Hello there!
Welcome to the 31st edition of ‘The Lighthouse’!
A very happy and prosperous Deepavali/ Diwali to all of you.
Every year during Deepavali/ Diwali, I offer this prayer. We learnt it in our school and it has served as a beacon ever since. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Pavamana Mantra from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:
असतोमा सद्गमय ।
तमसोमा ज्योतिर् गमय ।
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय ॥
ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्तिः ।। 🙏🏻
Also, there’s going to be a change with regards to the number of links I share. Instead of 5, I’m only going to share 3 links. I'm turning up the filter dials a few notches higher and I hope to share stuff that will endure for a long time and when I say long, I mean decades. The pieces may also be longer, but as always I hope to keep them relevant to the purpose behind this newsletter.
As always, I’m thankful and grateful for your support. 🙏🏻😇
Difficult Times And Tuning A Guitar
Click here if you prefer to read this post on my blog.
Photo by Roberta Sorge on Unsplash
Ever heard of someone play the Guitar that has gone out of tune? It sounds awkward, sometimes unbearable even. To get the tone and melody back, musicians tense the strings, tighten them. With a certain amount of tension, the right amount of stress the Guitar sounds melodious. The string undergoes pain before it sounds its best.
Everyone goes through trying times. When they appear, they come in bucket loads. Makes you wonder where they were all along? Like uninvited guests, they all show up together at your doorstep.
These trying times form an integral part of your life. Just as a Guitar string is tensed to produce a soothing melody, the tense moments serve as a precursor to joyful ones. The obstacles tune us and prepare us to become better individuals. The troubling times straighten us and polish us. Ultimately we come out of the storm as a changed person, a better person.
Here’s some interesting stuff I came across last week:
Kevin Kelly: Seeing The Future on The North Star Podcast with David Perell: “…you don't just solve problems by thinking about it, you actually have to do thing…We want to be going in another direction of things where we want to optimize something else. We want to optimize opportunities, choices, possibilities, innovation, novelty, all those kinds of things. Love, optimize love. None of those are very efficient.” Kevin’s Twitter bio.
How To Live In This World by Jiddu Krishnamurti: “When anything becomes a problem we are caught in the solution of it, and then the problem becomes a cage, a barrier to further exploration and understanding. So don’t let us reduce all life to a vast and complex problem. If the question is put in order to overcome the society in which we live, or to find a substitute for that society, or to try to escape from it though living in it, it must inevitably lead to a contradictory and hypocritical life. This question also implies, doesn’t it, the complete denial of ideology? If you are really enquiring you cannot start with a conclusion, and all ideologies are a conclusion. So we must begin by finding out what you mean by living.”
The Nature of Experience by Rupert Spira: “Awareness is the empty, knowing openness on which and with which all experience is written. It is so obvious that it is sometimes not noticed. It is so close that it cannot be known as an object, and yet is always knowing only itself. It is so intimate that every experience, however tiny or vast, is utterly saturated and permeated with its presence.It is so loving that all things possible to be imagined are contained and allowed unconditionally within it.”
Here’s a thought I’m ruminating on:
“The universe is change. Life is opinion.” ~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.3.4b
Till next weekend, take care.
Cheers,
Prashanth 🙏🏻😇
If you would love to discuss anything I’ve written about and shared, please reach out to me by replying to this email or sending a direct message on Twitter 🐦 @iam__prashanth. The tribe there is over 1600 members and continues to grow.
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