I began the year with my first trip to India to study with a group of International meditators guided by Thom Knoles, Maharishi Vyasananda. It was truly the best thing I could have done for myself at this moment in time. I learned so much through purely observation and experience, as well as through lectures and discussions on the meditation retreat.
India is a magnificent teacher. She shows you lessons learned from her history of wars, her so-called rulers, her people/animals and her land/waters. She allows Nature to rule in ways the West has forgotten how to do and fears. Observing with an open heart taught me that suffering is another thing the West seems to capitalize on and that it doesn't exist in the obvious ways we have been taught to see. I learned the visceral difference between pain and suffering. I understand with more nuance what it is when Buddhists refer to life as suffering. In India, the poor and the stray did not necessarily suffer, as we might have been conditioned to believe. What may been interpreted as lawless is in fact more observant to natural laws that our laws in the America to be specific. There were lessons to be learned, so I dropped my expectations and just observed and interacted in this world as I would anywhere I might live. It changed everything.
Meditation and the teachings of the Veda also reframed how my eyes see, how all my senses perceive. I learned that the goal of a meditator is not to simply transcend, as it turns out to be the easy part, but to go beyond transcendence to greater understanding of the self, the world, the universe and all its manifestations and to live in the physical body interacting and meditating for the collective consciousness.
My heart is open and I am here in the service of what needs to be done. I feel that life has a clear and greater purpose and I am here to live my Dharma. Letting charm guide the way, I am open and grateful for all that came before and what lies ahead and the current moment , as they exist on a continuum that is alive as much as we are.
I am full of gratitude and excited for growth and evolution.
With love and gratitude,
Su-Jung
Bathed by the light in Rishikesh, India on site of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Ashram, now a historic ruin in a national park where tigers and elephants roam free. January 2017