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This excerpt from A Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look at its home planet. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. 

Prayer, spiritual study, meditation – these are all things that bring me closer to G-d, closer to myself, give me clarity and the ability to discern best actions (or non-actions) for myself and my family.  Then why do I fight it?  Why, sometimes are those books the heaviest to pick up?  Or those meetings or classes the most inconvenient to attend?  Or to sit quietly and claim my necessary daily bread seem such a daunting task?  As much as I love the mindfulness, strength and connection to my purpose and G-d that I feel afterward, why is it more natural for me to stay stuck in the murkiness and clutter of my own mind?  This struggle drives me to sit.  This ego battle pushes me to prayer.  Sometimes willfully, sometimes gritting my teeth, it is my choice no matter what.  Because I cannot afford to keep what is useless. 

My thoughts get me into the most trouble.  It is this work, to refine my thoughts that has helped to refine my purpose in this world.  I am aware that I have to make a conscious choice about which thoughts I participate in and which I disengage from.  A rabbi once used a great analogy of computer pop-ups.  He said just like those inappropriate or deviant pop-ups that come across our computer screens, it is the same with the thoughts in our minds.  We can click on the pop-up and then go to that site and become immersed with that negative material -- sometimes we can't even get out!  Or, we can just push the delete key.  When those "pop-ups" come in to my mind, I have to choose to delete. Not go there.  Let it go.  This takes practice and I'm getting better at it.  I am much happier and less exhausted.  Just the awareness alone is such a miracle.

 There are two ways I mostly operate in life: Driving towards what I want and second, reacting to what happens to me. When I go for something and intentionally put all my energies into getting what I want, there is some excitement, passion and energy behind it. Unfortunately, at the end of the process — whether I achieve my goal or not — I experience a down cycle. On the other hand, when I react to what happens to me — both during my reaction and at the end of it, I am unhappy. Over time, my mind has taken over and plays games and I found both trying to control it or reacting to external circumstances does not give me sustainable happiness. 
Over time, just like the passage mentioned, I found a third way. doing things without any attachment to end results allowing things to happen and not react. While these two choices look very similar to my two drives, they are different in one subtle but important way. I am not attached to both and do what is appropriate in the moment and not carry either intentionality or reactivity with me. Whenever I am able to be ‘mindful’ and stay completely in the moment, whatever results showed up gave me much more happiness than my two drives.
The key still is to being with my mind — not controlling it, not giving up on it, not reacting to it nor getting caught up with it. It is just observing it, allowing it, that allows me in a paradoxical way to find peace with my mind and myself...

Reading this passage I thought of raising my children.  To me, Like The Sun Shining represents total surrender of ego...letting go of even the tiniest crumbs of my will so that my children can grow and flourish into all of whom they were meant to be.  I've got the vision -- of myself being this big, bright, ever-burning sunshine for them and all who enter my life.  I pray that I can live this way when I get up from this chair and turn to plan the day with them.  I pray that I can maintain this vision as we gear up for another school year.  Sometimes it seems the line is blurred between what is my will vs. what is their path, but I do know how to tell the difference and this is good news.  I can tell the difference because of how I feel inside.  Prayer, journeling and my husband's feedback also help me get clarity.

I shared this piece with my husband.  He then said to me, “Sweetie, that is who you are.”  Funny -- I showed it to him because I thought it described who he is.  No matter where we go, I see him befriend and embrace perfect strangers and leave them humored, warmed, and ultimately, “changed.”  I want to be like him, like Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, a compassion monger.  So I work at it.  I awake each day with this goal in mind:  to embrace my husband, children, the grocer, the banker, even strangers in line with me.  Daily, I pray for G-d to remove from me every single character defect that would prevent me from radiating the goodness He put me here to spread.   I then ask that He fill me with what I need to do His will.  It is only through daily prayer, diligent work, learning and spiritual study that I can go out and hope to embrace every life I touch.  Every single life.

Reflecting on the passage of Marc Barasch, I remembered the time I spent last night with the son of IIM Kozhikode director in their house. Siddharth is about 10 years old and is affectionate, friendly and smart boy who has real gift for listening to accents and languages. He and his parents came to Kozhikode from Singapore and getting adjusted to northern Kerala weather, schools, culture and people. He is one of those people who seem to be sending love vibes as Marc calls them. He completely un-self conscious, charming and was very comfortable to stay with his parents and us instead of going with his sister and my daughter to chat in some other room. The entire time he was sitting next to me, I felt I was in an altered state — as if he was embracing and accepting who I am and as if he is related to me from before.  He is truly a compassion monger and seems to bring out the best in others wherever he is.
He is not the only one I met who harvests kindness and spreads kindredness — the attendant in the guest house that I am staying in is another sage. He is so open hearted and caring towards us though he never met us before. It is as if my mother — I know the gender does not match but the love and open heart of my mother is what I experienced — was serving me and caring for me.

As I reflect, I realize that these compassion mongers or sages of goodwill are all around us. We have to just open our eyes and hearts to allow them to touch us, move us and inspire us. When we do, we go away with our hearts opened a bit more and spreading compassion a little wider than we would otherwise have.

