You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.
Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient.
It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.
So- I've brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.

- Jalaluddin Rumi

The virtue of each VOTM

Our little VOTM sangha has tried every month to pick a virtue that would help each of us grow in some way, practice a noble quality, take a step closer to a higher reality and learn new ways of giving and loving. Some virtues have been easier to assimilate than have others, for sure. The very process of picking a virtue has been educative- for instance, sometimes, I have wondered if something is even a virtue. For instance, happiness. Or decisiveness (which is the VOTM of July :) btw).
Just struggling with conflicting urges of wanting to express that thought while also wanting to do my best to see how a thing of real value lies buried in applying that month's virtue has been a useful exercise for me. Along the way, understanding what makes a friend resonate deeply with a chosen virtue has helped me understand my friends better too. After all, life's lessons come in many different shapes and forms and this intentional process of picking a virtue has brought with it a new surprise lesson every time!
And this is what I have realized, especially for the selections I've had to make an effort to get my head around.
(Now this might be VOTM 101 for many of you, but for me it was an important realization and hence share I shall.)

What makes a virtue a virtue then? Let me take the example of happiness. At first I had thought to myself surely, this can't be a virtue! I mean, what's to practice?...
It took me a while to recognize that it is what brings forth happiness and indeed, where the true source of it lies- in divine grace- is what imbues happiness with virtue. Digging deep within to identify what brings happiness, what is ephemeral and what is truly lasting, what is a result of our conditioning from a material perspective and what is necessary for our spiritual growth- indeed, that is the virtue of happiness.

Is it not true that the sunlight streaming in through the window every morning makes me sing with utter joy? Indeed, every breath I take is an act of mercy of that Supreme being; the very flowers and birds that bring a smile upon my face, His gift to mankind; the love of family and friends, a blessing most precious, the source of greatest joy. To know happiness then is to know gratitude; it is to know contentment.

Is it not equally true that the things I cherish most cannot be measured or quantified by the sum total of all my worldly possessions? To know happiness then is to know what is material and dispensable and what is of far greater value than that.

Can I deny that in my moments of weakness and fear, it is only prayer that brings me strength and inner peace? Should I not know then that there can be no room for grief when I submit entirely to His will? No room for misery if I recognize courage and acceptance, detachment and wisdom, come from the same eternal being, and from whose love arises true joy and bliss. To know happiness then is to know the most essential truth.

--

You might wonder why I have waxed eloquent on happiness six months after the fact. Well, it is because despite the light bulb going off in my head then, I was seized by the same confusion when it came the turn of decisiveness! God knows, I need to practice it more than anybody. But the virtue part of it still bothered me. Until I remembered what S always said to me about decision analysis and Vedanta being one and the same. And truly it is. A decision cannot be judged based on its outcome but only on how it was made, given the information one had at the time. In some ways, this really brings a very important facet of detachment home. Not just that, efficient decision-making process demands objective reasoning, setting priorities and accepting unknowns. From a spiritual standpoint, if one always remembered to go through, say, a goodness checklist, one should never have an ethical dilemma, yeah? :) In other words, checking for 'good, kind and necessary' is not only a worthwhile gating process for speech, but for every decision that we make. Understanding what makes something good and why there is no exception to being kind at all times and doing this consciously at every turn, can only give greater clarity and conviction and before you know it a decision must emerge! And therein lies the virtue of decisiveness.

For July

"Our appointment with life is in the present moment.'

For June

Thich Nhat Hanh says from my desktop calendar:
'With kind spiritual friends, I am on the path of goodness.'

And so I give thanks to all of you, my dear friends for just being you :)

Change and Trust

The message of trusting that, no matter what, greater good lies ahead was reiterated to me last week in surprising and novel ways. One of them came in the form a book that was being passed around our lab in response to some rapid re-structuring within our business division at work- 'Who moved my cheese'. An incredibly short & simple read, it could easily be included under the category of children's classics. The crux of the book is that change happens, inveitably. The healthy way to deal with it knowing that it will happen, is to anticipate it, trust that it will lead to something better, and gather the skills to deal with whatever that change leads to. At first, I found the comic style story-telling too simplistic, almost dismissing further thinking. Thankfully, I caught that very impulse to dismiss arise and decided to do some further thinking. I am glad I did (and it helps to have wonderful friends who ask that I do no less :), thank you my dears!).

What I came away with after all the ruminating is:

To trust in God means to trust that He would not send any test our way if He did not know that we could overcome them. Trusting is thus an act of supplication to His wisdom and care.

To trust that things will only turn out better is committing to find lessons in every change and test to make ourselves the better for it.

To trust is to remember that we are never lacking for His constant support and guidance.

To trust in God, is to trust one another; to know that He reveals Himself through ordinary miracles and to be open to His signs.

And to trust one another, means to love one another unconditionally and fearlessly.

Appa's words of wisdom for his girls:
Good things happen to us,
Just not in the same dimension we imagined.
So, have faith and give a prayer of thanks!

Faith

Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered,

but a maze of passages,

through which we must seek our way,

lost and confused,

now and again checked in a blind alley.

But always, if we have faith,

God will open a door for us,

not perhaps one that we ourselves would have thought of,

but one that will ultimately prove good for us.

- A. J. Cronin