed their addiction to something more positive, for example, social
 work. They engage and engross themselves in something that is more
 rewarding and has a positive outcome on their lives.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4>

<hr />

Thriving after addiction

Mamata, a long time Heartfulness meditator and trainer, is the social media editor for Heartfulness Magazine. In addition to her work as a content editor and creator for Heartfulness, she also owns Yellow Door Communications, an agency that helps companies bring their brand narrative to life through social media and content creation. Mamata is based in London, United Kingdom.

Mamata Subramanyam.jpg

Mamata Subramanyam

<hr><h2>oh, there i am – lost</h2><hr>years ago, i began a very long game of hide and seek. i looked in every nook and i scavenged every cranny to try and find where i might have been hidden.i thought i was concealed behind the fast-fading highs of success. i was adamant that i existed in the hearts of those who never stayed.in my blackest state of loneliness i had given up all hope, and believed I was lost for good. in that dungeon of rock bottom a voice that sounded suspiciously like my own made its way through the cracks of my beat up, battered soul.kindly, but firmly she whispered to my heart: “my dear, you have looked everywhere, when all along, you were here.”&nbsp;<hr>&nbsp;<hr><hr><h2>oh, there i am – found</h2><hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/oh_there_i_am_2_a873fdbc53.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T05:44:36.473Z" alt="oh-there-i-am-2"><hr>a few days ago i glanced into the mirror and was surprised to find a stranger peering back at me. who was this girl eyes bright with joy, smile full with excitement, spine straight with confidence, spirit strong with conviction?those brown eyes are shaped like mine. and that smile belongs to me. when she stretches her spine i grow taller. the more she speaks my spirit grows bolder.the deeper i go the more i am surprised to find i was never going to be found in any nook or cranny i was hiding in me all along.<hr><hr><h4>Illustrations by LAKSHMI GADDAM</h4><hr>

Oh, there i am

<h4
 id="h-mamata-venkat-looks-back-over-the-last-year-which-has-been-full-of-tragedy-and-finds-the-moments-of-light-and-laughter-that-bring-joy-and-celebration-to-life">
 MAMATA VENKAT
 looks back over the last year, which has been full of tragedy, and finds the
 moments of light and laughter that bring joy and celebration to
 life.
</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Here are a few statistics I recently heard on an episode of the
 Hidden Brain podcast:&nbsp;


On average, children laugh 300 times a day.

It takes adults two and a half months to laugh as much.

Adults stop laughing around the age of 23, once they reach working age.


 I’m an adult (theoretically). I laugh a lot, don’t I? I think I do. I think I
 laugh many times a day.


Actually, I don’t.&nbsp;

What is stopping me from laughing more?


 And why does it take difficult moments to realize how much we take joy,
 laughter, love, and people for granted?


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img alt="I-take-laughter-granted2" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/I_take_laughter_granted2_b1b4adb621.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T10:46:43.598Z" />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 This realization sticks with me harder than ever in a year our family has been
 hit with several successive months of sudden loss. It has been overwhelming
 trying to make sense of the grief that we never, ever, expected to experience.



 As you slowly start to shake off the shock and heaviness of loss, you
 resurface to find that simple things like jokes, humor, and laughter still
 exist. They are still allowed to exist. And every moment that you get to soak
 in that joy from laughter feels almost medicinal, a soothing reprieve from the
 pain that reminds you that, yes, even in the midst of deep, overwhelming
 sadness, you are still allowed to be happy.



 Laughter has been the light we have let in during a year that has often been
 quite dark. It has come in many forms:



 In the staring contests I have over entire weekends with my young cousins, who
 will giggle at just about anything.



 In a story my dad shared shortly after my grandfather’s funeral, about the
 time my grandfather waved merrily to a driver who was giving him the finger
 because he thought it was a friendly American gesture.



 In the heated board and video games that my nephews pull me into, which have
 me cracking up because of their smack talk.



 In the inside jokes shared over the phone amongst friends that keep us
 satisfied until we can all be together again in person.



 In the Friends reruns that my niece and I enjoy, which still make us
 laugh in all the same spots.



 In the moments my mom and I dance around the kitchen to our favorite ’90s
 country songs that have us sharing twin snorts because she always forgets the
 lyrics.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img alt="I-take-laughter-granted3" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/I_take_laughter_granted3_1_8ee7f53d87.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T10:50:07.794Z" />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 I will allow myself to laugh with the innocence of a child,
 straight from the heart, with abandon and without
 fear, with gratitude for every person in my
 world, and full of appreciation for simple humor,
 joy, and celebration of life.
</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 This last year has so painfully and beautifully cracked my heart wide open and
 has taught me to let the light in and appreciate every moment to its fullest.
 I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I often take the simple things for
 granted.&nbsp;



 Forget the adult statistics; I will never, ever, take laughter for
 granted again! I will allow myself to laugh with the innocence of a child,
 straight from the heart, with abandon and without fear, with gratitude for
 every person in my world, and full of appreciation for simple humor, joy, and
 celebration of life.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4>

<hr />

I take laughter for granted

<hr><h4>MAMATA VENKAT shares her experience of attending an extraordinary event near Hyderabad, India – the inauguration of a vast new meditation center in honor of 75 years of Heartfulness.</h4><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/KSV_6_4796cabe05.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T13:06:09.098Z" alt="a-new-era">On a cool, windy morning on Tuesday, January 28, the Hyderabadi sun slowly cast its light over 40,000 Heartfulness practitioners quietly sitting together in meditation at Kanha Shanti Vanam Ashram. Heartfulness was celebrating the 75th anniversary of its first organization, Shri Ram Chandra Mission, with the inauguration of the world’s largest meditation center. This was to be the first of three separate seminars – the first from January 28th to 30th, the second from February 1st to 3rd, and the third from February 7th to 9th. All in all, 100,000 people attended the three seminars. Seekers from around the world had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this momentous occasion. In the days prior, they came in waves, filling up the newly-constructed dormitories with suitcases, laughter, and a readiness to absorb the subtle meditative condition that was pervading the dusty Indian air.On the inauguration day, Daaji was joined on stage by Yogrishi Swami Ramdev, the co-founder of Pantanjali Ayurved. Swamiji Ramdev sat peacefully with Daaji as he conducted meditation sessions over the course of the three-day celebration, and also demonstrated his extensive knowledge of Ashtanga Yoga to the audience. He shared a few yogic techniques with the audience, explaining the purpose of each, and encouraging the practitioners to utilize them in times of need. He later expressed his enthusiasm and joy to be part of the celebrations.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/KSV_2_45eb58ff6a.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T13:06:54.300Z" alt="Daaji-Swami Ramdev">At the end of his visit, he said, “Though I am leaving physically, Shri Ram Chandra Mission will be in my heart, mind, and soul forever. And those who have not yet come to this spiritual path, they, too, will eventually find this because it is the very goal of life.”During the second seminar, the ashram was graced by the presence of a number of government dignitaries, including the President of India and the First Lady, Ram Nath Kovind and Savita Kovind. A long-time practitioner of Heartfulness, President Kovind expressed his appreciation for the growth of the Heartfulness movement:“I am glad to see that Shri Ram Chandra Mission has been promoting both individual change as well as social change. The Mission is promoting the great ancient tradition of Raja Yoga, meditation in the modern world. This campus, Kanha Shanti Vanam, presents a model of holistic living.”<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/KSV_4_5c0f481536.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T13:07:48.802Z" alt="Daaji-Ramnath Kovind"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/KSV_3_8845bf7de6.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T13:08:50.708Z" alt="a-new-era">Kanha Shanti Vanam Ashram has experienced significant evolution in the last year, evolving into a beautiful and peaceful utopia that is enjoyed by all. Visitors not only have the chance to utilize the meditation facilities to deepen their inner condition, but they also have ample opportunity to explore each part of Kanha’s 1,400-acre grounds, including the Yatra Garden, many organic vegetable and herb gardens, medicinal gardens, the HFNlife shopping area, Fausto’s Italian Restaurant, the extraordinary children’s playgrounds, the cottage industries, and Books &amp; More, Kanha’s central bookstore. In the evenings, everyone was treated to musical performances from both classical and modern artists.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/KSV_5_affe5f3d22.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-07T13:09:42.815Z" alt="a-new-era"><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by MAMATA VENKAT</h4><hr>

