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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Phenomena at the Ocean

Some glimpses on our planet make me feel blissed and blessed for being alive here. They fill me with pride, glory, and humility in my being. They drop my felt sense experience of living into a sense of nothingness, in a way that I become present to life in ways indescribable. They stun me into silence and a childlike surprise for being chosen for these unexpected prizes for being in the right place at the right time, in the most undramatic manner.

This is how I feel about my visit to Maui, Hawaii at the end of December 2021. I expected warm waters, pristine beaches, forest hikes, and beautiful sunsets but didn’t imagine encountering these few other things:

I used to wake up in the early dark hours in anticipation of catching the sky colors at sunrise. I witnessed this instead. (It was difficult to pick just one picture of each kind. These are simple mobile clicks)

Spotlight from the Sky – Divine Light at 5.30ish am
Photo by myself

Full Moon shimmering on the Ocean – Oh the garments our planet wears
Photo by Manish Doshi

The Moon setting behind the island of Molokai
Photo by Manish Doshi

As if this was not enough, a totally unknown (to me) phenomenon was sent my way!

A night rainbow at 9.45 pm! I am told it is a rare sight on some moonlit nights and is called a Moonbow!
The picture is taken at night setting, the sky was much darker than seen here. Photo by Manish Doshi

Can you trace the lower end of the rainbow entering the water close to the shore? That was new to me!! It is not a reflection on the water, it is the rainbow curving all the way!
Almost full circle daytime rainbow at the same location. Photo by myself

These phenomena at the ocean along with other soul-nourishing experiences made me pinch myself for why I deserved this perfection of life moments. I met the ocean in various moods – calm & clear, fun and playful, and yes amidst all this beauty I had a major emotional meltdown as if wanting to deeply feel my worldly humanness again. As much as the Ocean mirrored the former qualities with slow rhythmic waves at the shore, it also joined me with thunderous unruly waves for the latter mood. The ocean showed me how all kinds of waves are beautiful – it is just breathtaking how we get to have all our humanly ways of being. I returned forever in gratitude.

Photo by myself

A short poem that emerged for an early morning with the waves:

The Ocean lends me a sense
Of power and beauty
Quite Unapologetically
The waves within
Are as playful or then unruly
I allow them all to flow
Quite Un-shyly

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.

The Ordinary Extraordinary

Photo by myself: Crater Lake, Oregon. Unedited mobile click – what is so ordinary or extraordinary about this picture?

It helps to blur the line between ordinary and extraordinary, whichever end we think us to be on. When extraordinary strength is required for everyday life during challenging situations that seem to be present for a long term, it helps to remember that even ‘normal’ life feels the same periodically.

I realized this when I dealt with a difficult illness for some years with no break of ‘normalcy’. I decidedly trained myself to accept my new normal and then the days that felt really hard became just like any ‘normal’ life. It lifted the burden of Why Me-s and made it somewhat more acceptable to live through the ordinary pain of a seemingly extra-ordinary situation (or vice versa).

And when we think of us as ordinary and normal it helps to remember that we hold the potential for extraordinary. When life is ‘normal’ we take it for granted that only some special people have strength. We forget that they are choosing to be strong. All of us have the choice to go a bit beyond our comfort zone, with integrity to our well being.

I love and admire people who have, what I don’t have in me yet. We need all shades of capacity, resilience and joy in differing measures from time to time. I keep learning to love myself more and more with all my perceived shortcomings. It gives a renewed taste of newfound freedom continually.

All things big and small when dropped to the felt sense become our internal experiences. No experience is ordinary or extra-ordinary, in some ways. Just because it happens to everyone and is normal, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be affected. If our thoughts and emotions are taking over that means our experience is real. It is affecting the quality of our life. Acceptance is being aware of all of that.

When fear grips, it means some perceived and real experiences have left us with no control over how we feel and choose. It becomes a struggle even when we have had a taste of divine faith before. We now seem to have lost the ability to be congruent with the core of our original being. When our system is out of balance the fear might bring up some pain or symptom in the body. We might feel agitation or confusion in the mind, we lose the capacity to connect with divine faith.

It is helpful at such times to create experiences to influence our system in the direction of balance. This can be done in various ways. A breathing practice that brings the body and mind to a calmer & clearer state of being, time in solitude or nature with nurturing activities. To me sometimes I just need honest conversations with people who can act as authentic mirrors to me. Either a friend or mentor who reinforces and channels that sense of trust, faith or divine connection back in our system.

I have found tremendous rich value in this process of intentional shifts between imbalance & balance, ordinary & extraordinary, and fear & faith. I am blessed to be a receiver of such reinforcements from friends and teachers that I reach out to.

I am also grateful to have opportunities to facilitate such shifts through the yoga classes that I teach in group and private sessions. If you are curious check my humble yoga website: http://www.YogaSaar.com

This post is from a train of thoughts that I had saved in my drafts. I would be honored to know what came up for you and if we are able to exchange perspectives.

The Beauty of Disruption

Photo: Self

When a surging flow of life seems to be disrupted,
Because of an un-event that was unexpected,
There is a space that is opened up for a rich listening in …
To every message that has been missed out on.

When you become willing to pause in that space
Deeply nourish yourself with simply being,
Precious awareness of fulfilled desires starts unfolding.
They may not feel the grandest dreams come true …
If you look closely you will find
Simple moments that were a dream for longest time.

