Today marks Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights. This is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year for Hindus around the world. This celebration lasts 5 day.
The festival gets its name from the row of clay lamps that Indian families light outside their homes. This holiday symbolized by these lamps reflects the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.
I thought if you want to join in this festival, we could each burn our own candles, as a symbol of our own inner light burning brightly.
A meditation for Unity
In the aftermath of the election, subsequent opposition to the results has risen and our elation turns toward concern. We may ask ourselves how we move forward in such a heavily divided nation. What will the future look like? And how will we heal the division and unify?
This is not a new question and it points to an even deeper investigation. An investigation into ourself and our own division. Where are the cracks and inequity within ourself that create barriers, shame and blame? And what is the fascination with holding the tension of difference and our seeming addiction to drama? Does this stance create an even bigger crevice between ourselves and others?
It seems that now, and it is always now 🙂 is a great opportunity to directly face those places that we haven’t deeply felt, things we haven’t shared, events we haven’t truly encountered as a path and expression of compassion and healing.
Is there space, is there room to allow all challenges to simply be here. Building on our theme from last week’s Loving Kindness meditation, this practice can become even more potent when facing these seemingly strong oppositional forces.
Today’s meditation is about Unity. Unifying and transcending any differences we may feel in ourself and in each other. How we interact in life is so very important, so very precious!It may sound cliche, but we are really all one human family. We all the share the right to be happy, to be free and to be at peace.
We have the endless capacity to more and more clearly reflect what is most valuable, what is most important. Adyashanti describes this as discovering Truth in the very heart of life. Where there is always love, joy and wisdom to be found. Where there is always clarity, Truth and compassion to be found. Living as and for Peace.
We right here and now, have the ability to increase our own Nation’s coherence. We can apply ourselves collectively with a shared intention. A strong intention to connect to those divided places within ourself, and to include all those that share opposing views. To transcend our own personal agendas to meet others where they are.
We can begin with ourselves. We are wise enough and brilliant enough to embody the love and peace we so want for the world. It will look differently for each one of us. But by living this adventure of life, we can help usher in a unification of all things. It’s really a way of falling in love with the world.
To grow our attunement with what’s really important. And when we can grow that in ourselves, it will quite naturally spill over into our relating and transmission of love and unity in the world. Orienting ourselves in the highest regard for what is meaningful and precious is the key.
“We do so much, we run so quickly, the situation is so difficult and we say, “Don’t just sit there, do something”. But doing more things makes the situation worse. So you should say, “Don’t just do something, sit there”. Sit there, stop, be yourself first, and then begin from there.Thich Nhat Hanh