A new era

<h3 style="text-align: center;">GENERATION NOW</h3>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4>MAMATA VENKAT celebrates the season of romantic love and reminds us of the
 importance of self-love for a successful relationship.</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
Let me preface this article by saying that I am no expert when it comes to love and
 relationships. My experience with love comes from years of watching corny (yet satisfying) romantic comedies filled
 with escalating conflicts between two main characters that an audience knows are destined to be together, and a few
 personal, immature experiences with “love” that ultimately ended up being fantastic learning lessons.
It’s February, the month of Valentine’s Day. Stores burst with red and pink cards and
 chocolate boxes and mushy signs of love. Televisions play commercials of fresh-faced partners surprising their loved
 ones with engagement rings from jewelry stores with discount deals. And couples are all abuzz making plans with
 their significant others for the most love-filled day of the year.
I am at an age in my life when many of my close friends are either in serious
 relationships, are engaged or married, or are settling down and starting families. Phone and texting conversations
 are now filled with sleuth-y discussions on when a significant other might propose based on a hint that they dropped
 about a trip in January; single friends ask coupled friends how they knew their partners were “The One,” then weigh
 the pros and cons of getting on dating apps versus arranged marriage; and pregnancy announcements with
 cleverly-crafted captions and colorful gender reveals now fill my Instagram feed. This phase of life was inevitable,
 and yet I am surprised by how suddenly it has crept up around me.
I am the single friend that often asks her coupled friends how they knew they were ready
 to be in a relationship or get married. I collect data from everyone – from my parents’ thirty-year relationship, to
 my best friend’s nine-month courtship, to the friends that went from high school sweethearts to a family of four.
 And while all of them have vastly different stories of how they knew their partner, there is one common thread in
 all of their answers: in order to find love with someone, they first had to find love within themselves.
No relationship is successful, my friends and family always say, if you can’t be your
 own person, develop your own perspective, and become fully comfortable in your own independence. While the current
 “self-love” movement can often feel somewhat saccharin, there is so much validity in it – in learning as much as you
 can about yourself and creating settlement in that before trying to engage with another person.
<img alt="love-and-relationships" class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/love_relationships2_ff5c72dd11.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T06:33:47.537Z">

I am guilty of not focusing on myself enough. In the past, whether it be in a romantic
 relationship or in friendships, I have been known to give and give and give and, in that unhealthy process, lose
 myself. I’m sure many of us have been in this boat, or are currently in this boat, and are unsure of how to make the
 change.
So how do we break this cycle? I’ve been trying to do a better job of “dating myself”:
I go on walks by myself.
I spend full days alone cooking, reading, researching, and
 meditating.
I write in a diary, often asking myself questions that I
 would ask a partner or a friend.
I visit spots in New York City on my own, and challenge
 myself to do things by myself that I would normally do with friends.
I put extra effort into my practice of Heartfulness, which
 ultimately allows me to feel the most connected to myself.
These small moments of self-love are enough to allow me to continue to do more research
 on myself, to understand what I want and what I need, and to ultimately make those wants and needs the foundation of
 my individual. The more I learn about myself, the easier it feels to hold my own ground and not feel consumed by
 other people’s perceptions and perspectives. And I know that the more solid I feel as an independent individual, the
 healthier of a contributor I will be to any relationship.
So, in this sweet season of love, I hope we never forget to take interest in ourselves
 even when it feels challenging and to give ourselves love first in the best and most positive ways.
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by MAMATA VENKAT 
 Illustrations by JASMEE RATHOD</h4>
<hr>

Love and relationships

<h4>MAMATA VENKAT shares 6 simple time management tools you can apply that will help combat the stress that comes with balancing multiple priorities at work.</h4><hr>I burst into tears the other day after a long day at work. A few projects hadn’t worked well, roadblocks prevented me from moving forward on some tasks, and I hadn’t slept well the night before, leaving me exhausted and spaced out. Normally, these things wouldn’t overwhelm me, but combined, they made me feel like a hare-brained mess, and I questioned my ability.Unmanageable days are normal. Often I pile work, stress, and emotions so high that by the time I realize how overwhelmed I am, the pile is already quickly falling around me. If only I had enough arms to catch everything! Knowing that life will always throw several things at me, I decided to be preemptive about the way I handle the stress of it. That way, even when I can’t fully anticipate chaos, at least I will be inwardly still, prepared to handle anything. As my mom always reminds me, it often comes down to time management.So here are 6 simple hacks that can help preempt even the most stressful days, if you practice them consistently:&nbsp;<h4>1. Have a regular routine.&nbsp;</h4>While disruptions are normal, there are things about our routine that we can control. Small things, such as waking up at the same time, having three to four hours in the morning before we start work, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same time. All these will help set your internal biological clock and make your body feel more at ease.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/eat_5ba01cbc4b.png?updated_at=2023-04-10T08:01:14.742Z" alt="eat"><hr><h4>2. Schedule 30 to 60-minute work blocks, then take a 15-minute break.&nbsp;</h4>Especially because of remote work during the pandemic, the pattern of working without taking breaks has become normal. This unhealthy pattern can lead to faster mental and physical burnout and lower work productivity. Scheduling dedicated work blocks, then schedule a 15-minute break to get up, stretch, hydrate, and give your mind a rest.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/stretch_26ab6ab7dc.png?updated_at=2023-04-10T08:02:41.328Z" alt="Stretch"><hr><h4>3. Reduce meeting times.&nbsp;</h4>Have 15, 30, or 45-minute meetings, so that you leave time to manage deliverables. My days can be filled with back-to-back meetings, forcing me to work late into the night to complete my actual work.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/reduce_meeting_time_5f68028549.png?updated_at=2023-04-10T08:03:57.961Z" alt="reduce_meeting_time"><hr><h4>4. Get your steps in!&nbsp;</h4>Don’t take your body for granted. The less you take care of your physical health, the more worn out you will feel. Even 10 minutes of exercise a day can make a huge difference. Try scheduling your work breaks around some exercise.&nbsp;<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/exercise_0faef2ff90.png?updated_at=2023-04-10T08:05:27.139Z" alt="exercise"><hr><h4>5. Make mental health a habit.&nbsp;</h4>Mental wellness is just as important as physical wellness. Exercises like meditation will help you to regulate the emotions and thoughts that create stress, anxiety, and other negative reactions, so it is easier to meet tougher days in a more balanced state.&nbsp;<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/meditate_678a835dc9.png?updated_at=2023-04-10T08:06:41.951Z" alt="meditate"><hr><h4>6. Sleep, sleep, sleep!</h4>Do you operate with the incorrect assumption that you can function on little or no sleep? Sleep is <a href="https://www.heartfulnessmagazine.com/sleep-2/">critical to purifying and restoring your system</a>. Try to get the recommended 7 to 8 hours sleep each night.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/sleep_90e9fbbf5e.png?updated_at=2023-04-10T08:08:09.596Z" alt="Sleep">&nbsp;

6 simple way to make your workday more manageable

<h4
 id="h-mamata-venkat-manages-external-communications-and-public-relations-for-anthem-s-global-chief-information-office-through-personal-reflection-she-talks-about-how-negative-emotions-especially-anger-have-driven-her-to-consistently-invest-time-in-her-whole-health-and-well-being"
 >
 MAMATA VENKAT
 manages external communications and public relations for Anthem’s
 Global Chief Information Office. Through personal reflection, she
 talks about how negative emotions – especially anger –have driven her
 to consistently invest time in her whole health and
 well-being.
 </h4>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 Several situations helped me realize I was doing a terrible job of
 putting myself first. In my twenties, I couldn’t see how unhealthy some
 of my relationships were until I quit them; at one moment I couldn’t
 manage my anxiety, and nearly lost a job because of it; my body felt
 exhausted when I didn’t nourish it with food and sleep; I felt burned
 out because of work stress and anxiety; and I was generally trying to
 exist. But the realization of how little time I was investing in myself
 did not come from any of these specific moments. Instead, it came from a
 feeling that still surprises me: anger.
 

