Dear Friends and Family,

February has turned into March—I had written—lost and found—February's blog; I liked it and disliked it. And so here are parts of it, plus more about March.

We have decided to settle here in India, in the high Nilgiri mountain range. Nilgiri means blue—so we are living in the Blue Mountains, just south of the city of Ooty, in Tamil Nadu. Thank you for your suggestions of other places to live. Our four dogs and three cats are also instrumental to our decis...

Dear Friends and Family~

We have been in the Nilgiri mountain range for a little over one month now. We had decided to come here because I longed for fresh mountain air and a tranquil lifestyle. Now that we have had some time to live, we have new perspectives—a fresh look at our lives.

We live on the edge of one of 14 small villages in a small valley. Wikipedia describes it as being full of temples and fairly noisy. I couldn't believe it, and still don't accept it. Isn't it funny that the ...

Dear family and friends,

Wishing you all warm greetings of Love and good wishes for the New Year 2012.

Some of you have not yet heard of the details about moving our four dogs and three cats from the ocean level Kerala to the Nilgiri Mountain range—some seven-thousand feet above sea level (2000 meters.) What is a cat from Kerala going to do with a bunch of monkeys in the neighboring trees?

But to begin this story, I must preface it with the disclaimer that some of you may not want to ...

Dear Friends,

What I offer to you is a modest, not-so-regular blog every month-or-so. These times seem to hinge on a lot of “information consumption,” which I think is not necessary. Take a concept like forgiveness, and practice it for a month or two consciously. Then find another bit of wisdom, and incorporate that into your practice as well. This is what is true for me. In the past, I'd “plow” through the self-help books, or sacred texts, without allowing the seeds of wisdom to ge...

The Shine

You shine behind 'India Shining,'
unnoticed by many, but not by all.
The boats cruising the backwaters
leave your unread signature,
unclogging the arteries of Kerala.
                                                           By Rajkumar Reghunathan

Dear friends, we live in changing times. Many things are changing, even inside of ourselves. At best, we are getting stronger inside, learning from our mistakes and receiving deep spiritual insights that allow us more wisdom. And this is the time to be in action more, a time to fully experience life's wonderful gifts.

There is something that I'd like to write to you about today. It has to do with a small mechanism that is built inside of us--and this is not scientific, by the way, it's my ow...

A friend sent this to me today. It is something that I would like to share with you. It serves as a wonderful heart-model for creativity in business of life. (We don't know what to call it, but it's good. ;-) Please feel free to share this in any way that you choose. S.

Heal or Deal ?  that is the question.  Are we growing our business or the quality of the services that we provide? The business models of the past have demonstrated that doing the same thing is no longer providing the expect...

A friend's friend wondered where God was. Actually, he denied His existence. And instead of writing an answer in small box, I opted for the bigger venue to answer. This is just my own experience. I don't expect anyone else to understand God the way I do, because we all come from such different backgrounds and have such different experiences. But I'll tell it how it is for me, and maybe someone will relate to it; maybe it might help someone in a small way, find his way back to God...

I was asked to write about unconscious evil. But why such a subject if we are all interested in Love and Light? Because we unknowingly use it unconsciously. I only speak from my own personal spiritual experience. If you test it out for yourself, you may notice some of the same things that I'm writing about. This is a blog about spiritual healing from my insights. How much Good is good enough?

Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary has a lot to define as evil. a : morally reprehen...

Being here on this earth, and living in these bodies is such a privilege, because they aren't really ours. They are on loan—like a library book, or bowling shoes, or roller skates. We must take care of them. We've been allowed to be here to learn lessons during our time on this lovely earth. And part of our task is to keep track of what we learn. And this is why we carry a tool box, because if a page gets ripped, a wheel falls off, or a shoelace breaks, we have the right tools to fix it. ...

How can you know what is going on inside of other people if you barely know what is going on inside of yourself? I write this at the risk of bending a few egos here and there. But it's the truth. Many times we make assumptions about people, or judgments, or assessments, And this does not necessarily mean that they are accurate—but our mind registers this as a “fact.” And I know that some of my dear readers “have it all figured out” and “know it all.” Sometimes I still know it a...

