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...

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...

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...