 
 The isolation of the pandemic forced me to do some self-reflection that
 helped me own and rectify my shortcomings, but in parallel came the
 realization that my baseline emotion was often deep anger. I was angry
 at everything: at friends and family who had said hurtful
 things to me months or years ago; at times when I had been too scared to
 stand up for myself, letting people walk and speak all over me; at loved
 ones whose constructive criticism I took too harshly; at the pandemic
 for pushing me out of New York City; at everyone else for everything,
 because it was easier than trying to change myself.
 

 
 I would spiral through thoughts, all with the end goal of wishing that
 people who had walked all over me would come back, fix how I was
 feeling, and give that positive energy back to me. I wanted
 them to invest in me the way I had been willing to
 invest in them.
 

 
 I would hear how negatively I’d speak to myself, constantly shaming and
 reprimanding myself for being human. I could never speak to my best
 friend in the critical, deprecating way I would speak to myself, so, why
 was it okay?
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 By “being your own best friend,” you’re less inclined to
 live your life based on other people’s standards.
 Instead you are motivated to live the life you 
 have always wanted.
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 There was a period when I attended regular therapy sessions (I highly
 recommend them). I spent several sessions venting my frustrations about
 others, and my therapist would patiently listen and validate my
 feelings. But when I was ready to really listen, she said to me:&nbsp;
 

 
 “Remember that game kids play, hot potato? Someone would play music, and
 kids would pretend to throw an invisible hot potato from person to
 person, and whenever the music stopped, the person holding the potato
 was out? Blame is like a hot potato. It’s fine to toss it from person to
 person, but the music has stopped, and right now you’re the one who is
 feeling the burn. And if you’re still feeling the burn, that means it is
 your responsibility to figure out how to stop it.”
 

 
 Wellness experts and Instagram influencers are constantly posting photos
 and videos captioned with 2200 characters of self-love and self-care
 words intended to motivate us to set aside our insecurities, seize the
 day and “be your own best friend.”&nbsp; By “being your own best
 friend,” you’re less inclined to live your life based on other people’s
 standards. Instead you are motivated to live the life you have always
 wanted.
 

 
 As someone who regularly posts lengthy motivational captions on my own
 Instagram page, I’d be a hypocrite if I balked at any of these
 ubiquitous self-love posts. However, I still feel uncertain when I read
 or write such posts, like there is a part of me that is looking for the
 validation that I am allowed to put myself first. Can I really invest
 energy in myself? Am I allowed to do that?
 

 
 This is a discussion I have been having with colleagues and friends–
 especially my female friends. Many of us still feel that internal
 tug-of-war of enabling others’ needs and perspectives versus empowering
 and honoring what feels natural to us. Why do we have such a hard time
 putting ourselves first? And why does it take a real struggle for us to
 realize that we have been depleting ourselves?
 

 
 For me, a lot of it comes from a people-pleasing mentality that is both
 cultural and innate. I often operate with a fear that if I don’t do what
 is asked of me, or what the people I care about expect of me, then I’m
 failing. That is where I have derived a lot of my value. That is also
 where I have derived a lot of my anger.
 

 
 For years I have minimized my inner voice so much that when I finally
 was able to see a 30,000-foot view of my reality, the only thing that
 felt in my control was putting blame on everyone and everything else.
 That anger consumed me so much that it took me a long time to recognize
 that the better, healthier solution was to be present for myself.
 

 
 So, how am I learning how to be my own best friend? It’s a work in
 progress. These are five things that have been helping me feel a little
 closer to my most authentic, natural self:
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 width="700"
 height="1754"
 alt="5ways-your-own-friend-infographic"
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/5ways_your_own_friend_infographic_700x1754_ce1ec4f3bc.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T13:08:14.714Z"
 />
 </figure>
 </div>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 Get to know yourself. Figure out what makes you feel
 whole. Allow room for growth. Allow room for change.
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 My therapist gave me the hot potato metaphor when I was twenty-four. I’m
 almost thirty now. I still carry that wisdom with me in the moments I’m
 inclined to play the blame game rather than take responsibility for my
 own growth.
 

 
 Your relationship with yourself is the most constant and important
 relationship you’ll ever have. It may take time to realize that, but
 when you do, start the work. Get to know yourself. Figure out what makes
 you feel whole. Allow room for growth. Allow room for change. You are
 allowed to put time and energy into yourself. You don’t need
 permission. In fact, you just should.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 width="224"
 height="162"
 alt="5ways-your-own-friend3"
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/5ways_your_own_friend3_1c10f0c21b.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T13:09:16.232Z"
 />
 </figure>
 </div>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

Listen to the influencers: 5 ways to be your own best friend

<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <spanundefined
 >MAMATA VENKAT opens up about the
 challenge of finding self-compassion and self-acceptance in a world of
 judgment and criticism. She also offers 10 tips from her own experience
 about how to cultivate a self-nurturing approach to life.
</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<h3 style="text-align: center">
 <spanundefined style="color: #c7a10a"
 >FINDING YOUR COLORS AMIDST THE BLACK AND WHITE
</h3>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <spanundefined
 >I want to challenge all of us with a question: Why are we so good at
 being kind to the people we love, but not to ourselves?
 


 <spanundefined
 >Whenever a friend calls me to vent, to talk through a mistake, or to
 self-criticize, I am always prepared with an arsenal of compassionate
 phrases:
 “It’s important that you aren’t so hard on yourself.”
 <spanundefined
 >“You are not a bad person.” “It wasn’t a mistake – it was a learning
 lesson.” “You are an amazing person, and you will grow from this.”


 <spanundefined
 >I soothe, I comfort, I take away blame. I remind them of their worth. I
 encourage them to accept responsibility for what could be better, and at
 the same time to remember that it is okay to be human. I tell them that,
 in every situation that seems black and white, there inevitably is always
 color.


 <spanundefined
 >
 And yet, when the roles are reversed, and it is my turn to feel the weight
 of an error, the cut of an insecurity, or the (completely normal) wetness
 of tears triggered by the overwhelm of figuring out life, I only view my
 world through that black and white lens. I spend hours – sometimes days –
 mentally punishing myself for even the slightest mistake, without leaving
 any room to let the light of Grace in. By not giving myself compassion, I
 limit my ability to create balance, and my world becomes even more
 colorless.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<img
 alt="creating-balance2"
 class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance2_18307e0365.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:34:30.345Z"
/>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 <spanundefined
 >
 Many of you may probably identify with this. How do we find that healthy
 balance of trying to create our best journeys while simultaneously finding
 the right salves that can quickly smooth the inevitable internal bumps and
 bruises that appear along the way?
 


 <spanundefined
 >I imagine that the forced isolation of a global pandemic has exacerbated
 this for many of us. We have all spent nearly a year attempting to wade
 forward through uncertainty, while at the same time we see the need to
 face ourselves and our shortcomings that need work. Marry all of this with
 physical distancing, lots of global uncertainty, and the usual myriad of
 day-to-day stresses, and
 <spanundefined
 >it becomes even clearer that the need for both balance and
 self-compassion is at an ultimate high.


 <spanundefined
 >
 So in a year when we all deserve a little slack, are we actually giving
 ourselves the Grace and compassion we deserve? In other words: amidst all
 of the black and the white, both internal and external, are we actively
 searching for color?


