The Practice

My job is just to offer the practice. Everyone takes it or leaves it as they prefer.
- Krishna Das

I read this quote in an interview with Krishna Das.  He's the "rockstar" of yoga - well - the chant behind yoga, I should say.  He is referring to the practice of chanting.  If you have at least read Eat, Pray, Love (the movie didn't cover it much) you will have an idea behind what chanting is in Hindu spirituality.  It is another way to connect to God, like prayer or meditation.  It's a form of meditation in many ways.  Many of the chants that are done relate to repeating of God's name in it's many forms.  While I don't chant in this way, I do have my own practices that I offer out to the world and people can take them or leave them as they wish.

Few of them have to do with prayers specifically, though often prayer certainly comes into play, at least in my downtime.  Mass cards would be one "practice" that I do actually offer out to the world on a fairly regular occasion.  Otherwise, the practice that I offer outward is no more than a sharing of myself with others.

I do this in two ways in particular... everything else, for me, falls into the category of these two.  Writing would be one, the sharing of love, caring and knowledge would be another in the form of familial, romantic or friendship.  Writing is an obvious one - you are reading it right now.  This is me expressing myself and people will take from it what they do - I can force neither my viewpoint or my thoughts on anyone who does not want to absorb them.  This goes for my blog but it goes for my fiction and poetry as well.  I enjoy putting it out there and hopefully my words will find their audience but that's up to the audience (and fate to a degree).

As for caring for loved ones.  Sometimes this means opening my arms, sometimes my home, sometimes my ears, sometimes my mouth, sometimes my wallet, sometimes my mind, sometimes my time, sometimes it's my knowledge or my laughter they need or want, sometimes it's all of me, sometimes it's just a piece of me.  I try to share as much as I can with as many as I can without burning myself out because then it becomes useless.  The labor of love shouldn't make anyone feel like they're doing hard labor in a chain gang.

So, this is the practice that I offer (and many of you do as well).  The practice of being me.  People can take it or leave it as they prefer - I am just happy to have it to give.