The Fullness of Nothingness

Photo by Manish Doshi 2019 – I was resting my spine on Earth at the edge of Crater Lake Oregon after a long hike. The peace was refreshing, the blue is the real color of the lake & the photo unplanned.

“Do Nothing – It is the Brave who can truly rest on this planet”

Do Nothing – I wrote this poem in April 2018. I was reminded of it when I was trying to make sense of my current unexpected blog break. My Kind WordPress friends, YOUR comments on this poem comforted and validated me, after 4 years now. Hope you enjoy it – on the image above or revisit on the linked title.

Life is gloriously flowing through me and I am simply Being – at times very raw and at times spacious freedom from shedding deeper identities. I feel very blessed for the opportunity of this lifetime and the abundance I am surrounded by, that I get to steep myself in when I choose to do nothing.

In the beginning, my mind rebelled against not delivering to my own expectations of a given day. Even while engaged in hands-on tasks of everyday life, I was inwardly pulled to the WordPress Space wanting to post my latest poetry, read yours, and engage in precious conversations that are the gift of this space. Each time I attempted to explain/inform of my unintended break, I as if entered a portal of stunning nothingness. Spirit questioned if my words were better than silence and silence became the choice.

The guidance was strong, I got steered away from all engagement. The mind went into a lot of chaos initially, collecting pieces of past, present, and future to make sense of. Once I steadied myself by allowing all that to pass through, a lot of truth that I was unwilling to accept became evident. The lies that I lived with, shook my now-reality into a fast spin. A lot of disintegration and reintegration seemed due.

This one was a transition similar to others, and it was also a different space of magical drift into nothingness. I wasn’t in a healing hole sliding down like in the past. I was feeling spacious, raw, getting renewed – I was immersed in the utter Beingness. There were waves of grief as I shed my past self, yet no tears, I was steady. Just Being present in the moment. There was no need for anything to be different, all sense of direction and aspiration suspended. There was a need for Slowness, amidst the Infinite waves of life. I often tend to pick up doubt in this way of being as much as I advocate it. I moved past that eventually.

There was a child-like joy with the knowing to make choices with lots of breathing space around for my intuition to be heard – for my reality and tasks to be structured differently than I was holding them – I gave myself renewed permission for taking the time to do one thing at one time, one day at a time, one week at a time with deep attention, with no sense of urgency or busyness. I was thrilled with the trust I felt in the Glorious Unkown, while Being in the wide-open spaciousness and tender vulnerability of the moment. The nature of Presence is such.

Be-come – This is a short post from December 2019 that Spirit guided me to, during this phase of Nothingness. It had conveyed the exact words as a reminder for my current self and yet again – my WordPress friends YOUR comments on it are an absolute treasure to return to. I humbly offer this post to you to revisit or if you are new to my space since then.

Even if it felt like Nothingness – some Infinite Living ways continued – I attended to every day needs of my family, at times hosted guests, had sacred conversations while facilitating my private students, completed my assignments as a full-time student & attended classes for my 4 year-long yoga therapist training. The list of what I allowed to fall off my day feels longer still as I have allowed myself the luxury of plenty of time. That’s where I am ready to receive guidance to make choices in powerful and playful ways. I am not giving up on anything I started, all that I have held in my intention with utmost love and gratitude.

Photo by Manish Doshi 2015 – Powerful & Playful is how I choose 🙂

“It is the Brave who can truly rest on this planet” – I am truly blessed and privileged for all that I am afforded – to dream and to live.

Dear WP friends – I look forward to visiting your blog space to find updates on your end that I have dearly missed. I sincerely hope you trust me when I say – my gratitude only deepens for this space with each passing day. It is very kind of you to allow and witness my inner process of living as you always do. My Presence, Slowness, Genuine Gratitude, Utmost Regard for you and your work, with Absolute Love and Humble Bow.

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She

Photo by Myself

A girl, a woman born with the essence of feminine grace and beauty. With innate qualities and potential for expression of what she can be, with the gifts she is born with.

When she dances to the rhythm of music she becomes her pure essence. When every fiber of her Being becomes a part of the symphony, she embodies the purity of the soul.

A girl, a woman, often since born on earth, has been caged in this mold, a way of living carved out for her, defined for her. Her role-play in this lifetime dictated to her as if in exchange for basic human needs of food, shelter, and clothing. The basic needs are met and she is trained to follow the rules of female existence.

