So did we say a prayer today ?

For who ? For ourselves. Did we do something, some ritual that affirmed our faith today ? In what ? In ourselves. Our ability to connect with our inner selves. For if we do not, who is this person that is working, loving, talking etc. It’s certainly not you.


It’s an everyday search for me. For that something that can put me in touch with myself. My connection to consciousness. My connection to loving nature.
Of course many people have faith. Which is a wonderful ability. I don’t have blind faith. I am more of a searcher. Questioner. Good, bad ? I don’t know. No value judgements on any faith or the question of faith. Or on myself.
Some people do it with meditation first thing in the morning. I have never been able to do that. I have to connect to something, however small, however little, to loose my sense of individuality. That’s the daily struggle. Against my own exaggarated sense of myself. I am so used to it. I have relied on it for so many years. So tough to let go now. Not that I have never questioned it before. But now, it is really important for me to be truly ‘active’ rather than ‘reactive’, which is what I have done most of my life. And how do I know what that ‘true’ action is ? Unless I am constantly in touch with something larger, more immense, more universal than myself ?
Yes I know. By letting go. By allowing yourself not to be addicted to the result of your action. By allowing chaos to invade your life. Yes, I agree. All of that. I do allow chaos to prevade in my life. I am impeteous (spelling). But then the individual in me fights back hard.
It’s an everyday battle. This battle to let go of one’s addiction to one’s sense of individuality.
Yet, the smallest of things can provoke the sensing of my flowing into something much much larger. Something infinite.
This morning it was my 5 year old daughter waking me up with a loud ‘Peekaboo’ and the tinkling of an early morning laugh.
Sometimes it;s just getting up early enough to watch the first shades of dark blue brush across the sky. Something deeply stirring about that.
Sometimes it’s unexpected gestures of affection that were not sought. Or given so instinctually that you were not aware of them.
Sometimes, it’s writing a poem. But only if the words are coming from somewhere else. As if something is flowing through you, a river of emotion you can physically feel that flows through your being.
But it is always so unexpected. So much that I am constantly aware now. My senses hightened. Waiting for that unexpected moment.
When something deeper will reach out and engulf me, and give my life, and all my actions, however small, a deeper and all encompassing context. On a daily basis.
So say a prayer for me. And for yourself.
Shekhar

2,081 thoughts on “So did we say a prayer today ?

  1. what is it
    what is this thing we call energy
    what makes it move
    are we but snowflakes and grains of sand scattered on a beach…
    so big that we can’t perceive its enormity
    yet see it right here on our own shores

  2. sharing a self note:
    to be emotional includes all emotions, joy sorrow happy sad excited surprise anger and so on … being emotional isn’t exclusive to a person crying and/or being sad.
    notice how people use the term ‘ being emotional’
    do we say a person is ‘being emotional’ when they express happiness ? hmmm

  3. the doomsday vault filled with seeds, so many countries came together for a single cause, survival, what about coming together for a single cause of being kind, just, truth, in service of helping each other building an inclusive world?

  4. when a new way of thinking enters the mind…and you just know there’s no going back to the other way of being…

    aum

  5. when online services stop working, what does a person do?

    walk, handwrite, try to keep busy with something else, read a book….hmmm

  6. do we know instinctually when it’s time to step aside from a position that has great responsibility?
    do we follow the instinct or do we follow what the role demands at the cost of compromising what the intention for the greater good holds?

  7. how do we do it?
    what is this thing called do?
    while we are doing ‘nothing’ we are still ‘do’ing something
    so there is never a no doing something?

  8. Gordon Lightfoot … free to roam the universe and play on,
    passed on May 1, 2023
    aum shanti aum

  9. archery

    the bow
    the arrow
    swift as its stretch the other way
    pulled to release upon the elements of air wind currents
    aimed to a point
    met when all aligns from the intended to the targeted spot

    oh how this dance between the archer bow arrow speed
    a tight attachment achieved by it’s surrender to away distance
    from that which once was held

    archery

  10. ‘please wash your hands before use’

    started watching ‘Blackberry’ the movie…stopped 3/4 way though,
    Heating up some Nuggets on a basketball court Finals,
    the pace is different and not
    competing to get more points than the other ‘guy’
    Blackberry makers engineers and marketing people were doing their best to race to get more clients than the competitors

    points
    clients
    speed
    abilities
    innovation
    inspiration
    communication
    numbers
    screens
    signals
    strategies
    rewards
    access
    timeouts
    ….the list goes on
    the game of basketball
    the technology of Blackberry

  11. do we hear only what is within our frequency?

    are skilled listeners able to shift their antenna to pick up other signals, converting what was once scrambled distortion into clear communication?

    how do we better our listening?
    is it forced, acquired over practice, apparent from birth and then slowly faded by instructions…?

  12. you don’t know me…but the words thoughts and ideas seem to knowlooking a well untamed view of landscape…escaping in our aligned spirit meetings from time to time across miles and space where no words have meanings yet convene among stars and oceans deep in the woodless universes…
    aum

  13. you don’t know me…but the words thoughts and ideas seem to know, looking at a well untamed view of landscape…escaping in our aligned spirit meetings from time to time across miles and space where no words have meanings yet convene among stars and oceans deep in the woodless universes…
    aum

  14. If a trip to anywhere high risk takes 2 hours
    communication stops at 1.5 hours
    no sign from the travelers to home base
    why homebase waits 7 hours until asking for help from emergency workers?
    hmmm….