 <spanundefined
 >I am the first to admit it: I am no artist. Even my stick figures could
 use some work. But I always appreciate a good metaphor, and thinking about
 things that make the dark moments brighter always helps me to create
 balance.
 


 <spanundefined
 >So what does “finding your colors” look like? Here are 10 tips that have
 worked for me:
 

<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance4"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance4_cc45b28dc7.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:34:30.042Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Own the bad moments
</h4>

 <spanundefined
 >They happen, and it’s okay to make a mistake and to own it. It’s okay to
 feel sad, angry, hurt, or miserable, and to own it. It’s okay that we have
 bad moments. They don’t make us weaker or minimize our worth. They simply
 make us human.
 

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance5"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance5_ed4bb38ae2.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:35:25.519Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Speak to yourself the way you would speak to your friends and family
</h4>

 In hard moments, take a step out of your mind for a moment, and speak to
 yourself the way you would speak to your best friend. Would you approach them
 with judgment, irritation, or harsh criticism? Or would you give them honesty
 with kindness and compassion? It is important that we recognize our
 responsibility to be a friend to ourselves as much as we would be a friend to
 others.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance6"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance6_4b85d2c596.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:35:25.497Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Reframe “mistake” as “learning lesson”
</h4>

 I have found that when I look at a misstep as a mistake, I have a tendency to
 be even harder on myself. When I instead choose to look at that misstep as a
 lesson to be learned from, not only am I less likely to be self-critical, but
 I am also more inclined to grow from that moment, and to not repeat it.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance7"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance7_f9746aea0b.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:35:25.499Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Take the compliment
</h4>

 Many of us have a tendency to shy away from a compliment. We brush it off
 without embracing it, thinking that we either don’t deserve it, or that it
 will make us arrogant to accept. These days, when someone gives me a
 compliment, I am working on hearing it, pausing to accept it, embracing it,
 and simply saying thank you.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance8"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance8_93eea12701.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:35:25.500Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Give yourself the compliment
</h4>

 Own when you have earned it. If you do a good job on a project, at school, at
 making a dish, or doing something as simple as taking out the garbage, pat
 yourself on the back and give yourself the “good job” you deserve – it is
 completely okay to do this.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance9"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance9_389179b3ef.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:35:25.518Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Throw judgment out the window
</h4>

 In the Heartfulness practice, we often talk about attitudes that are poison to
 our spiritual growth, such as prejudice. Judgment, whether is toward ourselves
 or toward others, is a poison to our growth. The more we foster it, the harder
 it becomes to learn and move forward.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance10"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance10_68ed2e485a.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:34:30.040Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Create self-compassion practices
</h4>

 Are there practices that help you feel more grounded in yourself ? For me,
 those practices include meditation, writing in a diary, going for a walk to
 think, and singing. When I need additional affirmation, I often write positive
 words on Post-It notes and stick them around my room. All of these practices
 help me feel closer to myself, and help to heal those moments of self-doubt or
 self-criticism. Find a few practices that help you to feel closer to yourself,
 and allow those practices to center you during difficult moments.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance11"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance11_9783ac372e.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:34:30.123Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Have vulnerable conversations
</h4>

 Over the years, I have found that having conversations with friends and family
 who are experiencing similar feelings is a helpful way to clear out self-doubt
 and self-criticism. It can be hard to open up and be honest with people about
 insecurities, negative thoughts, or feelings, but by treating this like a
 practice, the easier it becomes, and the more we find healing by relating to
 other people.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance12"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance12_0957bc6a37.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:34:30.186Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Push yourself in healthy ways
</h4>

 Something I am trying to do is not to let tough moments derail me – be it a
 mistake or moments of insecurity. Instead, own it and push forward. In the
 past, if I would goof up at work, I would immediately start the process of
 self-deprecation, which would cause a lot of anxiety and find me repeating my
 mistakes. It has taken practice and intentional work to arrive at a place
 where I can own a mistake, be gentle with myself about it, and immediately
 figure out a solution so I can actually learn from the past and not repeat it.

<h4 class="text-center my-5">
 <img
 alt="creating-balance13"
 width="75"
 height="75"
 class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance13_9a09bee1cc.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:34:30.109Z"
 />
</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Make space for gratitude
</h4>

 The best way to combat the negative is with the positive. In the last couple
 of years, I have tried to find different moments to acknowledge gratitude,
 whether that is in a diary, on pieces of papers, or in words shared with the
 people I care about. While it can be easy to wallow in the bad, it is
 healthier for our mind, body, and soul to focus on what is positive.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<img
 alt="creating-balance3"
 class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/creating_balance3_7a4f53be88.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T13:34:30.343Z"
/>


 Much of this is easier said than done. All of us have our own unique journey
 to take on the path to self-compassion and inner security. As individual as
 our paths are, there is one thing all of us have in common: We all have the
 ability to create color in our lives. We just have to make the choice to do
 so.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Article By MAMATA VENKAT Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL
</h4>

<hr />

Creating balance

<h3 style="text-align: center;">GENERATION NOW</h3>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4>MAMATA VENKAT shares some practical tips on how
 to create habits out of New Year’s resolutions, and generally how to bring about effective change in your
 lifestyle.</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
The start of the New Year often feels like a period of rebirth. It is a reset of the
 clock, a fresh start that allows us to take inventory on the status of the past year, to celebrate its wins, and to
 honor areas of growth and improvement that can be carried into the following year. December seems to be the prime
 month for everyone and everything, from family members to friends to commercials to self-care articles, to ask us the
 ever-pressing and slightly stressful bold-lettered question: “What is your New Year’s Resolution?” 
I am what I call a “recovering resolution-making over-enthusiast.” In the past, every
 time the last week of December came around, I would evaluate my year and write up a very lengthy, very unrealistic
 resolution list. I was determined to stick with it. Come January, I would successfully go gung-ho on my list for a few
 weeks, only to find myself quickly burning out on my goals. March, April, May would fly by, and that long resolution
 list I made back in December would find itself in a corner of my life collecting dust. Discouraged, I would forget
 about my goals completely, resolving that next year would be the year that I tackled all of my resolutions. It took a
 few instances for me to realize that there were two issues with the way I was handling things:
I was doing too much, and expecting too much, all in too little
 time.
I was looking at my resolutions as insurmountable mountains that I
 needed to climb, instead of simply as habit building.
That’s all resolutions are really: habit building. I needed to build my habits in the
 same steady way I built my meditation practice, gradually, with ease, and intentionally. Once I reframed resolutions
 as habits, it became easier to take them off the pedestal and implement them into my routine.
<img class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/start_newyear_right2_ec5bae5802.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T04:29:37.649Z" />

Here are a few tactics that have helped me build habits throughout the year
<h4>1. &nbsp;Define what your goal is and why it is
 significant. </h4>
What is the purpose of your resolution? Why is it significant in bettering your life? Write it out. It helps to
 understand what it is that you are trying to achieve
<h4>2. What steps can you take to get there? </h4>
Instead of jumping right in, write out actionable steps that you can take to achieve your goal. When I started to
 incorporate meditation into my routine, I first started with five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the
 evening. As I grew comfortable with those five minutes, I kept adding on an additional five minutes until I could sit
 for 30 to 40 minutes. Taking those steps helped to build the habit and improve upon it.
<h4 style="text-align:center;">
 <img class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/start_newyear_right3_ef4348b46e.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T04:31:40.123Z">
</h4>
<h4>3. What does success look like for this resolution at one month, three months, six
 months, nine months, and a year?</h4>
What progress would you like to see in yourself with this habit throughout the course of the year? Mile marking goals
 helps to set easy points of achievement throughout the year.
<h4>4. Track your progress.</h4>
Tracking your progress allows you to be accountable for your progress. A few years ago, I took up bullet journaling,
 a record-keeping method that allows you to design how you want to track your goals and to-do lists. I used this method
 as a way to record how I was doing with each aspect of the Heartfulness practice. When I saw how it helped me to keep
 up with my meditation practice, I started to use bullet journaling as a way to manage all of my habits.
<h4>5. Be flexible and allow your goals to change as you and your year changes.
</h4>
Part of habit building is allowing your goals to change and adapt with you as you grow throughout the year. We often
 have a fixed vision of what our end results should be and get frustrated when those expectations don’t meet reality. I
 am learning how to allow for flexibility with those goals, as they evolve in the same way I do.
<h4>6. Willpower, willpower, willpower.</h4>
No goal can be achieved unless you take interest in yourself and apply willpower toward its success. Commit to your
 goal, and don’t stop until you achieve it.
<img class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/start_newyear_right4_6e0bda02ff.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T04:32:34.856Z" />