Is it just me or you have similar experiences? Do you recall times when you started radiating photons of goodwill unconsciously because you got irradiated yourself?   

My goodness, what a beautiful piece!  This amazing story reflects my life work:  to keep chiseling away at the stone to expose, shape and ultimately be left with my true, highest self to radiate and impact the world.  “With an utter singleness of purpose,” I hold this vision for myself at the very moment that I write this reflection and for the rest of my life.

Considering that I don’t sit regularly, I took several days to reflect on the passage and observe myself and others. I also found my ability to listen, see, pay attention are all connected to being here and now. That means no mental chatter, no expectations, no judgments but just being present. Being present without curiosity, without anticipation, without guilt or regret but being open. In that process, my mind disappears, ego gets out of the way, identity dissolves and what I say, do becomes a response to what I listened to, saw or observed. It is as if both are two sides of the same coin — as if we are interconnected. When my mind gets in the way, then there is an artificial separation and neither me nor the other is present — except the memories, regrets etc.
It takes effort to listen and observe without getting in the way. It happens infrequently and when I practice, it becomes more and more frequent.
Interestingly, everywhere I looked, the message to me was — practice, practice and practice. Let go of expectations from the practice and just practice for practice sake.
I am listening, I am listening, I — not sure -- am listening... 

Great passage. Brought to mind three quotes. The first is about the fluid nature of journeys, as a metaphor for a way of be-ing and living:

• "Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us." -- John Steinbeck

The second relates to a subtle point Carse brings up regarding not overcoming distance, but rather discovering it. It reminds me of an interesting point I came across:

• Distance is meant to relate, not separate. --Satish Kumar 

It is ultimately our uniqueness that allows us to uni-versally relate. And lastly, a quote I actually ran across in a plane:

• The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -- Marcel Proust

And I guess to have new eyes is to continue to awake anew not just to the observed, but also to the observer!

Throughout this passage I kept thinking about the transformation my children make when they are away at camp each summer.  They grow and change from new experiences, new relationships and adventure.  They get to travel out of their fears into bravery and learning how to depend on others to get their needs met.  During this time, I keep tilling my own garden within, as I prepare to ‘meet my children where they are’ when they return, meet them at the new place where they have ‘traveled to’ within.  I so look forward to reuniting with them with wonder, awe and surprise of who they will be.

Experiencing nonverbally is powerful. I remember one instance when I was meditating through a painful experience. I was just watching it and it felt like what Joko Beck describes here as walking on that edge. Though certainly not with full equanimity, it was nonetheless experiencing the situation mostly nonverbally. Out of untrained instinct, I remember moving away from the pain (i.e. away from the razor’s edge), and immediately, the experience became verbal. It was almost as if I couldn’t verbalize while being on that edge.

An interesting quote I've heard says, “Pleasure puts you to sleep. Pain wakes you up. If you don’t want to suffer, don’t go to sleep.” That makes sense to me, but this only relates to the “pain” side of the coin: I think it is valuable to explore walking on the razor’s edge when you are experiencing the other side, “pleasure.” And to me, walking on that edge in that way is even more important, and it seems like the same pointers given in this thought apply to the domain of pleasurable states: pure, nonverbal experiencing, at the present-moment, non-dual edge of being.

Reading what Joko Beck said, I wondered whether it is the same as being an observer and actor at the same time. It is about being with the pain, being with the experience and emotions that associate with the experience and also being an observer. Then who is the observer? If my experience is my life, then are my thoughts, feelings and observation different from experience? Is being on the razor’s edge ‘not choosing’ my experience vs. my being a witness? I found that experiencing without being attached to that experience, feeling without making it personal, thinking without feeling proud or happy or upset, allows me to merge myself into larger life and not be separate. When I am with something and also have the ability to not be with it is when the razor’s edge comes alive. Even the subtle ego, subtle ownership and actorship seem to make me separate myself from life, from experience.

Reflecting on the larger context of Zen vs. Hindu philosophy Vedanta, Zen is making the experience to be nothing. Vedanta is about making the experience and observation to be everything. One is emptiness and the other is everthingness or completeness. Same thought — two perspectives!"

While I’ve been taught to experience pain verbally, rather than stuff the feelings and implode, as I evolve in my understanding of myself, I am more able to be with pain (and pleasure and joy) nonverbally and to truly allow myself to be with those feelings inside me.  A great goal I seek is to strengthen my endurance to stay closer to the razor’s edge, to experience feelings of fear or being threatened nonverbally without seeking to verbalize which dissipates the experience.  On the joyful side of the coin, I frequently experience pleasure nonverbally with my children; this is truly an amazing experience to just be with this joy.

Parijat, in many cases, we ourselves don't know the sources (or they don't exist online), but whenever we can, we do try to put a link.  This particular piece was sent in by a reader, Somik Raha; it was published by Times of India on 4 May 2009, in the "Speaking Tree" column, and is excerpted from a commentary on the Ashtavakra Gita.