Remembering

I’m still learning all the swank features on the laptop I bought a couple of months ago. I can swipe my fingers on the trackpad and all sorts of things will happen: my desktop separates all currently open windows or I go back on the webpage I’m visiting – a variety of different events will occur depending on what I do with a wave of my hand. As co-users of any of the computers in the Ashram bookstore and office can attest, I really like these features. I like being able to navigate quickly through the myriad of things I may be digitally engaged with at any one time. In some ways this is because I like to multitask and keep a wide awareness of things that are concurrently happening. Another simple explanation is that I have trouble focusing on only one thing at a time. Both points remain equally valid though casting me in entirely different lights.

I was perusing the internet recently – keeping up on my correspondence, I’m sure, as well as doing who knows how many other things(!) — and I got stopped on a picture that I scrolled onto my screen. Swami Radha talks about having reminders of the Divine around us so that we can remember, so that we can continually place our awareness on that higher vibration that exists in, around, and through our lives. I love having little symbols, sayings, and pictures around. The picture I saw was one of Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield of the Bhagavad Gita. Immediately upon seeing it I froze. I just stopped everything I was doing. I sensed breath enter into me and my heart soften and relax. In a split second I recognized and connected with the intention behind the image: here is Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, the preserving aspect of the Divine, connecting with His most beloved friend Arjuna. That’s me, I’m Arjuna. And Krishna’s loving compassion to guide me through life is ever present.

Immediately upon regaining my awareness of my surroundings (or, you know, about .26 seconds later. Holding single-pointedness of mind is a fleeting thing!) I popped the picture onto my computer desktop to keep its colourful communication with me. Today I absently swiped my fingers in a way I don’t usually and all the windows that were currently open on my screen cleared away. Left in ineffable glory was the exchange occurring between Krishna and Arjuna. I had the same sort of reaction the first time I saw it and took a moment to pause and reconnect, inhaling breath into me and tension out of my shoulders where I notice it pooling lately.

I’m taking this moment of mindfulness and extending it outwards. I extend it out into my arms as I pull weeds from the herb garden at the nature centre, or through the drill I use to bore a hole into the concrete of the Habitat for Humanity house as I was framing the closets. I extend it into interactions with people I see behind a grocery till, walking on the street, or people I see regularly. Most of all I extend it into the emanations of my heart continually expending and refilling with every inhalation and exhalation. Breath and relaxation can find their way into every part of my day. All I have to do is remember.