My dogs are barking up a frenzy. I had let them outside from the back porch—the safe place similar to a den or kennel—where I enclose them when life in India gets too stimulating. Today, the political candidates are working their precincts well, with the huge speaker boxes tied to small vehicles run by two-stroke engines. They look more like little rickshaws with a pickup bed in...

The other day I asked God to fill me up with his wisdom. This isn’t an unusual request for God. Actually, I begged like a child. Things in my life had become funny—like something needed to change. I live an Indian existence, so differently from my family in America. My values are so God focused, that sometimes the only things that I can talk about when I Skype home are gardening...

Dear Friends,

People write to me to tell me how they admire what I am doing, or to ask me how I do it, how do I live in India? Last night someone from France asked me what from America do I miss? These are subjects that I have written about previously, but for my new friends I will quickly recapture these questions and a few other themes.

Yes, coming to India to live ful...

Sending you so much Love and Cheer for the whole year!  May you love and be loved. May you feel love and harmony in your hearts, and peace within yourself. All the best to you, your friends, and your family. Greetings from India!

Spiritual strength and maturity come from developing good habits during our daily living. This may sound funny to you—it did to me—that we have a “spiritual routine” during the day. Some of my very disciplined Muslim friends get on their knees five times a day to honor divine beliefs, their religious path. This constant observance of our creator, our “unseen” helpers and guides, angels, or whomever you call on for divine guidance, cause a change in us. Developing spiritual...

The other day I forgave someone for something that caused a deep sadness inside of my heart, a lingering pain, even though we had had an “everything is fine now” status for years. Afterwards, I noticed a considerable change. I was more relaxed, and felt happier (even still) than I have been. We can have an intellectual knowing of forgiveness, but when it comes down to it, the feelings and the thoughts that come from the heart are the main substance of our existence. I'd pret...

When the world is spinning around me with all of its hurricane-like symptoms, I remain calm. Sometimes I sit in the eye of the storm here in India, and God keeps me safe. I sing a song, recite spiritual text, and keep the other elements far away from my heart. I don't think about the “not good.” They are just symptoms. This is the kind of world that I live in, where all challenges and burdens turn around for the Good. Everything is good in my world. Even friends and family who are h...

In 1995, the summer before my first trip to India with my university, I drove across America by myself. I was driving my grandmother's six cylinder Buick, pulling a six-foot trailer packed with my “life,” as I was planning on living in North Carolina, USA, forever. I love my country, the land, the people. They are truly unique. The idea of permanently living in North Carolina, however, shortly changed a few months later, when I traversed Indian soils. “You know, Susan, they say th...

Today I swept the yard early. It had just rained the night before. More bright yellow leaves from the star fruit tree behind our house have fallen with the water, and the wet sandy path around the house is sprinkled with purple jacaranda flowers and neem leaves. The familiar tropical scent when it rains fills me up with joy.

The sound of sweeping is the first thing that you hear early in the mornings in India. It is like a sacred movement of energy, putting one's life into order, an...

Today I was cooking in God's kitchen. I cook every day. This is no ordinary kitchen, it's God's kitchen.  Everything in it belongs to God, and humans have the job to apprentice with God. This kitchen is like a laboratory. It is here that we create the sweet sauce of life. In this creation we are offered free will to make whatever we please, and that includes quite a menu. With God as lead Chef in this kitchen and guardian angels as assistants, we have all kinds of tools to create at wil...

Oh, the delicate things of life, such as a single fine grain of sand, the loving, lingering eye contact from your beloved, the cell membrane of a flower. What do all of these things have in common? When we make time to grasp on to life's tender details, we begin to observe God's “fine print,” the reason that we are really here.

Relationships and friendships are so important. We are similar to cells and grains of sand, that we all participate and respond and react with each other. ...

Tomorrow is Onam, a holiday celebrated worldwide exclusively by the people of Kerala. Onam includes all religions, and is a state holiday. This is my favorite holiday, because it reminds me of Christmas and Thanksgiving at the same time. Onam is a harvest festival that celebrates the abundance that God has given us. We give clothing or money to our family members and employees, or to people who perform services for us—such as our fisher woman, our trash collectors, and our coconut harvester...