<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by MAMATA VENKAT</h4>
<hr>

Start the new year right

<h4>MAMATA VENKAT mourns the devastating effect of the virus in New York City, yet is completely moved by the way we are all stepping up and taking care of each other. It is showing us what we take for granted, and how much we value the simple things in life.</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
I’ll be completely honest. I stared at a blank Word document for a long time as I tried to compose my thoughts to write this. How can anyone even begin to describe the way the world feels right now? The coronavirus has robbed all of us of any semblance of normalcy. The majority of us are now indefinitely locked down in our homes, while our brave healthcare researchers and workers, including my incredible parents and the majority of my family, risk their lives day in and day out to do their normal day jobs and also treat the overwhelming wave of patients battling the coronavirus, and also frantically solidify a cure to end what has to be the most challenging era of fear and uncertainty that most of us have ever faced.
Sometimes I feel like we are living in a dystopian novel, trapped in an alternate universe without an exit route. Each day, the news becomes increasingly darker and ambiguous, not providing us with any relief of when this situation might end as each country takes every measure possible to curb the spread of this virus. Colleges and universities have moved online for the rest of the year; malls and movie theatres are shut down indefinitely. Business after business takes hit after hit. And social distancing has made many of us feel lonelier than ever: friends and family can only see one another over video chat, if at all, increasing anxiety and depression rates as people get the call to self-isolate and work from home.
My beautiful New York City is currently the epicenter of what feels like a bio-war. Doctors and nurses live away from their families as they work themselves to the bone; hospital beds are running out so fast that the lush green lawns of Central Park are now dotted with white medical tents so healthcare facilities can have more treatment centers for patients; and Times Square, with all of its Broadway shows closed indefinitely and its people-less lanes, is the quietest it has ever been. I don’t know when my home is every going to feel like home again.
This virus has been a rude awakening of all of the things I take for granted: the simplicity of going to the grocery store; taking the Subway to visit my best friend; going to concerts; hugging my mom. I recognize my privilege during this time: I am lucky enough to be safely nestled at home with my family, to be able to work from home, and to take walks and get fresh air when I need it. So many of us aren’t so lucky.
Many of our friends, family members, neighbors, acquaintances, and even enemies and strangers are struggling right now. People have lost jobs, lost homes, and heartbreakingly lost loved ones. Self-quarantine and social distancing have literally uprooted so many lives. But in a time when all of us could theoretically only be looking out for ourselves, I am completely moved by the way we are stepping up for one another.
I was scrolling through Twitter the other day when I read a tweet that at first absolutely broke my heart, but then filled me with so much joy and hope. A man was celebrating his 67th birthday, but because of the coronavirus he was forced to isolate and celebrate alone. When he posted on Twitter asking for a few birthday wishes, the world stepped up, not only showering him with well-wishes and happy returns, but also asking him for his address so that they could send him birthday cards and balloons and treats so that he didn’t have to celebrate by himself. I burst into tears when I read the responses to this man’s tweet.
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">In a time in when the majority of us 
cannot be together physically, 
the global community has come together 
to say that ‘together’ is exactly what we need to be.</h5>
<hr>
There have been so many other wonderful moments of kindness, community, and generosity just like this one. People are sewing masks and personal protective equipment for the doctors, nurses, and medical professionals who are risking their lives on the frontline every day to fight the virus. Communities are supporting their local small businesses and restaurants, and those restaurants are turning into grocery stores in order to provide food for people who are struggling financially. CEOs and other business heads are cutting their salaries in half or more to ensure that their employees can keep working.
I have seen people express their grief over losing their job on social media, only to have hundreds of people immediately respond to them with temporary job opportunities to help them pay the bills. Health and wellness businesses have moved their operations online, allowing people to take classes online for free or at discounted rates.
Friends and family members are reaching out to one another to check in so that people feel a little less alone. People are standing out on their balconies applauding our healthcare workers, or singing with one another, creating irrevocable bonds with strangers they probably never thought they’d meet.
We are all directly impacted by the spread of this virus, and yet, we are all stepping up and taking care of one another. These moments of positivity, these sweet acts of kindness, stand out to me more than any grim statistic or news piece. In a time in when the majority of us cannot be together physically, the global community has come together to say that ‘together’ is exactly what we need to be.
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by MAMATA VENKAT 
Illustrations by JASMEE RATHOD</h4>
<hr>

Together is exactly what we need to be

<h4>MAMATA VENKAT has learnt a lot about herself from playing tennis. Especially, it has taught her to let go of imperfections and move forward in a healthy way towards continuous improvement in all aspects of life.</h4>
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I was twelve years old the first time I stepped onto a tennis court, reluctantly encouraged by both my mom and my cousin to take up the sport as a way to strengthen my college eligibility and build my stamina, and also face my aversion of trying new things.
Fun fact: I’m not good at trying new things.
I was skeptical, stubborn, and totally terrified as I walked onto the court for the first time, gripping my dad’s dinky old Head racket in my right hand and my water bottle in the other. And when coach Kent smacked that first ball at me and my return shot embarrassingly soared way over to the other side of the court, I became even more determined to hate tennis and prove that my mom and cousin were wrong.
Spoiler alert: I fell in love with tennis.
Tennis carried me through my teenage years, giving me a sense of confidence that came from feeling strong. When I started playing high school tennis, it also fostered a camaraderie amongst girls my age during a period when we wrongly thought we needed to compete with one another. And I just loved being on the court. I loved inhaling the smell of brand new tennis balls, hearing the sound of the racket smacking a forehand or a volley across the net. I loved the feel of my feet zigzagging across the court as I moved to hit my opponent’s spinserve, the high-fives that my doubles partner and I would share when we won game, set, match. To this day, a tennis court always feels like home.
But I had one major problem on the court: I had trouble letting go.
Raise your hand if you’re really hard on yourself. So it’s not just me, right? Okay, good.
Consistency is key when playing tennis – after all, it’s the only way to keep a match going, to challenge your opponent and wear them down enough that you might have a shot (no pun intended) at winning the point. For the most part I was good at being consistent. But there were also many moments when I’d miss a serve, hit the ball into the net, smack a shot out, or just plain miss the ball completely. And of course, I had to move on to the next shot, while my mind was focused on the error I had made. Mentally, I would beat myself up, wondering why that shot hadn’t been perfect, or why I still wasn’t a good tennis player after all these years. And immediately, my performance would decline. As a (mostly) doubles player, that mentality not only affected my game, but also my partner’s, who had to spend her energy lifting me up and picking up my slack because I was having trouble recovering.
And here’s the thing: I would do this in nearly every area of my life! Whether I made an innocuous error at work, said something that unintentionally hurt a friend or family member, or missed a shot on the court, all I did was hold on to that ‘mistake’, which kept me stuck in my head, filled me with anxiety, and ultimately made it very difficult for me to move forward. It has only been in the last year that I have learned to cut myself some slack. But I still have days when I allow myself to worry too much, even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong.
I’ve done some digging in the last couple of years to try and understand why I’m so hard on myself. I realized that it is because I expect nothing less than perfection from myself in everything. The problem with setting such high expectations is that, more often than not, I and the people around me will end up disappointed.
<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">I’m human. I’m going to make mistakes. 
The more I recognize that and give myself grace, 
the healthier my relationship is with myself, 
and the stronger my relationships are 
with the people I care about the most.</h5>
<hr>
To help me overcome this problem on the court, my mom would remind me of how Maria Sharapova handled blunders. She would walk behind the baseline, adjust her racket strings, tuck her hair behind her ears, then walk back to the baseline with renewed resolve. She left her mistake behind the baseline and kept moving.
“And that,” my mom would say to me, “is the only way you’re going to win.”
Applying that mentality improved my tennis game significantly, but it’s also a metaphor that is relevant to all aspects of life as I work on not being so hard on myself. I can already see vast improvements. But I’m human. I’m going to make mistakes. I am not always going to be the perfect person, daughter, sister, best friend, acquaintance, worker, or meditator. The more I recognize that and give myself grace, the healthier my relationship is with myself, and the stronger my relationships are with the people I care about the most.
All of us are doing our best, but giving ourselves grace even when we slip really helps. Let’s keep lifting one another up.
<img class="has-img-center lazyload" src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/baseline2_22d2cb78b5.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T07:30:53.503Z"/>

