3 beautiful things happened last weekend
Moments of awe, wonder and presence
Hey Friends,
A lot of you are new here, for the first time ever :)
This is how this newsletter goes:
Every Saturday, we have:
1 Raw and Real Conversation
2 Raw One Liners
3 Real Gratitudes/3 things I loved in works of others
Let’s go :))
Raw and Real Conversation
I go for a spiritual class daily.
Every morning from 7-8 am, in a class of around 30-40 people, we sit and listen to Godly versions, followed by meditation. It is just 1,000 steps away from my home.
Some of my favourites from the spiritual class:
Problems are nothing but a creation of a weak mind
You shine bright like a diamond when you wear the quality of truth.
Your whole dharma is to take God with you in every action. He will take care of you even before you think.
In February of every month, we spend a lot of time doing programs in societies, community halls, etc., to spread the message of Shiv Ratri.
For example, just like how Shiv Ratri stands for devotees’ victory over darkness, ignorance and negativity; the spiritual significance of Shiv Ratri is how God, or Shiva, comes to take us away from darkness of the world we are in towards our inner awareness.
So last week, we were in Paharganj. It is a branch of the spiritual class in Noida, where I go daily.
Paharganj, if you have been there, is a very weird area of Delhi. Nested right outside the Connaught Place, it is everything CP is not.
CP is wow. Paharganj is not.
CP has wide lanes. Paharganj has exactly 20 lanes in one lane of CP.
CP is a photogenic place. Paharganj is not.
In CP, you flow. In Paharganj, you can’t even walk.
CP is colourful despite being white. Paharganj is colourless despite not being white.
Btw, not to mention, I won’t be surprised if businesses of Paharganj make same money as businesses of CP.
Anyhow, coming back to the Paharganj analogy, I do not enjoy going there. For the obvious reasons mentioned.
However, since we go there no more than once or twice a year, I prepared myself to go with my spiritual class friends last Sunday.
And man, what an experience. I was blown away by what I went through.
It turns out, we had booked Ramakrishna Mission Ashram for one day. It is a wonderful ashram located right outside RK Ashram Marg metro station.
Here is the best part:
The moment you enter the ashram, you will forget you are in Paharganj!
The place is serene, quiet, classy, clean, and has pure vibrations.
Translated: The place is awe.
Since every single one of us has a sewa when we conduct programs like these, my sewa (along with 1-2 friends of mine) was to sit at the registration desk and jot down names, emails and phone numbers of people arriving, so that we could reach out to them for further programs.
The auditorium where our Shiv Ratri program was being held was on the first floor. While me and accompanying 1-2 friends were on the ground floor at the registration desk with our laptops.
Here is the view from my desk:
Yes my friend, this is Paharganj. If you have ever been to Paharganj/Old Delhi, you exactly know what I am talking about. And how this beautiful place is the last thing you’d expect in Paharganj.
However, here are some of the moments of awe I had because of that:
You can be beautiful, peaceful and serene even amidst the chaos. The Ramakrishna Ashram was an example of that. You do not need to let your surroundings influence you. If you are pure, blissful and connected with God, you can thrive in any damn environment. This quiet ashram in hustling-busling never-quiet Paharganj was an example of that.
The view I shared above was my view from 9.30 am-12.30 pm. I always long for such moments of awe that take my breath away. This was one of those. Imagine having this in front of your eyes and tapping keys on your laptop. Life doesn’t just get better than this.
I also had an unseen moment of patience. I am someone who has her lunch at 12.30 pm, and start feeling uneasy when I don’t. However, last Sunday our lunch was at the spiritual class which as a kilometre away in Paharganj. And I figured in order for program to wrap up and we going back there, it would take at least an hour. I could choose either to sulk or figure what to do.
So I quietly went to the first floor, outside of which two other brothers from our class were distributing prasad. Requested them for prasad, came back to my ground floor desk, and started eating prasad with this view again in front of me. (Note that by this time registration sewa of mine had gotten over.) For almost half an hour, I kept looking at this view, slowly munching the prasad I had. I am rarely this patient. However, I told myself: “What in the whole wide world will I gain by nesting resistance within me for an hour?” So why not just be slow, eat, and just be :)
Why I wanted to share this with you?
Because it is so easy for every single one of us to get caught up in success/business/work/money/FOMO whirlwind.
Most of above are necessary too. I love the first four :)
However, if we are not making moments to be present, to let go of resistance, and to just be, we are robbing ourselves of ourselves.
The last thing we all want to do, isn’t it?
The best thing is, we can find our moments of awe anywhere. I find them in the daily life such as:
A toddler hugging their parent riding an Activa, on the way to school
Dogs sleeping peacefully in the park
Sunrise peeking in through the early morning hours
The quiet just after the completion of a meditation session, when you don’t feel like speaking
A moment of reflection after reading a beautiful para in a book
I am sure if you look around yourself, you can have access to all of these, or even more.
My deepest wish for you is that you keep finding awe and wonder in your daily life, my friend.
Because as George Carlin said:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
We can’t be present in concerts daily to feel this. But we can always be present in our circumstances to find this.
I truly hope you find your moments of awe today, and every single day, my friend. Isn’t this life all about?
2 Raw One-Liners
After 4 productive Pomodoro cycles, we are all pretending to work.
You are not dealing with adults. You are dealing with kids in grown up bodies.
3 (for) Real wonderful quotes I came across, that you must read too:
It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar patter. Sometimes it is easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet. —Colleen Hoover, It Ends With Us
I learnt from my grandfather, to use good manners, and to put restraint on anger. —Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Once you stop looking, things find you. —Philosophy of Life
That is it, my friend.
I hope you liked this week’s edition, as much as I loved writing it.
See you all next week.
Stay raw, stay real, and never stop reading.
Nishtha Gehija
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Instant access ebooks for your reading, and spend some time with yourself:
The Corporate Life Handbook: The book everyone working a corporate job needs :)
The Career Changing Guide: My bestseller so far :)
How to Deal with Heartbreak: Because, life happens :(
Every Writer Needs to Read this: I wish I had this one, when I was starting out as a writer
This is What You are Looking for (Paperback): Small Life Lessons for a Happier Life