This is from an age when her gender innocence is at its peak, she is barely a girl from a toddler. She is enrolled in a dance class to cultivate discipline. Not to allow her essence, her most beautiful expression of Being to bloom with her own unique fragrance, but just to learn a dance form. No public performance is allowed. Good girls don’t move their bodies this way in public, she is told, as she continues to mature.

The girl becomes a woman with a process of going through a shredder as if, separating her person into strips of ways of Being offered to different relations as designed and defined. She is a daughter of a family, daughter-in-law of another, keeping their smiles of approval beaming as long as she behaves in respectable ways.

One strip, the essence of that woman keeps fluttering in her face through life. It is her sense of being herself, a piece of that person wanting to be congruent within and not stripped off in so many ways. That strip has all the love and devotion towards her relations, yet wants the freedom to dance to her own rhythm, through life experiences of her own.

When this woman sets herself dancing to the music on stage, immerses herself in the realm of her own essence, her soul is set free to be herself. No name, no relations, no conditions, her gender evident only in the beauty, the grace, the art, the freedom that transcends all different ways of her being. This woman then captivates the audience as if in collective meditation, mesmerized and immersed in the rhythm of the soul.

Let us celebrate the awakening of this collective woman power in the uplifting of our human essence. Happy Women’s Day to all of you, those who identify with the gender, and others who support their journey!

Note: To me, She is based on my observation of so many sister-friends around, and the various ways of impact all of us have, from growing up in our particular culture. Do you recognize Her in someone you know from any of my descriptions?

P.S. This article was lying in my pile of unpublished drafts since 2017. It appeared in my mind today, as I was thinking about what do I want to share for this week’s blog post. I was delighted that this piece showed the willingness to go out into the world on International Women’s Day this year 🙂

Relationships & Truthful Commitments : Published in AmericanKahani/Perspectives

Photo by Manish Doshi at Kauai Sunset

Some long-term relationships have the security of commitment and complete trust. Those in such relations often feel saturated and locked in the roles they either choose for themselves or get defined to. Eventually, distress comes up …

The above are the opening lines to my article on Relationships & Truthful Commitments recently published in the Perspectives section of the multimedia site AmericanKahani.com. It would be my privilege if you were to take the time to visit this link to read and share your feedback on my perspectives with me:
Relationships 101: The Importance of a Truthful Commitment However Difficult it Maybe

This is my second article on the topic of long-term relationships published with AmericanKahani. I shared the first article here on November 8, 2021 :
Don’t Blow Up your Life: Take Responsibility for the Choices You Make

This article was originally published on this blog On January 22, 2018.

Love Warrior

Photo of me lounging on our beloved planet by Manish Doshi at Death Valley NP, California

The words on the picture above formed a short post Your Choice, published on April 30, 2017.

While I was thinking for a picture to pair with the poem Love Warrior, the above came to mind, along with wanting to add words from the older post to make it into a word image. I am shaking my head to myself over this compulsion I am feeling, to combine various elements to a post instead of just sharing the poem I intended to. Perhaps they are slightly different flavors of Love Warrior. I hope you enjoy the expressions of this phase I am going through.

Love warrior
Made
Unseen
Unfelt
Unnoticed
After being
Seen
Felt
Noticed

Love Warrior
Not Victim
Yet Victim
From
Heart assaulted
Ignored
Gaslighted

Love Warrior
Taking space
Humbly
Courageously
Vulnerably
Still looked down
By those
Taking space
Boldly
Unapologetically
Powerfully

Love Warrior
At war within
Without enough
Self Love
Wary from
Letting go
Expectations of
Natural reciprocity
Even from those
Placed in roles of
Nurturing tender hearts
And failed to deliver

Love Warrior
Daring to be so alone
No complacency
For want of company
Often doubting sanity
Counting blessings
Cultivating Gratitude
Choosing Love

Love Warrior
Colored leaf
Drifting
Through space
Finding Ground
Becoming One
With Earth
Finding
And receiving
Divine reciprocity

Love Warrior
Becoming the Ground
For bold ones standing their ground
Holding space
For unapologetics to walk upon
Lending strength
For the powerful to use
From the subtle
Power of
Humble Courage
And vulnerability

Love Warrior
Often Invisible
Being
The ground
And space
The embrace
They themselves
Yearn for

Photo by Manish Doshi at Death Valley NP, California

Note to dear blog friends: I have become slower in my visits to your blogs, I still treasure my visits to read you work the same, I will keep doing so, just going through shifts in routine.