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<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by MAMATA VENKAT</h4>
<hr>

Leave it behind the baseline

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<h4>
 MAMATA VENKAT SUBRAMANYAM explains how heart-based meditative practices have helped her turn feeling
 lonely into savoring alone time.
</h4>
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 If you’re a Taylor Swift fan, a Swiftie, as I am unashamedly proud to be, then
 you can relate to the feeling of hearing her songs and knowing she
 just&nbsp;gets it. The opening notes of a song draw you in like a kid
 in a candy store, the lyrics hit and, “BAM.” Sugar rush. Somebody, something,
 is finally able to put words to the hodgepodge mess of feelings clouding up
 your brain. And she does so to a tune that becomes irrevocably tattooed into
 your synapses, rendering you a little annoyed, yes, but mostly (and most
 importantly)&nbsp;seen.&nbsp;


 I have had many of these revelatory moments with Taylor Swift songs. In
 general, music can be cathartic, and artists like Swift who are very
 lyric-driven can provide us with camaraderie in those deep, dark moments when
 we feel like no one else can understand what we’re going through. In other
 words, those moments of loneliness.&nbsp;


 I have often felt lonely throughout my thirty years of existence. I feel so
 grateful to be surrounded by wonderful friends and family, but, like many of
 us, I have experienced that deep, longing sensation of something missing. I
 can be in a room filled with people and still feel alone. My experiences with
 depression and anxiety have often put me in states of self-isolation, and I am
 guilty of being so reliant on figures and concepts outside of my own intuition
 that when those external reliances aren’t steady or accessible, I lose my
 grounding. I’m not sure how to function without them.


 These are very real understandings that have emerged over the last several
 months as I continue to encourage myself to do the inner work and really grow
 into my individual. Through these realizations have come many truths, but as I
 listened to a new Swift song called, “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” one truth
 became glaringly visible.

The ending lyrics punched me the hardest:

 You’re on your own, kid Yeah, you can face this You’re on your own,
 kid You always have been.


 I realized that I didn’t know how to&nbsp;be&nbsp;with myself. And in
 order to create happiness, it was important that I learned how.&nbsp;


 There are a number of psychological reasons why I struggle with being with
 myself. What I have come to understand now is that feelings of loneliness
 persist because I have not been treating myself as a friend. I haven’t engaged
 with myself with curiosity to understand my likes and dislikes, to feel out my
 interests, to do work beyond the surface to understood who I truly was. I have
 become so used to allowing others to dictate my direction that I don’t know
 how to lead myself.&nbsp;


 The reality is this: while we are surrounded by friends, family,
 acquaintances, even enemies, the only constant in our lives is ourselves. And
 the best way to combat feelings of loneliness is to spend intentional time
 becoming friends with ourselves, the way we would with anyone close to
 us.&nbsp;


 There are several things I have been doing recently to create this inner
 friendship – journaling, reading more books, diving into concepts that had
 peripherally piqued my interest – but it’s really been meditation that has
 helped me the most in turning feeling lonely into enjoyment of alone
 time.&nbsp;


 Heartfulness meditation is a really lovely way to build that inner friendship,
 because the focus is meditation on the energy of the heart. Our hearts are our
 seats of intuition; it’s where our inner voice resides. That inner voice often
 becomes clouded by the illusions of our thoughts, created by stress, anxiety,
 the expectations we set for ourselves, the voices of other people, and other
 complexities. When we don’t regulate those thoughts, those illusions become
 our reality, and that reality often leaves us feeling out of control and, yes,
 lonely.&nbsp;

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<hr />
<h4 class="text-center">
 Heartfulness meditation is a really lovely way to build that inner
 friendship, because the focus is meditation on the energy of the heart.
</h4>
<hr />
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 How do we avoid that illusion-driven reality? By consistently tuning into
 our heart and listening to it. The more time we spend with our inner
 intuition, the more we get to know ourselves. The more we get to know
 ourselves, the stronger our relationship with ourselves becomes. And the
 stronger that relationship becomes, the less lonely we feel.&nbsp;


 So yes, you’re on your own, kid. But it doesn’t have to be lonely. Here are
 three simple Heartfulness techniques that you can adopt to strengthen your
 inner voice and, in turn, strengthen the relationship you have with yourself
 so alone time can become more enjoyable:&nbsp;

<h4>
 RELAXATION
</h4>

<figure>
 <img
 alt=""
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/relaxation_icon_18141781fe.jpg"
 />
</figure>


 What:&nbsp;A&nbsp;5 to 7 minute guided technique&nbsp;that
 releases tension and relaxes each part of your body.



 When:&nbsp;This guided relaxation technique can be done
 right&nbsp;before&nbsp;you meditate, or in moments when your body is feeling
 tense or anxious. If you are having trouble sleeping, you can also lie down
 and walk through this technique, relaxing each part of your body until you
 feel yourself falling asleep.



 How:&nbsp;Try it with&nbsp;<a
 href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwqL34FCjA"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer noopener"
 >this guided video</a
 >.


<hr />

<h4>
 MEDITATION
</h4>

<figure>
 <img
 decoding="async"
 width="169"
 height="165"
 alt=""
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/meditation_icon_54b5fe73c9.jpg"
 />
</figure>


 What:&nbsp;A simple suggestion to become absorbed in the
 light in your heart.



 When:&nbsp;Ideally, first thing in the morning for 10 to 30
 minutes before you start your day. It can also be done at any other time.



 How:&nbsp;To&nbsp;<a
 href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDClb-yjNdQ"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer noopener"
 >meditate on the light in the heart</a
 >, try it with this guided video.



 If you find your mind drifting to other thoughts, treat them as if they are
 clouds passing in the sky, witnessing them but simply letting them pass. To
 learn how to manage those thoughts, check out the next section, Cleaning.


<hr />

<h4>
 CLEANING
</h4>

<figure>
 <img
 decoding="async"
 width="169"
 height="165"
 alt=""
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/cleaning_icon_01c281a225.jpg"
 />
</figure>


 What:&nbsp;An active technique of letting go of complexities,
 impurities, and any negativities that build up over time. This technique is
 beneficial for reducing thoughts during meditation, for minimizing anxiety and
 stress, and for eliminating those pesky thoughts that often plague us before
 we fall asleep (no more counting sheep!).



 When:&nbsp;Cleaning is generally done at the end of the day’s
 work for 10 to 30minutes,as a way to release the mental and emotional weight
 of the day.



