I woke up tired and cranky this morning. I have a full day of business ahead and I was sorely tempted to go back to bed and not deal with any of it. Instead, I sought to understand what it was that is really bothering me and I prayed for guidance.<\/p>\n
Then I saw Gandhi.<\/p>\n
As I bent down to pet the cat (avoiding this blog) I saw Gandhi’s face on the cover of a British magazine called Resurgence, his eyes cast downward in perfect humility.<\/p>\n
I opened the magazine and read:<\/p>\n
“Gandhi inspired so many because he practiced what he preached: he lived<\/span> the change he wanted to see in the world and his message was none other than his life itself. He was an honest seeker of truth, a fearless defender of the weak, and an uncompromising practitioner of nonviolence.”<\/p>\n Well, that is a tough act to follow. How did he do this? Didn’t Gandhi have challenging days? He was, after all, human.<\/p>\n A quick search for “gandhi’s faith in god” and I find this quote:<\/p>\n “When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita<\/span>, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow.”<\/p>\n The Bhagavad Gita <\/span>is one of the central stories in the sacred Hindu text of the Mahabharata, an epic Sanskrit poem from ancient India. I studied this text when I took the Yoga Teacher’s Training Course at the Sivananda ashram in the Bahamas in 2003. Bhagavad Gita <\/span>translates as Song of God.<\/p>\n So let’s do as Gandhi did, shall we?<\/p>\n Randomly chosen, here is Verse 7 of Chapter 6, The Science of Self-Realization:<\/p>\n “The being who has conquered the mind, transcending the dualities of cold, heat, happiness, distress, honour and dishonour, is firmly established with the Ultimate Consciousness within.”<\/p>\n How do I conquer the mind? How do I transcend cold? Heat? Happiness etc.?<\/p>\n By accepting that the Ultimate Consciousness within is, in fact, the only reality. And this reality, I firmly believe, is Love. Everything else is an illusion. Everything else is a projection of the mind.<\/p>\n This is the great Hindu teaching and though it is difficult to grasp it will free me from my worldly concerns if I continue to seek its deeper meaning.<\/p>\n And this is all I have to do. Seek. Not conquer, not master. Seek. I can practice these things. I don’t have to do anything perfectly.<\/p>\n Inspiring Message of the Day: When I am tired and cranky I can always seek the wisdom of a Great Teacher to comfort me. I will be given the teaching that I need when I ask for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I woke up tired and cranky this morning. I have a full day of business ahead and I was sorely tempted to go back to bed and not deal with any of it. Instead, I sought to understand what it was that is really bothering me and I prayed for guidance. Then I saw Gandhi.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bhagavad-gita","category-inspiration","category-motivation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}