What are you really looking at?

I felt moved to repost this inspiration first published on August 22, 2016. It has come back to me to help me look at my own deeper wounds and how I am doing at allowing the light to bring healing. I have had a long unconscious tendency to overlook all that is hurtful and gloss it over with positivity and love. Until the lies to myself stop working, I am forced to face the truth. I am grateful to find the capacity for greater deep dives in the crevices of my wounds than ever before. 

“Peeping through the leaves” by Atanu Chakraborty

There’s an empty glass of water sitting on the counter. It is broken. It is holding together but it has been shattered and has cracks going all direction. I look at it and see just that and nothing else …a piece of broken glass.

If you try to think of a situation or event in life that might have shattered your intact way of being …what do you really think of ? A situation that has cracked your core and wounded you open in places? Or something that has been bothering you very much since yesterday or last week? The broken glass probably doesn’t really represent anything to you. Life is perfect …except that this person, yesterday or last week, did not behave well, had a wrong attitude, did not do exactly like you expected or even deserved. My glass is as intact as ever. Now if I somehow make evident to this person that he/she has wronged me, I can get on with my perfect life … 🙂

I glance up out of the window behind the counter. There is this big vibrant sweet gum tree, always standing tall majestically, un-wavered through the winds and seasons. There are 2 men cutting off overgrown branches. The ones that were weighing down on the core were being fell to the ground. The idea made me feel light. They then raked off the fallen leaves and branches, leaving the ground clean and green again. A lot felt cleared on the slate of my mind. The sky was in better view now that the tree was trimmed.

Looking down at the broken glass again, sunlight now reached through the window and pierced through the broken glass …as if pouring through the cracks …filling them up, making it shine like never before.

I closed my eyes. Trying to imagine the healing golden light pour through my wounds and cracks. The glass became all gold but a dull one …no more cracks. Instantly I erased it and opened my eyes. If I am healed of my cracks I better look lustrous, I do not accept dullness!! …Ohhh do I accept my cracks?!!!

Are they caused by blows caused by other people or person? No, I do not play that blame game in my life. Did I allow those to be caused to me? Was I never strong enough to stand up to myself? That self-judgment doesn’t feel good and hurts me. So I am not going to relate to that broken glass in any way!!!

How many times do we try to mask and escape this way? In day to day life, what are we really looking at? Is it really the person yesterday that has made your life miserable? Or is there a deeper patterning at work here, a deeper healing  that we are denying ourselves? Healing of our health, and also relationships, with ourselves and the most significant to us. So, all that is bare and there, is there to nourish us.

Be brave to see the cracks, the deep wounds, let light enter through them, seal them and heal them. Let the glass hold the gold of clarity for you to drink from it. A crack in the roof of a deep dark cave lets the light in …imagine the exhilaration of seeing your path clearly, when you encounter that crack. What chipped the roof to make that crack, all the trauma that it endured, is just the drama that can become your story, that you might tell one day.

Be wiling to see your cracks …not as some external object or person. Sometimes we have shown such enormous endurance towards something un-imagined, or even unacknowledged, we don’t dare to look back at it …making us cranky at the most trivial though. Sure it is very human and also helpful in the healing process. But really if you see what you are looking at and what you are trying to escape, it becomes a true digesting of life events …tantrums, tears and all that are a part of it. Let it flow!

The light will always lead you to solace …if you allow it to enter you …pierce through you …seal you and heal you and shine you!

Humbled by Honesty

“Brutal Honesty can bring out your vulnerabilities. It is worth it when the result is peace of mind.” I wrote this to myself in 2013.

It had seemed the most challenging year of my life, as I was going through a ravaging health crisis. These words came to me as I was unwillingly about to enter yet another agonizing treatment phase. It was more than unpleasant for me to surrender to becoming completely dependent on others, until I regain strength, yet again.

“Do I really want to do this?” I checked in with myself. Without a pause came a YES! I sensed into how I was feeling, and it was PEACE. I felt so vulnerable to myself even. Because it meant I would be going ahead with the treatment, that too willingly. Saying Yes to an impending suffering by choice seemed like brutal honesty to myself. Why can’t I just deny it and be comfortable in ignorance? I thought. Because I felt the trust, that it was going to be worth it. And it totally was.