  15. the birch
    how it seems to just stand there
    yet within
    life grows and circulates
    expanding its nourishment
    to the ones who seek its offerings
    openly and freely
    it gifts juices and shelter
    found deep in the ground
    through
    the birch

  16. the note
    how its spent
    handed with one side showing
    colors drawn art forms
    regal in prominence
    a history traced through centuries
    there …on one side
    flipped over to find a blank stare
    nothing of numbers inks pictures
    unaligned with the other side

    now spent
    as if genuine
    to one who trusted
    to not turn it over
    to find a blank stare

    the blank silent stare awaiting
    that which is true to arise
    from inked ashes drawn upon
    a side left hidden in silence
    now able to spend with ease
    able to spend with ease
    to spend with ease
    spend with ease
    with ease
    ease

  17. doors closing
    a price to enter
    only who can afford can participate

    understandably, many won’t be able to see, hear, view, comment, reply…take part

    aum

  18. an intimate horizon reflection on this Canada Day:

    Canada Life Reflections
    When I first came to Canada,
    it was to represent Trinidad and Tobago as a musician,
    at a festival called, Caravan,
    made up of many different cultures from around the world,
    venues spread across Toronto.
    This was the beginning of what has since become a more inclusive society,
    not just as a festival for two weeks,
    rather,
    an everyday life happening,
    as we all embark to learn more about each other
    and better appreciate the useful and helpful aspects
    of what it takes to live together,
    while addressing biases and mistreatment
    within our own cultures, families, friends, and ourselves.
    I’ve been in Canada for 52 years,
    still appreciating and grateful for this beautiful country,
    home to Indigenous People and many diverse cultures,
    and birth place to my two children
    …O’Canada, thank you!
    aum

  19. music…
    it listens to us
    our hearts journey and arrive at that meeting place
    embraces
    hurts
    cries
    laughs
    calls
    sings
    dance
    feels
    avoids and repels
    comforts in an intimate way
    a longing…

    our complex and simple natural relationship
    with music
    having the ability to move us
    in ways only sound and heart speak it’s own language
    in ways only sound and heart speak
    in ways only sound and heart
    in ways only sound
    in ways only
    in ways
    in music

    aum

  20. found and lost and found again
    swept into darkness
    searching sadness seen in mirror’s glaze
    looking back awaiting an answer sought

    turning away again and again
    unready to see what is there
    until that one tear falls with the deepest hurt
    letting out a silent scream
    here I am …here I am … here I am!
    I walk with you as your heart felt closed shut
    as your heart opens again
    I am you and you are me
    here to never abandon
    even when not seen and felt
    here I am
    through it all
    I’ve loved you all along
    the me in I am
    I’ve been here for me all along

    aum

  21. truth…more powerful than evil

    in the cunning arts of disguise and illusion
    evil itself probably relies on the truth of deception
    to fool those who live in truthfulness
    and although successful at times
    it is eventually revealed
    into the open courtyards
    unveiled and brought on knees
    by compassion of love and understanding
    where the truth of deception
    once again realizes it need not be deceiving
    to feel loved and cared for
    but found within oneself,
    not desperately seeking it from another

    nor in material or attachment
    could ever find
    this place of truth
    as it need not have anything other than itself

  22. this line read today may bring
    comfort or horror
    joy or pain
    or nothing at all,
    and years from now
    depending on the journey
    and having to reread it again
    perhaps something different might be felt…

    I miss you and think about you often

  23. no thing to see here yet…
    one must now sign up to the account of twitter in order to see Shekhar’s Posts
    hmmm…
    aum

  24. As with most of your posts, Shekharji, this stirred my heart and felt the tears too…

    “But also with musicians like Nusrat fateh Ali Khan and A R Rahman. With Nusrat most of the communication was done by him looking into my eyes and singing with tears flowing from both our eyes, having been transported to a realm higher than ourselves. I have been blessed by moments when such people that have trusted and loved me too.”
    -Shekhar Kapur

  25. off the shores of uncertainty…we dive into ourselves
    to find what had been there all along able to be seen now through… presence

  26. David Whyte’s talks sometimes feel like a gentle swinging in a hammock from a lovely breeze passing by, leaving it’s essence of nature and it’s wonder of miracles more visible to the senses, thank you so much for being here there and everywhere, at times …aum

  27. ADMIT

    Admit,
    your distant love affair is with yourself,
    and that no one can play harder to get:
    the unwritten letters, the plays for time,
    the heartbreak over never being properly answered.
    That coy look of false seduction in the mirror,
    or that hard look to hide what should not be hidden.

    The invitation to undoing, and to allowing yourself to want at last,
    what you feel you never deserved,
    the fervent wish to come closer,
    and the loving word of understanding you say to yourself
    when you finally admit to it all,
    the only declaration that counts.

    David Whyte
    from STILL POSSIBLE ©2021 Many Rivers Press

  28. there is no need to be there
    to be seen in flesh and sound

    your presence can be felt
    from the depths of love

    of rhyme in reason and no reason
    far from the thresholds
    of what commonness describes in words

    there, is where we meet
    where we’ve met
    in the invisible unknowing

    freed within space
    to be all there is all at once
    with and in each other

    oh my love oh my love

  29. middled in a way not so centered
    the illusion permeates where common sense takes hostage of that which we perceive to be something other than what it really is
    naughting

  30. HAUSER

    feeling
    a commune of sounds
    stretching over past any edge
    perceived by our senses

    the cello loves as Hauser loves

  31. a thread of white hair
    found on folded pages
    embraced by faithful words
    of a journey’s beginning
    on every possible horizon unseen
    by eyes of humans

    seeing you
    a smell
    intermingled
    in a love felt
    across nothing
    more than a
    breath
    beating in my heart

    just one strand
    one strand
    of undivided love
    and we never speak of it
    again
    …yet still possible
    in pages to a door where no one travels
    …only love

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