Enjoy them, relish them …
If you go in distress over the disrupt
You shut yourself off from your own magical moments coming true.
If you look closely you will find
The very thing that disrupted your current momentum
Has made space for something that you had earnestly yearned.

Receive it fully …
Along with the faith that your current dream
Is now on its way to you.
If you look closely you will find
The surge of momentum had actually affected your ability
To receive some divine guidance with subtlety.

The surge worked to steer you strongly,
The disruption worked to create space
To help you settle in that direction,
You now move ahead with your trust, faith and intentions
Towards your dreams, desires and compulsions
With the subtle guidance of your own knowing.

In the space created with the disruption there is richness
of all that you have ever asked for.
Receive, relish, nourish, and become ready
For fresh beginnings in calmer tides of life.

 

Memories

Photo: Manish Doshi, Footprints: Self 🙂

Feel Shine Melt Love

Photo Credit: Virag Doshi

Feeling invisible
I seek longingly

To become visible
I burn seethingly

Find that the burning
Shines bright my yearning

You drop a glance at me
Then take it away so quickly

In that moment I know
And you know what we see

Now I want to keep burning
All that feels invisible in my feeling

Each time you look away
I will keep burning away

Until I shine so bright
You can’t evade my light

The heat of this resolve
Melts away my fury

As I come to know newly
There is no you or I

What’s burning away is my own lie
What you are is the divine eye

None but that part of me
That I am not willing to see

Rather than simply and magnificently Be
Keeps hiding behind the cloak of invisibility

And the fear of dying unseen
Or is it the fear of living and being seen

Oh dear me the heart keeps beating
Be kind with your breathing

All is good about the burning
All is beautiful about the feeling

Oh dear me there is no you no me
All there is, is to love me, so I love me

 

This post is a contribution to Debbie Roth’s ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects. This poem comes back to me very loudly, to help me accept where I am today without judgment and fan my intentions for moving forward from where I am.

Originally published on Jan 23, 2017

A home with no walls

Image created by Josiah Harry of Skylarity

Have you ever been in a home like this?
There are close to 50 people in there.
Yet the experience is such that all there is, is space.
Like there are no walls to that home.
The whole universe seems to have opened up …or maybe the home has opened to the space of the Universe.
I was there with a friend who took me to that home. I didn’t know anyone else.
Everyone was so silent and just spacious within …they were just being their pure being.
If eyes met, the most heartful smiles came.
Regulars just melted into purest, warmest hugs …as if knowing what is to be received and/or given.
I venture into the ‘speaking’ area (the living room). You come here if you wish to converse.
Everyone just pure divine energy.
No name, no game, no status, no apparatus, no conclusion, no exclusion.
Isn’t this why we visit temples?
Here each person I spoke to was a temple visited.
I was immersed in the most precious ways of being and conveying and receiving and giving.
Without giving or receiving a thing that I can hold on to.
Yet what was given and received is part of me for this lifetime.
The food served, to be eaten in silence, was just one of the ingredients of nourishment.

We walk around with so many walls …of our name, profession, our beliefs, concepts.
These walls are so much a necessity to bang on, as we keep living.
But what felt like life itself was the perception of no walls.
We walk around striving to be normal …or striving to be extra ordinary.
But what we are, are pure miraculous specks of being.
I am in awe of how these experiences become possible for me …as I keep waking up to a new day of wonder …of what I know are pure soul interactions on a daily basis, just so perfectly waiting to happen.
I began writing on this blog platform with the concept called Infinite Living,
Not knowing it is actually being lived so profoundly …
I left knowing that I will always be supported in my strive to embody Infinite Living.

P.S. This post is dedicated with gratitude to Awakin Circles of ServiceSpace. I am grateful to my friend with whom I spent one evening here.

Feel Shine Melt Love

Feeling invisible
I seek longingly

To become visible
I burn seethingly

Find that the burning
Shines bright my yearning

You drop a glance at me
Then take it away so quickly

In that moment I know
And you know what we see

Now I want to keep burning
All that feels invisible in my feeling

Each time you look away
I will keep burning away

Until I shine so bright
You can’t evade my light

The heat of this resolve
Melts away my fury

As I come to know newly
There is no you or I

What’s burning away is my own lie
What you are is the divine eye

None but that part of me
That I am not willing to see

Rather than simply and magnificently Be
Keeps hiding behind the cloak of invisibility

And the fear of dying unseen
Or is it the fear of living and being seen

Oh dear me the heart keeps beating
Be kind with your breathing

All is good about the burning
All is beautiful about the feeling

Oh dear me there is no you no me
All there is, is to love me, so I love me

Which one is it?

Which one is it?

Painful yet beautiful
Beautiful yet painful

Sadness with a sweet smile
Sweet smile with sadness

Tears of joy
Joy of tears

Love has attachment
True love is detachment

Memories from past
Reside in present

Past in present
Present in past

Heartful love
Longing heart

Letting go of desire
Desire of letting go

Life a wishful dream
Dream a wishful life

Journey of a lifetime
Lifetime of a journey

Perfect imperfection
Imperfect perfection

Content conclusion
Concludes contentment

Certainty always uncertain
Uncertainty always certain

Unwavered faith in Universe
Utmost support on true path

Miraculous design
Divine timing

Which one is it?