Did I miss a birthday?

I almost missed my blog’s birthday. It was quite late in the evening that I remembered that my blog completed three years yesterday.

Not only that, I remembered this morning that earlier this month Matriwords our research blog also had its first birthday. 

How to mark this special occasion of two birthdays in a month? Well, simply by sharing some pictures from the little summer garden I am enjoying at the moment. This little place where spending even a few minutes in the morning brings a special joy and contentment.

 

 

 

Everything there seems to express a kind of delight in simply existing, regardless of the many mistakes I or my garden-help might make either by ignoring a little corner or plant there or by over-showering  our ignorant attention elsewhere. In my more self-aware moments, I know that it is the Mother Nature who somehow finds a way to even things out, create a new balance, something that feels like harmony.

But even after making all those mistakes in my little garden – planting wrong things that didn’t have much chance of survival or not planting the right things in the right spot at the right time or neglecting to take care of those that were almost crying out for attention or not getting rid of those invasive weeds and excessive undesirable growth in time – have I now learned how to harmonise my efforts with what the Mother Nature intends?

Honestly, I am not sure. But I guess we can always try. Sincerely. And make some more sincere effort in that direction of harmony. By becoming more conscious of why we do things we shouldn’t or don’t do certain things we should. Especially, in our little gardens within. 

Today, on this special day of Ram Navami as I begin the year 4 of blogging here, I remind myself of one important reason why I continue with this work of writing and blogging. Both here and at Matriwords.

Joy.

“It is only effort, in whatever domain it may be – material effort, moral effort, intellectual effort – which creates in the being certain vibrations which enable you to get connected with universal vibrations; and it is this which gives joy. It is effort which pulls you out of inertia; it is effort which makes you receptive to the universal forces. And the one thing above all which spontaneously gives joy, even to those who do not practise yoga, who have no spiritual aspiration, who lead quite an ordinary life, is the exchange of forces with universal forces.

“It is quite certain that, whatever you do, even the most material work, like sweeping a room or cooking, if you make the necessary effort to do this work to the maximum of your ability, you will feel joy, even if what you do is against your nature. When you want to realise something, you make quite spontaneously the necessary effort; this concentrates your energies on the thing to be realised and that gives a meaning to your life. This compels you to a sort of organisation of yourself, a sort of concentration of your energies, because it is this that you wish to do and not fifty other things that contradict it. And it is in this concentration, this intensity of the will, that lies the origin of Joy. This gives you the power to receive energies in exchange for those you spend.”

Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 4, pp. 32-33