Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Epitome of Grace- A WAKE UP CALL

"A flower does not need instructions on how to bloom. No music teacher taught Nightingale to sing. It is spontaneous. There is no force involved; it happens naturally. Similarly, in the presence of a Master, the closed bud of your heart opens up. If you forcefully open the petals of a bud, you won't be able to enjoy its beauty and fragrance. Only when it blossoms by following its natural course, will the beauty and fragrance of the flower un-fold" ~ Amma


I cannot believe we are a few days away from the New Year!! As much as I feel time is going by like wild-fire, I am really looking forward to a New Year, New Possibilities, Starting a-new....

These past few months, I have been feeling like a completely new person who has all these unbelievable expectations to conquer!! =) I am feeling SUPER restless and excited to get started already!!

This whole phase started after my un-forgettable summer spent in France. If I had to pick one word to sum up my life in France, it'd have to be "adventure". Every moment spent there was vivid and intensely felt. The short period spent in Paris was fascinating yet insular marked with brilliance, of course :). The French people seem so burdened by it, strangely! Paris is like a maddening moody lover who inspires emotional highs and lows... it's like a rush of passion that we can't resist coming back for more, is a way I'd like to put it. From where I write from at this moment, I feel what I felt when I was there; a foil shimmer of rooftops, a few orange chimney pots, quaintly crooked windows and lots of sky. It’s nothing special, but to me it's precious. I really miss being around that. For inspiration writing this, I am looking back at old photos and reading the journal I wrote while I was there. I am seeing myself there six months ago and how content and peaceful I felt and suddenly now it seems like it all happened just yesterday.

This isn't like me, to just have just changed in a blink of an eye in a complete foreign place in a short amount of time but it happened,it really happened. I was in France for an Ecological youth camp at the French Ashram (Spiritual Centre) outside of Paris in a huge farmland. It was absolutely beautiful and peaceful out there from the vibrant City of Paris. I was very new to this kind of life; spirituality, meditation, praying etc. Although I have read many books/texts on this, I still felt very unfamiliar to it all because I had never practiced it. Don't get me wrong, not that I didn't know what I was going for, I knew but I was unfamiliar with it. I am not a religious or spiritual person, but spirituality is something I would love to find from deep within. I'd like to find it and that was my mission. I was at the Ashram for two weeks. I went a week earlier to help get things started and may be just feel more comfortable. During the first week, we did a lot of self-less service and got things together for the retreat the following week. My friend went over some of the things we were going to do and what I should expect. I was feeling nervous yet excited :). We spent the evenings, by singing multi-cultural songs, meditating, praying and being more present with Mother Nature. It took a few days to really adjust but I was very open to it all. I started to feel more at peace and relaxed. By that week, I was already comfortable. The following week, all the youth from different parts of the World were coming. Most of them were familiar to this spiritual side of life and some were not as I was. I think the best part was that we all were there for similar reasons; we all wanted CHANGE. We were all there to inspire each other. When you have a large number of youth at the same place with similar interests, with incredibly strong voices, that is the most powerful thing yet! It’s an un-describable feeling. That week we leant a lot about the Ecological awareness by taking several workshops, listening to talks and watching video clips and mostly speaking to one another. I spoke to a lot of youth who were highly opinionated about the way we live just as I was. We want to change our act for future generations and do all that we can rather than exploiting Mother Nature. I felt more and more inspired every day. Long days went by but I was always excited for the next day. I meditated as much as I could and really prayed. I could feel something very deep inside of me just wanting to flourish. Sometimes I felt, that our Spiritual Guru (Amma) was leading this on, I could feel her warm embrace. I didn't want to be snapped out of it. I remember talking about it with someone there feeling absolutely happy.

Sometimes I wondered how I would feel when I left the Ashram back in to the "real world". I think its easy to balance it if we keep practicing the principles of spirituality and break all the bad, negative habits. As much as I really want to start empowering more and more youth to start giving back, I needed to change myself first. I cannot expect to be an example if I continue to live on my bad habits. Most youth feel that drinking, partying, smoking, listening to loud music and staying out late is more important. They are not aware of the impact it may be causing. I am not saying that I am not one of those youth; I am saying that I am or rather I used to be that way too. As soon as I got back from France, I stopped going out, I don't drink anymore, I try not to stay out till late as I used to, I try keep away from negative friends and most importantly I don’t spend money on un-necessities. If this starts with me first, then I can empower other youth to follow me. I don't however still feel that we need to change our lives totally but to be more aware of spirituality and about assimilating positive values rather, in our everyday lives.

I totally feel like this Next year is going to be full of endless possibilities!! I want my voice to be heard and I want to try and get more youth to follow this movement. I feel like a new person ready to blossom in to this World. This was certainly a wake-up call!! I feel like I'm on the right path now and I have found God. Whenever I am losing track, I just Pray and sometimes I can really feel our Spiritual Guru (Amma) always there to keep me on the right track. She is the Divine Light.

Let the youth all over the Globe Celebrate and Generate Love and acts of self-less service in the year/s to come.


 Let this be the Wake-up call for whoever may be reading this.


~Love is God.~

-Sheena.