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About Saying 4/1/2017 3:30:55 PM
Ruminating on the potent power of saying "yes" and where that can lead - A book perhaps? Most times, most people (including myself) say "no" to opportunities that don't seem to fit into our plans, our time limitations, our responsibilities, or how we feel things are/should be. We may live seemingly rich, happy, and/or busy lives of experience within these defined circumference of beliefs; Yet, we typically never consider how saying "yes" to more challenging or radically different choices may enable new situations to bring us entirely new insights, and experiences that begin to untangle us from the "shoulds" of old beliefs.
I learned the power of saying "yes," to opportunities, people, sights, sounds, invitations, and more after I said, "Yes," to an invitation to visit India. That land had not been anywhere on my list of places I'd like to visit. While potentially spiritual and exotic, still my thoughts held India to be a land of disease, heat, crowds, poverty none of which I had any desire to encounter. But, oddly enough for me, when asked if I wanted to join a group traveling to Rishikesh, I actually said, "Yes."
That "yes" led to many other affirmative decisions I made as I walked the cow and people crowded streets of Delhi and Rishikesh, and along the banks of the sacred Ganges River during that three week trip to India. I'd traveled with a group, but frequently felt a nudge, a silent insistence that I step away and follow where an invisible thread might lead. Every time I listened to that nudge, which I accepted frequently, I was blessed to witness, to see, something occurring in life with what I call "non-physical eyes." There was an essence, an truth, beyond the constraints of any physical image or action. There were stories to tell no one else was seeing.
Whether meeting lepers, wounded monkeys, swamis, stalkers, pilgrims, holy cows, men washing clothes, and more, I found myself stepping outside of beliefs of how things "should be," and enjoyed these moments more. And, while stepping into the swift flowing Ganges River one pre-dawn morn throwing jewels of light atop the frothy waves, non-verbal words filled my mind, "Moonlight on the Ganga," and in that moment I knew there was a book to write; This message and surety were my parting gifts from Ma Ganga, and I believe only because I'd been saying "Yes" to her nudges for those few weeks. How else would I have known the substance of life she was guiding me to see?
A challenge, though, is how to, upon the return home/to work/to the "shoulds" of a personally-known society that have been engrained upon us, do we continue to be open and available to the nudge, to the question, to the truth of who we are and continue to say "yes" to what others are not seeing/hearing/believing/acting.
Have any of you reading this experienced similar? Have you been able to maintain any portion of your new awareness/openness? How have you dealt with what I'll term "challenges of re-entry?"