 How:&nbsp;To try this&nbsp;<a
 href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrgqTUIu_Qs"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer noopener"
 >cleaning technique</a
 >, follow the instructions in the guided video.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="text-center">Illustrations by LAKSHMI GADDAM</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

You’re on your own, kid

<h4 style="text-align:justify;">MALLIKA REDDY is the Founder of Canceled Plans, a sustainable clothing line and top podcast in India. In one episode with MAMATA SUBRAMANYAM, the two of them discuss the importance of mental wellness, tools to strengthen mental fitness, and the importance of taking responsibility for your own light.</h4>Q: Hi Mamata, a while back, you were on a one-way path to becoming a doctor (your family is full of medical professionals), but that didn’t happen. It was a canceled plan.&nbsp;MS: Yeah, that’s been my biggest canceled plan, because for so long that was the one-way trajectory I was on. Everyone thought I was going to be a doctor. I thought I was going to be a doctor, even though I didn’t want to be one. Halfway through college, I wasn’t doing well in pre-med classes, and it was not because I didn’t have the interest or the intelligence to do well. My own mental health issues plus not being naturally good at those subjects was a combination for disaster.I’m grateful to my mom, who saw me struggling and saw that it wasn’t what I wanted to do. She said, “Okay, maybe you should try something different.” There were a lot of disappointed people, including me, as it was who I thought I was supposed to be for a long time. That vision was molded by so many people, and it was all I knew as my identity. I still struggle, because it derailed everything.Q: That couldn’t have been easy. How did you navigate that decision? You said you were struggling with mental health back then.&nbsp;MS: As a child raised in the U.S. with immigrant parents, there is a part of me that is built to become my parents' dreams. That is not at all a knock against immigrant parents in the U.S. with dreams, but it’s a lot of pressure on them and their kids. We’re finally getting to a place where society has language for it. Back then, I was so compliant, and even the idea of stepping out of that shell was terrifying, because it had been an unsafe comfort zone for so long.I’ve dealt with anxiety for most of my life. I now know that a lot of that anxiety has to do with the people pleasing mentality I have, whether because of things that happened to me as a child or because of my own inherent nature. If I don’t do what I think others want me to do, I feel myself internally collapsing, and that causes my anxiety levels to go through the roof. On top of that, I didn’t know a world outside of medicine. Even though I stepped into a degree I really loved, I didn’t know which direction to go, or who I was.<figure class="image image-style-align-center"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/shining_inner_light2_2b633eb087.jpg"></figure><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">I’ve dealt with anxiety for most of my life.&nbsp; I now know that a lot of that anxiety has to do with&nbsp; the people pleasing mentality I have,&nbsp; whether because of things that happened to me as a child&nbsp; or because of my own inherent nature.</h4><hr>Q: Thanks for sharing that so honestly with vulnerability. It is taken for granted how easily that comes out, but it’s hard to say when people are listening. You have clearly done a lot of inner work, because it shows in the kind of self-awareness you have when you speak.&nbsp;What has been your journey to make mental health a priority and take care of yourself? And how did meditation come into your life?&nbsp;MS: I started to really consider my mental health when I moved to New York in 2015. I didn’t have words for the intense panic attacks I had at work. There were a lot of things going on in my personal life, and it was reflecting at work. I went on big emotional rants to my friends about the feelings I was having. I really didn’t understand until recently that the reason I vented so much to my corner of trust was because I thought it would heal me. They would give me a solution, or this person or that relationship (no matter how toxic) would heal me.&nbsp;I didn’t realize what I know now, which is that even when someone else does the damage, the power was always mine to begin with. The light was always within me. Even though it is unfair that someone else or circumstances damaged me, there is something empowering about owning the responsibility to take back and strengthen the light. First it shines inwardly, then it can shine elsewhere. It’s actually taken me until this year, until marriage, to realize that.&nbsp;When someone breaks an arm, hits their head, or cuts themselves, it is okay for them to talk about it over and over again. But if you say, “I feel anxious,” or “I’m dealing with depression,” everybody cringes. They can listen for a few minutes, but then it’s too much.&nbsp;After getting myself out of some really unhealthy spaces, I knew I had the tool of meditation, which I’d taken for granted. I was born and raised in the Heartfulness meditation tradition, and I always knew it was going to be a cornerstone in my life, but I didn’t use it the way I could have.&nbsp;Once I hit rock bottom, though, I knew that to take care of myself I had to practice what I was preaching. I needed to apply the meditation practice to myself before teaching it to others (I became a trainer in 2015). So, taking care of my mental health in combination with meditation became critical to me.So many people have said to me, “You talk too much about your anxiety,” “You talk too much about your mental health.” It affected me so much that I almost stopped talking about it. But if I stop talking about something that needs to be talked about, that’s one less person to advocate. I sound annoying and sometimes I’m on a soapbox, but it’s something that needs to be advocated for.I recognize the privilege of all of this; of being in a position to potentially be a doctor, having the support of my parents, etc. But, despite the privilege, I’ve learned that it’s okay to struggle and be figuring myself out, especially if what’s going on in my head isn’t aligning with what needs to be. &nbsp;Q: What advice do you have for someone who is struggling with mental health, with anxiety, with being in the world?&nbsp;&nbsp;MS: Something that drives me nuts is when a friend, a loved one, or anybody says, “Oh, it’ll all work out,” or “It’ll just be fine,” or “Everything happens for a reason,” when I express how I feel. Those things might be true, but it doesn’t stop the stress, the frustration, or the loneliness in the moment. While your experiences with breakdowns and rock bottoms may be different from someone else’s, your feelings are valid. It is terrifying and lonely, and very few people really understand what you are going through.&nbsp;But one person is always going to understand, and that’s you! The best lesson I’ve learned this last year is to show up for myself. You are your own friend. The same way you show up for anyone else, you must show up for yourself. The beauty in that is you return back to your own light that has always been there; you just have to remind yourself of that.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">The best lesson I’ve learned this last year is to show up for myself.&nbsp; The same way you show up for anyone else,&nbsp; you must show up for yourself.&nbsp; The beauty in that is you return back to your own light&nbsp; that has always been there;&nbsp; you just have to remind yourself of that.</h4><hr>Help for everyone looks different. I did therapy for a long time and it really made a difference, and journaling, going for walks, and meditation have helped me, but they might not be for everyone. So, find the things that you like. Be willing to do the work. Be willing to set promises for yourself and keep them, because the only person who’s going to suffer otherwise is yourself.&nbsp;There are many days that are hard; it can be hard even to get out of bed and function. Those things are valid, too. On those days, keep at least one small promise to yourself, whether it’s making a cup of tea, writing in your journal, or going for a walk. Find a way every day to stay connected to yourself.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/shining_inner_light3_d3f54ea387.jpg"> Q: That’s great advice, thank you. It’s going to help a lot of people understand what their options are, and the little things they can do to get started.To listen to the full episode, visit <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/772Ab2SsGdM2nWR2BFbZis?si=c7d8b4d0ec564050">https://open.spotify.com/episode/772Ab2SsGdM2nWR2BFbZis?si=c7d8b4d0ec564050</a><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Illustrations by LAKSHMI GADDAM</h4><hr>&nbsp;

