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We offer you this meditation from the mystic, Howard Thurman as you embrace all that will come in 2023. This piece, “Through the Coming Year” is featured in his book, Meditations of the Heart. May it encourage you in the days ahead. Grant that I may pass through the coming year with a faithful heart. There will be much to test me and make weak my strength before the year ends. In my confusion I shall often say the word that is not true and do the thing of which I am ashamed. There will be errors in the mind and great inaccuracies of judgment... In seeking the light, I shall again and again find myself walking in the darkness. I shall mistake my light for Your light and I shall drink from the responsibility of the choice I make. Nevertheless, grant that I may pass through the coming year with a faithful heart. May I never give the approval of my heart to error, to falseness, to vanity, to sin. Though my days be marked with failures, stumblings, fallings, let my spirit be free so that You may take it and redeem my moments in all the ways my needs reveal. Give me the quiet assurance of Your Love and Presence. Grant that I may pass through the coming year with a faithful heart.  This post is in honor of one of SGTI's most luminous students, Bijayananda Singh, who departed this earth one month ago. Bijay was a graduate of our "Interfaith and Interspiritual Wisdom Training" program and was much loved by all who studied with him. He lived in India, a devoted son, husband and father. He will be dearly missed. Bijay had a heart of service and enormous love for young people. He was Secretary/Executive Director of the NFP, "Solidarity for Developing Communities" (www.sfdc-org.in/institutionalbased). He headed up a residential school for marginalized students, especially those considered to be "untouchable", instilling in them the skills and values to be "human harmonizers." "Human Harmonizers are expected to grow physically, mentally and spiritually in a balanced manner. As they grow holistically, they are expected to influence others by their thoughts and actions leading to ushering transformational changes within and outside their own communities." Bijay's heart of compassion lives on through his colleagues at SGTI. He penned many beautiful poems as part of his SGTI learnings and submitted them for assignments. With his family's permission, we share one of them here. His words convey the essence of Interspirituality which he believed was necessary for world peace, and the commonly held value of compassion. We hope you will be moved by it as we were. Bijay, your spirit of service, unconditional love and respect for others of all religious traditions, is something we can all aspire to. We are honored to have walked the earth with you. Thank you for being a way-shower for us. Peace be upon you. Shalom. Om Shanti, dear friend. Compassion Compassion is to be avatars as Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Moses, Muhammad, Nanak and the like Compassion is striving to find the way outs by the avatars for the sufferings of the humankind Compassion is avatars’ desire to pass their wisdom to their next generations Compassion is infinite manifestation of the Unmanifest Compassion is infinite names of the Nameless Compassion is infinite forms of the Formless Compassion is the attraction of man and woman Compassion is the potential on a seed to produce infinite seeds Compassion is a plant not germinating with ripen fruits with it Compassion is an untaught bird weaving nest for its kids Compassion is a baby fish able to swim instantly Compassion is a caterpillar taking time to become a butterfly Compassion is roots of trees on the sunshine and on the shed sharing food secretly Compassion is my mother’s ability to not eat after her children eat up everything Compassion is our school peon’s love that donated one of his kidney to his son Compassion is missionaries leaving their land for another country Compassion is trees breathing out oxygen Compassion is Mother Teresa’s desire to document her aridity of God’s love Compassion is father burping his baby putting on his shoulder Compassion is trees dropping their ripen fruits gently down on the ground Compassion is our country supported by other countries during this pandemic Compassion is Creator creating infinite emptiness to house infinite things Compassion is getting in touch with our own hearts and functioning from it Compassion is watching the tongue lest it slip a bad word Compassion is Nature’s food cycle Compassion is meeting of your eyes with the eyes of your dog Compassion is praying for know and unknown, asked or unasked Compassion is loving-kindness or kindness plus love Compassion is Dalai Lama’s pet name Compassion is mother’s milk ready when baby is on the way Compassion is birth pain Compassion is the worms forming on the dead body for it to decompose Compassion is silence understood without speaking a word Compassion is death in God’s time Compassion is wondering what is not compassion? Compassion is Sun’s desire to evaporate water to form cloud in the sky Compassion is cloud’s desire not to hold the rain up in the sky Compassion is willing to write a book on the compassion Compassion is jasmine’s wish not to hide its fragrance inside Compassion is Earth’s ability to nurture its infinite plants, on its womb, with sweet, bitter and sower milks Compassion is being compassionate to the compassionless Compassion is cooperation of an iron to be modeled as a tool Compassion is patience of a reed flute to be holed to produce a melody Compassion is empathy, sympathy and mercy, all put together Compassion is heart’s ability to feel the feelings of ‘others’ Compassion is intuiting, everyone and everything is One Compassion is not surplus of compassion, but deficiency of it Compassion is gratitude, sometimes, overflowing Compassion is innumerable births as Bodhisattva Compassion is common to all the faiths without which it is not a faith Bijayananda Singh Module 10 Buddha Purnima 2021   At SGTI, we encourage our students to express their learning in creative ways. Today, we gladly offer this series of poems by one of our current students, Katie Spero. We are grateful for her permission to post them. Enjoy! Estimated Time of Arrival she starts to notice shoulders under a t-shirt in front of her the atmosphere breathes his body out and it expands breathes him in and it contracts that one too and the woman standing grabs a seatback as the bus jolts green light in pause out pause the voice wants to know how can I love myself when I am myself who is breathing us loving us with life who am I pause I breath it in it’s swept away silent nativity sojourner with a place to land who is next in line to be loved Don’t Give Away the Ending An old couple walks onto the bus Sit across from each other Then next to each other Then a few rows back Whispering silently under the loud hum She sips water I am thirsty We are all a part Apart is the illusion Two small boys with big hair like me Stomp up the two stairs towards the back of the bus They shout observations A car with people in it A car radio "Right Leo?" It sure is right It is all right Everything is part of the poem The Watcher The ego picks up a pen. It disappears and I awake. I fall asleep and it disappears. About the poet:
Katie Spero is the Parish Life Director at Church of Saviour, an Episcopal church in Chicago. Prior to that she spent time serving and living at the Satchidananda Ashram in Buckingham, Virginia which was founded on the principle that reflects Katie’s own life journey, “truth is one, paths are many.” Katie is a trained teacher of Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, and Stress Management, and is a member of the COS College of Preachers. Calling on her degree in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago, it is Katie’s joy to try to put into words that which cannot be spoken to spiritually connect and serve her communities.  I Am
I am a blade of grass a grain of sand a leaf a drop of rain I began as a single cell 99% oxygen, carbon, hydrogen nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus .85% potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium All necessary for Life I am human complexity, effectively & efficiently designed in body and soul intertwined with Mystery divine like all my human family intrigued to grow and experience the gift of life alone & together I am unique and I am everyman/woman/child we all travel through the same developmental seasons lived in and through the endless complexity & diversity of human civilizations, past and present we are one and we are many all lived out on mother earth I am sacred, you are sacred, we are sacred Birthed through the womb of timelessness finite days given to be alive, aware, alert to walk with one another with and on mother earth, caring, loving, respecting, honoring self, other & mother earth revealing Mystery as we go ~ Original art and poetry by emerging spiritual director and SGTI student, Elizabeth Ritz |
About this blogDeepening the understanding, practice and importance of spiritual guidance-companionship across traditions. 
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