Tag: evolution

Zodiac Mantras

IshLeave a comment

These mantras touch something so core and essential in me, I cry every time I meet them.

Excerpted from Alice Bailey’s Treatise on the Seven Rays, each describes the energy of the constellation through which the Soul chooses to incarnate- our deepest longing and purpose, embedded in sound with such simple profundity.

Writing it here so I can re-member and access this knowing as I make my way into Esoteric Astrology!

THE WORDS FOR THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC

From the angle of form. Natural order. Retrogression through signs.
Pisces through the Signs to Aries

Pisces
“And the Word said: Go forth into matter.”

Aquarius
“And the Word said: Let desire in form be ruler.”

Capricorn
“And the Word said: Let ambition rule and the door stand wide.

Sagittarius
“And the Word said: Let food be sought.”

Scorpio
“And the Word said: Let Maya flourish and let deception rule.”

Libra
“And the Word said: Let choice be made.”

Virgo
“And the Word said: Let matter reign.”

Leo
“And the Word said: Let other forms exist. I rule.”

Cancer
“And the Word said: Let isolation be the rule and yet the crowd exists.”

Gemini
“And the Word said: Let instability do its work.”

Taurus
“And the Word said:. Let struggle be undismayed.”

Aries
“And the Word said: Let form again be sought.”

From the angle of the soul. Spiritual order. Correct passing through sign.
Aries through the Signs to Pisces.

Aries
“I come forth and from the plane of mind I rule.”

Taurus
“I see, and when the eye is opened, all is illumined.”

Gemini
“I recognize my other self and in the waning of that self I grow and glow.”

Cancer
“I build a lighted house and therein dwell.”

Leo
“I am That and That am I.”

Virgo
“I am the Mother and the Child. I, God, I matter am.”

Libra
“I choose the way that leads between the two great lines of force.

Scorpio
“Warrior I am, and from the battle I emerge triumphant.”

Sagittarius
“I see the goal. I reach the goal and see another.”

Capricorn
“Lost am I in light supernal, yet on that light I turn my back.”

Aquarius
“Water of life am I, poured forth for thirsty men.”

Pisces
“I leave the Father’s Home and turning back, I save.”

Open Meditation Meetup

New online meetup to demystify meditation and build conscious community.

IshLeave a comment
Looking at collective social, economic, political and cultural suffering I have always asked why? And, what can I do?
For years, I looked to architecture, design, writing op-eds for the answer. Every line I drew as an Architect, every space I envisioned, was aimed to mitigate disconnection, depression, anxiety, overconsumption, isolation…but it didn’t seem quite enough, when people were suffering the nature of their own thoughts and emotions.
Design aligned the exterior, but if our interior itself was misaligned all beauty, wonder and joy would be missed. And it is. Everyday, we suffer our own constructs, individually and collectively.
A good friend once said to me, “In America you have to be rich, white, thin and beautiful to be happy. Ishita you are not the richest, whitest, thinnest or most beautiful person, but you’re probably the happiest!”
And in that spirit, as I grappled with the divisive and fear based political upheaval, I realized more and more that I can only ever do one thing- be whole in myself and keep clearing out my own core wounds so I can serve the highest and best for all, through the highest and best in me.
What can I do? Facilitate conscious connection to fullness and wholeness already within you which is our birthright. When we feel safe, full and connected, we act out of love not fear.
That was the birth of Come to Center. The only “work” that feels both worthy and true for me.
Meditation aligns our interior. Gandhi once said, “Happiness is when what you think, say and do are the same.” And that is my “secret.” Conscious alignment.
I dream of a conscious and present world, where every being acts from stillness, fullness, from love, for the highest good of all, which is the highest good for each.
Wherever you are, I hope you will join me for Open Meditation. It’s what we really need in the world now.

Mother

On life after delivery and life after death…

Ish

from the Hungarian writer, Útmutató a Léleknek:

In a mother’s womb were twin babies. One asked the other:

“Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first scoffed. “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, while in silence you focus and really listen. You can perceive Her presence, and can hear Her warm presence and loving voice, calling down from above.”

a story of my becoming

I used to think I was Ishita. Then I was sure I was nothing. Now I know I am everything.

IshLeave a comment

As Ishita I have spent my life asking big questions and dissecting the edges of knowledge, unconsciously engaged in what I now recognize as a search for core Truth.

Growing up close to rivers and mountains in a Himalayan valley, I could be found admiring forests full of Koel songs or tracing lines of ants for hours at end, moving through the day with eyes closed, trying to see without seeing…

Driven by hungry existential curiosity, I looked for Truth in my homeland and awaylands, in forests and mountains, deserts and oceans. An explorer and creator, a wonderer and a wanderer I did, made, felt and thought about much…

Searching for answers through my work, I evolved into a multidisciplinary designer and thinker. Trained as an architect and a writer, I grappled with steel and concrete on one end, and our very humanity on another. Refusing to limit my explorations to a single label, I have worked as an architect, designer, painter, photographer, potter, editor, journalist and yogi…

I kept searching for Truth in the hearts and minds of others, in up-down-out-and-arounds, until my incessant questioning began pointing me towards my self and I got quiet, clear, still and full.

I separated knowing and understanding. I dropped the lie.

I admitted that the answers to my own questions lay inside me and had always been there. I realized time was a modification of my mind.
I accepted and surrendered to that which I knew but didn’t understand.
I began to align my outer self with my inner knowing.

Then, walking past a bookstore window I read the words “I Am That” popping out at me. To my own surprise, I heard myself say, “Why, yes, I am!” I walked into the bookstore, picked up the book, opened it up to be brought home by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teachings. It became the only book I read for 4 years!

Over the next couple months, re-cognizing my own inner truth I had never had the words to articulate, I wept with joy and laughed with gratitude. Here at last, home at last! And then, the depths of my I-ness dissolved. All boundaries between me and not me melted so completely that there was no I left…no time, no space…nothing but the non conceptual one-ness, that which had no second. That which cannot be put into words, for it is the thing that makes words. And all else.

Eyes opened, the dream was over.

If you’re curious, yeah, I kept going to work, apparently losing your I doesn’t prevent architecture to be made through “you!” A glorious time of learning and assimilation followed. I discovered that the biggest questions have small and simple answers, that there is no core Truth. And that is magnificent!

I don’t believe there is The Truth, but I have found a Truth, in which I am finally home. And I want to help you find yours.

In 2015, I left work & home to make space and figure out how to engage consciously with the world and integrate my inside and outside. In that space emerged pointers that have brought me to exactly where I need to be now.

Now, whether I am leading a meditation, designing a product or a process, a painting or a poem or a photoshoot, I do it just for the pleasure of doing it. I don’t expect or need it to fill a hunger or a void in me. And the work is both better, and more pleasurable than ever.

Life is light, joyful, wholesome.

Fully at home in the foreground of spaciousness, I play in the world centered in peace within. And this fuels a joyous curiosity and a wondrous exploration, rather than limiting them.

I am ever more intrigued by the manifest world and want to know its very fundamentals as I explore life in its fullness! I am finally, free.