Shining your inner light

<h4 style="text-align:justify;">MAMATA SUBRAMANYAM reflects on her own processes of change, and realizes that there is an easier way to move forward-one that doesn’t involve self-recrimination and instant gratification. She explores incremental change, minute by minute, embracing the messy process that goes with it, and sets herself a brighter vision for how to live her life.</h4>&nbsp;I have big, lofty dreams of whom I believe I can be.I constantly envision myself as a bright, confident, perfectly-coiffed woman in imaginary high heels (I’m only 5’2) who walks with intention and speaks with humility, who has no flaws and no insecurities, and is loved by everyone.In my head, I am the ideal career woman who works her behind off, who aces every project, who never runs out of steam. In my head, I will be a boss lady like my mother, make witty jokes like my brother, get stuff done at the same pace my dad does. In my head, I am the perfect wife my husband will never regret choosing, the one who is always balanced and never stressed, the one who makes him laugh and makes all of his hard moments easy. The one who does everything so perfectly that he can’t help but brag as I sit on the pedestal we built together.In my head, I am the best, best friend; the one who always says the right thing, sends the right gifts, makes everyone feel the most seen, valued, and appreciated. I imagine myself as the light everyone gravitates to, the one who can be everyone’s everything, the one who never makes a single mistake, the one who can do no wrong.But that bubble of a fantasy easily bursts when I see the dozens of unread emails with unmet deadlines sitting in my inbox, the blue notifications of text messages I have yet to respond to from friends, who are probably wondering if they did something to make me mad (you didn’t).I have saved lists of recipes I tell myself I’m going to make, only to lose steam and yet again press “order” on my staple Chipotle meal. I don’t hold my own like my mother, I don’t make witty jokes like my brother, and I certainly don’t work the way my dad does. I have cried three times this week to my husband about my insecurities. Those insecurities put voices in my head that make me question if he is happy that he chose me.And I see her so clearly, the woman I know I can be. If only I could break the cycles of bad habits that hold me back, if only I could stop being complacent, if only I could stop being a ridiculously outdated version of me. My twenties are coming to an end, and every day I feel I have nothing to show for them.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Like any good, reliable mirror, the answer was right there in my reflection, just waiting for me to look close enough to find it: change is not a leap.</h4><hr>As I make the same mistakes over and over again, as I watch in furious envy as other people grow and change and accomplish and succeed, as I leave yet another to-do list unchecked, and though I know the ability to change is only in me, what do I find myself doing? I anxiously worry if I am well past my prime, if my thirties will be a knock-off version of my twenties, in which any success won’t be taken as seriously because I’m not as young anymore, if it’s actually too late for me to be anyone, anything.I keep making the same mistake of wanting to get from point A to point Now by trying to bypass the in-between. When it comes to bringing those dreams out of my head and into reality, I freeze. I get excited about doing the work, but become daunted about diving in, letting all my insecurities and complacencies get the better of me and talking me out of moving forward. I freeze.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/secret_to_change2_d8e3be705b.webp" alt="secret-to-change2.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_secret_to_change2_d8e3be705b.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_secret_to_change2_d8e3be705b.webp 450w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/secret_to_change2_d8e3be705b.webp 450w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;And then I sit in a large self-made pool of self-pity and self-aware shame, mentally hurling envious anger at the people who have the courage to create their own destinies while being perfectly aware that I am fully capable of making my own dreams a reality, if only I weren’t so fearful or lazy.&nbsp; If only I weren’t in my own way.Today, as I shamefully walked away from another dream I knew I could have achieved, if only I had put in the work, I put a metaphorical mirror up to my heart and asked myself two hard, hard questions:What is stopping me from changing?&nbsp; And what can stop me from ever asking myself this question again?Like any good, reliable mirror, the answer was right there in my reflection, just waiting for me to look close enough to find it: change is not a leap. It cannot be a leap. Over time, change can be measured in leaps and bounds. But to get to that leap, to get to that bound, you first have to take it step-by-step.Change must happen minute by minute, otherwise I am setting myself up for failure. I can no longer expect that by simply making a thought suddenly I’ll change. I can no longer waste a single second. I have to be willing to put in the work to make it happen. Every self-encouraging thought, every forward action, every plugged-nose-closed-eyes deep dive in between point A and point Now must be done with the clear, firm intention of never going back. It must be done with the full bravery to see myself, flaws and all, with a determined acceptance that while those flaws will take time to fill and smooth, the result will be worth it.And it’s time that I recognize my strengths. If I really own the bright parts of me that shine brighter than my flaws, I can let the beauty of those bright parts fill and smooth out the cracks.To create change—real, hard, messy, good, positive, ever-evolving change—I have to be willing to wade through the in-between. I understand that now. I realize I have to do that work to unwind and rewind the in-between, otherwise I’m not really aiming for change: it’s a rustier, burned-out version of who I am now.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">We are complicated, creative, incredible, messy, broken, fixable, wonderful canvases that are subject to change, if we allow that change.</h4><hr>Change is minute by minute.We are complicated, creative, incredible, messy, broken, fixable, wonderful canvases that are subject to change, if we allow that change. It can be a hard ride, but I’m learning that change can be a fun rollercoaster.If we are willing to let it be.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/secret_to_change3_723064ab82.webp" alt="secret-to-change3.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_secret_to_change3_723064ab82.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_secret_to_change3_723064ab82.webp 450w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/secret_to_change3_723064ab82.webp 450w," sizes="100vw"></figure>

The secret to change: take it minute by minute 

Manav Dave

<h4
 id="h-manav-dave-is-looking-toward-a-hopeful-future-thanks-to-the-inspiration-and-action-of-the-gen-zs-and-despite-the-challenges-they-face"
 >
 MANAV DAVE
 is looking toward a hopeful future, thanks to the inspiration and
 action of the Gen Zs, and despite the challenges they face.
 </h4>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 Take a second to think about this current moment in time. There is a lot
 to process. In the past two years alone, the Covid pandemic has managed
 to expose the cracks in our social, economic, and political systems, and
 has left us wondering whether there is anywhere left to go from here.
 

 
 But the situation has also led to uncovering some very unlikely heroes.
 While the powers that be are combatting our problems with old and
 ineffective solutions, a new generation of heroes has emerged to create
 the world we deserve. Whether it is through harnessing the potential of
 the Internet and social media, or changing the frameworks and
 definitions of equity and equality, one thing is for sure: the next
 generation is ready to make change, and is not afraid to shake things up
 along the way.
 

 
 From the youngest woman of color to serve in the American Congress, to
 the youngest person to win a Nobel Peace Prize, this past decade has
 been full of firsts. Another important first to acknowledge is the
 Internet. From the first email sent in 1971, to Facebook in 2004,
 Instagram in 2010, and most recently, TikTok in 2016, this generation
 has been raised on the Internet and has managed to harness its potential
 to communicate effectively, and create and organize mass movements for
 change.
 

 
 One of the first examples of technology bringing people together was
 Facebook during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 to overthrow President
 Hosni Mubarak. Since then, the use of social media to mobilize change
 has become more effective, with Greta Thunberg using Facebook to
 encourage Fridays for Future climate strikes, and the rapid escalation
 and coming together during the Black Lives Matter movement. This
 generation uses the powers of technology to their advantage.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 One thing is for sure: the next generation is ready to make
 change, and is not afraid to shake things up along the way.
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 Gen Z, the group of people born from around 1995 to 2010, is said to
 have the highest diversity in terms of race, class, and gender identity.
 Combined with increased access to digital platforms, this has led to a
 generation that is changing the way we look at tolerance, equality, and
 equity. Some of the social issues that matter most to Gen Zs are
 equitable access to healthcare, racial equity, and climate change,
 showing a shift from a self-serving mindset to a humanitarian one.
 

 
 This is not to say that this generation is without demons. The Internet
 comes with its own set of dangers, and Gen Zsare sometimes inhibited in
 their ability to form real-world connections and sustain the impact
 created by mass mobilization. Behavior trends like cancel culture and
 social media frenzy often make it difficult to understand the
 dimensionality of an issue and find a proper solution. If Gen Zs are
 truly going to bring change, they will need to channel their enthusiasm
 and passion, and also develop the maturity and depth of understanding
 required to create a long-standing, sustainable, and equitable impact.
 

 
 From Greta Thunberg to Amanda Gorman to Malala Yousafzai, they are
 making strides in every area – environmental activism, art, racial
 equality, and education for all. They are ready to use what they have
 and know to bring a magnitude of change that has never been seen before.
 More importantly, they are hopeful, and not taking no for an answer.
 

 
 To sum it all up, as Greta Thunberg said, “We can no longer let the
 people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer
 let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope
 is telling the truth. Hope is action.” And above all, what the next
 generation promises is hope for a better future.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

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 <img
 width="652"
 height="378"
 alt="why-the-next-generation2"
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 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/why_the_next_generation2_51319c1ea7.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T14:00:09.089Z"
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 </figure>
 </div>

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