It has been deeply humbling how this lesson comes back to me, on repeat, wearing different garbs, cracking me open in every vulnerable spot in my being, everywhere I live in fantasy, everywhere I have a need for some things be a certain way. Though by now, along with it feeling Brutal, I feel a lot of Gratitude. For the Gods of Clarity are inherently kind with the revelations, in my experience.

I have found myself supported in utmost possible ways, before a shot of disillusionment hits me. Resources, divine and worldly, are made available to me in perfect design. I am at times lost in awe of the grace with which I am held and guided through the seemingly unexpected, as much I imagine I could slip down in the pain of another castle of made up reality crashing down.

If we are willing to read closely, there are signs along the way. Only in hind sight are we able to connect the dots, regarding any situation and our own role in it. I am amazed at how much I protected myself from the emerging uncomfortable clarity every single time. Not realizing how many mental justifications and worldly definitions, I keep living with regarding people or situations, that are not really serving anyone truly.

I would go into mediation on a rising sun, an object of meditation as instructed by my teacher Chase Bossart, and see myself sitting in a cave looking at the sun rise only partly, refusing to come out in to the wide open space. While discussing with my teacher I said “there are things I do not want to see, I am not ready for that clarity” That is one instance from couple of years ago.

In the recent months I have shared poetry about being Awake at Dawn, and yet not willing to open the curtains to enjoy the early morning light, wanting to take care of baby Me a little while more. I had been wondering to myself for quite a while why I wouldn’t want to see the light of the day, stay hidden in my cave.

Sunrise on Kauai

It makes me laugh at myself (I will do that only lovingly), at how each time I am shocked at how unexpected something that follows is. I am aware this will keep happening until I clear my own emotional geography at the deepest level that brings me these experiences. It will happen again to show me my ability to step up, in my vulnerability, and integrity. I take full responsibility, and it humbles me. I will keep moving through life with as much kindness to others and myself. This process empowers me and teaches me to live more as myself in the truest sense.

Here’s what I have discovered until now. If there is inherent peace to a decision, it is worth it. It is actually a gift to everyone that you live in fear of hurting. It is up to them to find their truth or not. Fear is a Lie, I heard several times from Dr. Dain Heer’s teachings, and yet only now I realize the extent of how much fear existed in me because of some lies I was allowing to continue. If the lies are not your own to yourself, if they have been coming from other people, they are not going to be happy when you make choices for yourself. This can be painful for those who are as if born with the vow of keeping others happy. Often forgetting themselves in this quest for gifting happiness.

All of this keeps getting much more easier, with quicker recovery from the hits of reality, more surrender with faith to the Divine Guidance – whichever way you tune into it, more courage to make tough choices, with literally miraculous ways and people showing up for you.

Honesty as a conquest is worth it, don’t doubt your own knowing of anything. The peace is not short term. The Peace felt in the Truth is addictive. Life unfolds like you never imagined it to be.

Of Becoming Myself

Photo by Myself

I have circled back to square one yet again in my journey of Becoming myself.
It is my responsibility to patiently skillfully claim who I am.
I Am the ripple and the wave that keeps flowing in to her destiny.
I receive this gift of melting diffusion of my being fully, breathing and being with it.

A Moved Heart, deep no-tears-eyes feeling tears.
This is pure energy transmission through pure intent.
This is Truth of the moment. This is Love.
On my next phase, I work on absolute skill in silence or speech, than ever before.
My Life is Changed Forever.
I am stunned and moved, and receiving deeply. I am ready. Whatever that means.

In this moment I accept my wholeness.
I leave it to the shift and process to work itself through me.
It feels empowering. I am thrilled at the lack of the lurking fear and overwhelm.
The prayers and blessings are at work at all dimensions.
This energy is so fluid and expansive.

I am done blinding myself from the clarity available to me.
I am done being so cautious of stepping into it.
I feel the grief of mothering others’ emotions and then letting go.
I cared for how much they needed me to need them and so became the needy one they needed me to be. I have been part of the game too, trying to keep it all so comfortable.
Oh Truth is not such. So much peace in this moment I don’t know who I am anymore.
That makes me smile, it shows me my raw beginning yet again, to get back to being who I was, am, to be. I flow in to my destiny, from this moment here now.

