In 2013, I was reading Swami Vivekananda’s book about himself. Around that time, I was searching for prominent saints of India, and ended up reading about Yogananda and his book Autobiography of a Yogi. Inspired by the book, I started looking for an organization that offered his teachings and whoa!… in the next few days I saw an advertisement by Ananda. Soon, I joined the classes.
When I look retrospectively on how one thing lead to another, it all makes sense and I see how things are always planned for a better tomorrow, and how each part of your life helps.
At the start of this year 2019, on the first day in office, I wished everyone that we all grow in our own unique ways. I reflected on the greetings and realised that it was inspired by Paramhansa Yogananda ji’s saying that each person has his own unique path towards God. That’s a very encouraging truth, and it implies that regardless of gender, age, marital status, religion and other outward expressions, the soul’s path remains unique in itself.
Being part of a family has always offered wonderful opportunities to grow and to integrate those learnings in all walks of life, including the spiritual path. Here are few things which have helped me to integrate my spiritual and family life at one time or another.
- Whatever little possible, I bring my family to be a part of occasions or events happening at Ananda. They feel elated with all the happy faces and good vibes floating around.
- A certain level of outwardness in spiritual practice helps kids observe and become acquainted or comfortable with it, helping them adopt it early in their life with ease.
- Carving out separate time for spiritual and family life each have actually helped in better integration, as then there is harmony between two. It is not always easy, though – I end up meditating during hours which are sometimes owned by kids and need to be given back in some good way or another.
- Gratitude for the wonderful family members. When my daughter was born, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was not pure blessings showered on us. Blessings kept pouring when our younger son was born. And then I realized there has been blessings always, right from my own childhood, through marriage, kids and to date.
- Enjoying the spillovers and learning from it. The after effects of meditation are tremendous and give the power to survive a good ordeal or to even make it a sunny day. Similarly the after effects of a good and harmonious time spent with family can relax the mind and prepare it for a good meditation.
- Using a spiritual platform to start things that I always wanted to do but struggle with in normal routine. Learning to play the harmonium / make music is a great example. If you have been thinking of writing blogs but don’t do anything about it, it helps there as well, like what is happening with me now. 😀
One Comment
Thank you Harsh