Hello beloved reader,
As I wrote in my post, A Creation Story, living one’s dharma includes very real challenges, in addition to benefits. The yin and the yang. The day and the night. The divine feminine and the sacred masculine.
So while the challenges are real, right now I want to shine a light on the benefits of living one’s dharma which include: the soul-nourishing aspects of meaningful work, living one’s purpose, connecting with one’s inner-divinity… plus sometimes it’s just fun😁
“Play, Love, Create, Repeat,”
Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt has been recently teaching. Our planet so desperately needs people to remember how to connect with our inner joy — the kind of joy a child feels when skipping down the beach — how it simply feels great to be alive. The kind of joy you feel at watching a sunrise, smelling a fragrant rose, jumping into refreshing ocean waves on a summer’s day, watching through the window the winter snow falling, while you’re cozy and warm inside by an open fire.
For me personally, living the writer’s life, in addition to experiencing the inherent joy intertwined with being in the state of Flow (as written about in the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) there is also a sense of both awe and deep gratitude, especially when a reader offers a paid subscription.
This is something I never experienced in corporate life where the payment for my work was more transactional. I received a weekly pay check for work performed, as required in the job description.
But when a person is living their dharma, and is paid to do it, it’s a feeling unlike any other feeling I’ve ever before experienced. It lifts my heart. It blows my mind. I’m living my soul’s purpose and I’m being supported to do this. Not only am I being supported in how readers keep subscribing, but some readers are even offering financial support. And again, it doesn’t mean the writer’s path is easy and there are not challenges along the way. There are. And I need to continually cultivate the courage to walk the writer’s path and share my writing in the world.
I need more courage to live my dharma, than for anything else I’ve ever done in my life.
But perhaps it’s because we live in a capitalist society where things are valued by how much money we’re willing to pay for them, that a paid Substack subscription feels so different. So meaningful. The connections between us are being brightened by your kindness and generosity which deepens the gratitude I feel in my heart.
But you know what else? I also have this sense that by a reader offering financial support for this Substack, in essence they’re also valuing their own spiritual nature. Every reader already knows in their hearts all the spiritual principles that I write about. But as human beings, we all need reminding. And I’ve come to realize that part of my dharma is helping people to remember the spiritual principles I write about, as these principles help to ease suffering, and they help to create meaning in one’s life.
Perhaps this is the inter-connectedness and/or inter-being that the revered Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn wrote about so beautifully.
In any case, thank you again my dear readers for playing with me in this space. We’re so lucky!
And we’re so blessed✨🌟💖🙏🕊️
Wishing you a wonderful 2024, Camilla!
"I need more courage to live my dharma, than for anything else I’ve ever done in my life."
Amen, Sister. Thank you for your courage. You shine a guiding light.
(I still haven't gotten around to transcribing the notes. Hopefully, soon!)