I am not stuck here, I am planted and blooming.
There is pulsating power within, my container is adjusting, recalibrating for this shift.
I am reminding myself these sensations are not pain they are sensations of divine rearrangement of energy itself, tangible and intangible.
This process is going to stay alive for some while, I will stay present and silent.
What Gift, Grace, Gratitude – to hold this unfolding, in utmost reverence!
Thank You is what covers it and doesn’t begin to cover it, for the revelations and truth that are a grace of this lifetime.

This post is a modified compilation of my comments that came in response to
Amy Rose on a recent post of mine Layers Illuminated. I decided to make my end of this recent conversation into a post to turn the profound shift into a powerful affirmation, own and embody it fully. I would be honored to know how this post spoke to you.

About Being Myself

Photo of Moon by myself

Growing up around a lot of extended family and friends who were more affluent than my family was, I never really had envy. It was a matter of fact for me that you have some things that I don’t. I remember once a cousin who owned all the latest CDs, excitedly sharing with me about it, apologized to me “oh I didn’t know, I am so sorry you don’t have a CD player.” As if I lacked a family member, I thought. I just responded “Why sorry, I just don’t have a CD player.” I think I simply enjoyed the feeling of abundance they enjoyed and was very much interested in their life. I can have all that some day I imagined and yet never really prioritized having ‘things’ in my life.

What I craved was people, authentic people. I looked for genuine care and unconditional love, and struggled to fit in, wherever I went. I didn’t know that though. So I envied the confidence in people. Often being affluent made people more confident in the world – like they owned the world in some ways I didn’t. I mistook it as something being wrong with me. It didn’t cross my mind that money made the difference. They kept showing the riches to me, I kept looking at it and saying to myself “yes but I want to become like you, be more confident in being myself”

I was amused to realize that my life long quest of living as authentically as possible, has this root in my envy for confident people and those with artistic abilities. That is how I discovered that what I think of envy is actually my admiration for people who can express themselves in ways I can only dream of.

My honesty and vulnerability in my quest for authenticity was repeatedly taken for my weakness, and that became a further blow to my confidence. I am emerging from that too. I have nothing to prove to anyone as much as I owe to myself, the gift of being myself. This is one journey that I have mastered very well and yet always be a beginner forever on the way. I have discovered that I can be way more courageous than just confident.

I love and admire people who have what I don’t have in me yet.
I keep learning to love myself more and more with all my perceived shortcomings.
It gives me a renewed taste of newfound freedom continually.

I wished to highlight these lines above from my previous post as a reminder to myself for everywhere I am not living this in every fiber of my being. I am committed to waking up with more love and freedom in being myself for the rest of my life. I also know that I will have days when I falter and slide away from this commitment, and wake up in judgment and fear instead. I feel immense gratitude for being in association with those who model greater faith, trust, capacity, resilience and joy of living and being alive. They fill my day and life with abundance and blessings. I get to borrow from them what I might wake up lacking for the day. I consciously practice filling my cup and then rejoice in gratitude when I can be a channel of support to others.

A Similar Post : Envy & Inspiration

More on the topic
5 lines about Envy : Envy & What can Be
Thought image: Eyes Look Longingly
Short poems:
Here, Take them All
Parallel Disappointment
Show up with your gifts

Couple of Little Celebrations

Me & The Book :))

I thought of meeting you face to face to share my happiness of this book that I am holding :)) Some of my poetry is published as part of this collection, alongside poetry from some amazing poets that I have come to admire and adore for their absolutely magical art of words. It is available on Amazon for download on Kindle here for $0.99. Do check it out to see its description and if it interests you.

Step Into the New You – image sourced from the India Currents article

And in another little celebration and I am thrilled to share with you that an article of mine was selected by a community media platform India Currents to be published as part of their January theme – Renewal : You and the World around You. I chose to focus on my favorite topic, you can read it here: Step Into the New… You. I would love to know your thoughts on it.

Heartfelt Gratitude for all your support, reading and meaningful interactions that has afforded me tremendous growth as a person and this journey with words as a writer. It is more like pouring these surges of expression that come and what a privilege to be read and received! These tiny expansions of publishing in the outer world are a spillover of all the love in this inner world of WP where I first dipped my toes and then kept swimming in this world of writing and sharing.

Difference

Photo by myself

I used to remain small
to keep others comfortable
They did console themselves
that I am nobody big

I am nobody big
I am no small either

There is a big difference…

I wish us all to continue to live with the truth of our being, with courage and compassion in relation to each other. I found this in the corners of my old drafts, while I was looking for something else. I enjoyed reading it back to myself and thought I should share it 🙂