Journeying with a Rope

I am ending another journey in Ukraine, overwhelmed by the overabundance of love and care born from meetings with remarkable people. I am grateful to friends and family in the Bilopillia region who always prepared feasts of homemade food. I am grateful to the babushka who selflessly demanded I accept a pig, a case of jams, and gallons of somogon to bring back on the plane. I am grateful for my friends in government who are working hard to create a better place – a better world. I am grateful for five weeks of good meetings, good music, good thinking, good sharing, good travels, and, most importantly, good hearts.

Yet, for all the pearls of life that came my way, I must still journey with a rope. That rope is what gives us a way back to ourselves. It gives us a path back to what grounds us in our own unique journey of discovering ourselves. While I am so grateful for the beauty in this world that has adorned my life, I must always be clear not to lose myself in it. God has graced me to experience such wonders, but I am clear that Satan would choose to make me a slave to it.

And, who is attached to the other end of the rope to save us from being lost? To Sri Swami Satchidananda, “It is a golden cord between you and God or the cosmic force.”

I have brought as much goodness into the world as I could on this trip, and truly I am blessed for all the goodness that came my way. But, like a diver pulling themselves up from the bottom of the sea, I know it is time to follow my rope back home.