#001: Planting Seeds

On epiphanies and my first "hi'"

Happy Diwali everyone! It’s November. We celebrated the festival of light, and as we move towards the end of the year, I am finally publishing my thoughts, one of three goals I wrote down for myself this year.

The theme of the year was “Growing up”. Knowing yourself more, growing from the place, people, thoughts, opinions. It is really hard to accept the complex mind that keeps changing. There are so many changes as you start walking towards the path that feels true to you. You know deep down inside what feels right to you, you feel yourself in this skin. I was able to finally mold myself and get back to the lost track.

This page is the existence of my worldview. As I move ahead, I want to share this journey with people who are already ahead of me. In the last few weeks, it felt right to write down my thoughts and expand my knowledge by sharing my knowledge. There’s always been a fire within me, but I now feel more drawn to it, the calling is stronger than anything I have ever known.

I had an epiphany of understanding devotion, last week, it is still very fresh, it was for a quick few moments when my eyes were closed and Krishna Das was chanting his famous “Om Namah Shivay”. I was in the kitchen, making a cup of tea, and there it was, a moment where you could feel the longing, the sorrow, the loneliness, the fulfillment, the happiness, and the arrival of something, all at once. It’s harder to put it in words when you are no writer.

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Highlight of last few weeks:

I have been deepening my understanding of chanting, and bhakti yoga, and just witnessing my thought patterns. I watched a video of Krishna Das addressing the audience. Some of his thoughts got stuck with me- “we need to cultivate new habits and practice letting go of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and we have to recognize that when we change it's not about how we feel right at that moment necessarily, yeah, good feelings may come good feelings, may go or you might have a painful memory but while we're chanting we're planting seeds of the name and the name is not different than what is named so we're actually in the presence as we chant but we don't recognize that because we still think we are who we think we are and that's a problem.”

Another thought by him - “When we get swept into the energy of “Let Go” When we step out of that mind, a flow of heavy emotions and let go, that’s how it works. We have to lure ourselves with Music, with Sound, by the name. It teaches us and changes us. It’s not a learning situation, it’s a changing situation. You don’t learn how to “Let Go”, It happens as time goes.”

In the same session, someone asked this wonderful question, and the courage earned my respect- “I have been on the Spiritual Journey for some time now, but all these lectures and retreats are very expensive. It had cost a lot to even attend this lecture. What do you do when “Finding god becomes expensive?”
Watch the full video here :

Another incredible lecture by Swami Sarvapriyananda on Self-Inquiry. He explores the four yogas—Jnana (knowledge), Bhakti (devotion), Karma (action), and Raja (meditation)—as paths to self-realization.

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A week ago I attended a creative workshop by Nishita Mohta on starting passion projects. We discussed creative blocks, it was very similar to IFS therapy, we drew our internal voices, gave them a face, and dialogues, and treated them like an entity.
She also shared a TEDX talk which I loved
The full video is here

Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn't know it as well as you thought- Paul Graham

After a lot of overthinking and self-sabotage, this Substack is finally live. They say inspiration often comes after you start. This is going to be a place of abstract thoughts, ideas, insights, and assumptions. I’m looking forward to the engaging conversations ahead!

With love,
Lost Cleopatra

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