Once upon a time, not in Hollywood, but in the Kripalu ashram, I had what might be called an epiphany.  

Wait, I’m second-guessing myself.

Epiphany—a sudden and striking realization, say the Webster Folks.

Yep, it was that.  

It was an epiphany.

I remember exactly where I was sitting.  The room was called the Auditorium; today it’s the Shadowbrook Room, a more inviting name, I guess.  

I was sitting right smack in the middle of the “sisters’ side.”

In those days, we practiced bramacharyia, moderation of energy.  For us at Kripalu, it meant the men residents of the ashram would sit with the men, would eat with the men, etc.  And we women would be together in all activities, too, keeping ourselves away from the potential lure and stimulation of male energy.

Ha!

Let me just say, that totally worked for me.

As a lesbian, I was truly in same-sex-heaven.

So, there I sit, pen poised, a new resident of our community.  

I had come for the summer, taking advantage of my teaching break.  Yet summer ended months ago; I extended my Kripalu stay to one year, taking a leave of absence from the high school in which I taught, giving myself a year at Kripalu as my 40th birthday present.

The plan was, to spend one year at Kripalu.

That was 31 years ago.

I digress.

It’s hard to talk about specific topics during the Kripalu ashram days for me; one topic just flows into the next.

Swami Kripalu used to say, you pick up a bead, the entire necklace comes with it.

No kidding.

Back to The Story:  

I sit in a back-jack, in the then-Auditorium, new disciple, all googly-eyed and thrilled and spiritually transcended beyond myself.  

Our guru, whom we called Gurudev, Amrit Desai, sits on his chair before us, his beige, somewhat baggy-sleeved velour robe wrapped around his legs.

He is teaching about practice.

I am taking notes, blissed-out, as I get in his presence.  

He was a charismatic and powerful fella.  Sitting with him did create altered states of awareness. 

Of course, in retrospect, it’s hard to determine how much of that was his creation/contribution, parallel to and dancing with our energetic contribution.

I wanted to be uplifted.  

I wanted to be opened.  

I wanted spiritual truth.

Together we all created that energy field.

Back to the moment:

As he talks about commitment to practice, any type of practice, yoga, meditation, dietary, exercise, he says, 

“As soon as you make a commitment to a practice, you can be sure of one thing…”.

I sit straight up, thrilled to open to the answer, the solution, the remedy to my wavering commitment issues.  

He continues, “You make a commitment to a practice?  You can be sure of resistance.”

Deflated!

I become fully deflated.

The balloon of my spiritual aspirations fizzles into emptiness.

Resistance?

I don’t want resistance.

I want transcendence.

And, he continues to teach, even more amazingly:

“You commit to a yoga practice, you commit to meditation, you commit to diet….  The real growth isn’t even in relationship to those arenas.  

The real gift and the real growth is learning how to work with yourself, to be with yourself.  

The real growth is self-awareness.”

Fully-fizzled-out, fully deflated, fully disappointed, I sit there, 1990.

I wanted to fly past myself into spiritual-ness.

I wanted to jettison my human issues, to land in the Land of Grace.

I didn’t want self-awareness.

I wanted God.

Oh, dear friends, how little I understood that the way into the Land of Grace is through the human dilemma.

The human moment.

The human issue.

That’s where Grace lives.

I have learned so much since that day in 1990, sitting in the Once-Called Auditorium, all those powerful women, my sisters, around me.  

And I have so much more to learn about practice.

I have so very much to learn.

Practice—as a mindful, data-gathering experiment.

Practice—as self-observation without judgment.

Practice—as the doorway back to self-kindness and self-rigor.

Practice —as the gateway to my own heart.

Here I am, in this little video, surrounded by the Berkshire-almost-snow, offering you my insights on practice, a la 2020.  

Friends, take what you like and leave the rest.  

May there be something in this video, any tiny tidbit or syllable that speak to you, that might open your heart to yourself today:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B71LQACnap-/?igshid=d1ffzvchzzl4

Dear Friends, 

Like this sweet little winter bird, may we chirp and fly, explore and rest.  

May we find our way forward, one wing-flap at a time.

May we ride on the wings of practice.

All blessings,
Aruni

• Eating food that isn’t even food
• Eating food that is food, but, oh, too much of it
• Reaching for sugar (no more need be said)
• Drinking one too many glasses of ___
• Continuing to work even when work is not working
• Wandering social media, looking for feelings
• Roaming Amazon Prime, searching for deals
• Diving into recreational drugs even when they are not recreating anymore
• Grabbing people!  Sex! More people!  No people! Never sex.
• Indulging fantasy
• Collapsing into nothing-land

• Yoga
• Meditation
• Walking in woods
• Animal companions
• Yoga nidra
• Animal companions
• Did I say, animal companions?
• Journaling
• Any arts, crafts, creativity
• Movement!  Dance, walking, running

Reality is relentless.  

It has its way with us.  

Period.  

Conversation over.  

But is the conversation really over?     

Maybe not.

Decades ago, in my oh, so foggy early sobriety, I heard a woman at a meeting suggest that one might, upon awakening, thank the universe for the day ahead.  

I was appalled!

What if the day sucks?

What if something “bad” happens?

What if?

How can we be grateful for the blessings that don’t seem like blessings?

Shouldn’t we wait and see, and then decide if we might deem them blessings?

There are moments, experiences that just flush our hearts open with gratitude and joy.

These are the obvious blessings.

What are they, in your world?

In my world, they are pink winter sunsets flying on, softening the snow, the undisputable smile on a dog walking down the block, who’s is obviously rocking on in life’s most fantastic moment—these burst my heart open.

Then there are the others—the losses, the changes, the beds cold and alone and emptied, the stealing, the shape-shifting of reality as we know it.

Are these blessings?

How might heartbreak or loss ever deserve our blessing?

Practice helps.

Practice helps.

Practice helps!!

It doesn’t change reality—oh, if it did.

It does soften our grip, it loosens our breath, it helps the moment come and go.

I do not say any of this to offer us a doorway out of the human dilemma, out of the feelings.

I say these words, week after week, day after moment after breath, to give us the courage to keep going.

The way out of the moment?

It’s through the moment.

The way out of the feelings?

It’s through the feelings.

Gratitude is a practice that literally changes the chemistry of the brain.

The work of Br. David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine Catholic monk, author, teacher extraordinaire has made its way toward my heart.  Brother David serves a worldwide Network for Grateful Living, through Gratefulness.org, an interactive website with several thousand participants daily from more than 240 countries and territories.

Give yourself the gift of this short video, his offering of six blessings for everyday life. I am providing the transcript for the video below the video.