Contemplative Currents Podcast

One of the most challenging invitations of this human life for all of us is or would be the call to intimacy. We often limit the call to intimacy to an outward experience like the sometimes clumsy dance of physical and emotional connection within and without our relationships. We learn to navigate the landscapes of a partner’s heart, we learn to build bridges of trust, and to find shelter in mutual understanding. This external intimacy is a world of vibrant, primary colors: the bright red of passion, the sunny yellow of shared joy, the deep blue of sorrowful empathy. It is essential, beautiful, and a universe unto itself.

And yet, there is a deeper, quieter, and far more radical intimacy that awaits all of us. It does not require another person. Instead it requires a sincere willingness to turn our ‘looking’ inward. This, my friend, is the intimacy with the raw, uncurated self, the journey into an inner room most of us hvae kept locked and unvisited most of our lives. This is where the colors become muted, subtle, and infinitely more complex.

Entering this room requires a unique kind of courage. It asks for a relentless, moment-to-moment candidness. To enter this space is to agree to be utterly, uncompromisingly naked with one’s self. On this table, we must place everything we carry: our fears, our joys, the fragile globe of dreams; the heavy leaden weight of our shame; the shimmering, gossamer threads of our hopes; the cold, jagged stones of any type of guilt. We must lay them all out, side by side, under a clear and steady light of pure unbiased observation.

This, is practice! The Practice. It is not a one-time confession or a touch-and-done situation. It calls for a daily appointment. It is the practice of sitting in that room, with the door closed to the world’s demands and noise, and lovingly acknowledging every piece of ourselves on that table, on that altar. In that room, we must learn to hold the splintered fragments of our secret fears with the same tenderness we give to our most cherished aspirations. We must see the beauty in the intricate patterns of our ,what we thought was our brokenness and the light that glints off the sharp edges of regret. It is to turn to the unconditional self-acceptance that feels, at first, like an impossible feat.

In the sustained silence of this naked room, as we continue to sit with the “packages” of identity: the hopes, the fears, the stories we tell ourselves, we begin to notice the space between them. We begin to notice the quiet hum of the room itself. We become suddenly aware of the quality of the light that illuminates everything without any darn preferences. When we can face ourselves so squarely that we see the complete, transparent emptiness at our core: the sky-like nature that holds the clouds of thoughts and feelings, a monumental shift seems to occur. It is here that God seems to step in.

But oh, God didn’t step in from an entrance. This is not the “visitation from a distant deity who was waiting for you to become sufficiently pure or open”. No, it is a grand and breathtaking noticing. It is the wave, in the midst of its rising and falling, finally realizing that its very substance is the ocean. It is the sudden, earth-shattering recognition that our own fundamental being and the Being of God were never, for a single moment, separate.

The room, the table, the light were not mere metaphors for a space inside. We see clearly then that we indeed are the Room: the silent, aware space in which all of life happens.

And the packages on the table? The hopes and dreams, the aspirations and fears, the shame and guilt? We see them for what they truly are: mere objects. It becomes so incredibly laughable to see they are objects that we glued ourselves to. We begin to see that they all are experiences that can be picked up, examined, and even set down. They are clouds passing through the vast, open sky of Awareness. This is the vibrant intimacy that is painted in muted colors. An intimacy that’s not loud or dramatic. It’s one that’s quiet, unwavering. It’s the peace that comes from finally seeing that our mistaken self was the temporary character in the story and who we are is the silent, loving awareness that witnesses the entire play! It is the discovery that the most profound love affair we will ever have is with the boundless, divine space that we have always been.

Life feels intimate without intensity. Sacred without effort. Ordinary without loss.

Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity.

Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. That way, you support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

You know that chair the laundry sits on? That chair! YOU KNOW THE ONE! Okay…if you don’t have the chair, you know someone who does! It’s that chair you dump clothes and things you plan to deal with later. Those clothes you wore once or the ones you might wear again later. The clothes you tested out but were too tight or didn’t match but you were in a hurry so you just dumped them on THE chair. The chair that holds the clothes you regret wearing. It’s the chair that now houses the clothes that came out of the dryer but you have no strength to fold! It’s the chair those clothes now permanently sit on! The chair of intention and postponement. The monument to the feeling of ‘not quite being caught up’. You know what I mean! Oh, I know this very chair of mine.

For this exploration, we will use this chair as our guiding metaphor. Two weeks ago, I had a very important interview that I had been anticipating for an entire month. During that waiting period, my literal hold-everything chair carried the weight of my domestic messiness. I postponed folding, sorting, and tending to small chores because my attention was quietly occupied elsewhere. After this really high stake interview, I came home and lay down to rest. What followed was the deepest nap I have had in years. When I woke, still enjoying the residue of that rest, something became clear. There had been a powerful buildup of anticipation surrounding the interview that I had not consciously noticed. Once it was over, the release of that tension showed itself in the quality of my sleep. That moment brought the chair metaphor into sharp focus. I had my inner chair filled with piles and piles of laundry. With the conclusion of this interview, I had emptied the contents of my inner chair. How heavy are our inner chairs, and how often do we tend to the laundry?

We sometimes call this chair and its content our personality, our responsibility, our history, our truth. Yet it is only laundry. A collection of moments(and things) waiting to be washed in attention and folded into clarity. Nothing more. The mind builds the chair. Our thoughts gather as piles of old stories, future plans, opinions we have not tested, fears we have rehearsed and then settle them on that chair of mind only because there is space for them to sit. And then the pile grows. Little by little, the pile grows. Soon it feels like a burden. Soon the weight feels like identity. Sometimes we look at the heap and say ‘this is who I am’, ‘this is what I have become’. We forget the heap is made of moments that arrived, stayed too long, and never asked to define us. The heap, just content that wants to be let go of.

When we take time to gently examine this inner chair, the whole structure begins to soften. Soon enough, we see that the stories we held on the chair begin to show their seams. The fears show their age. The opinions show how provisional they are and what once felt like a solid self becomes the loose fabric of impressions. The act of actually ‘seeing’ is what creates space. Within the space, we can tell the difference between what is true and what is habitual. It becomes easier to sense the difference between lived presence and accumulated clothing. The more we look, the lighter the chair becomes. The more we question, the less we feel owned by the pile. And the chair itself transformed…and so even the metaphor.

In the wake of my past crucial interview and personally exploring how metaphors can be an excellent tool for practicing this inner knowing, I see how examining our metaphoric pile, not from analysis but from the curiosity, takes us into a different expression of experience. By that, I will explain through an exercise that could help is examine the texture of our botherance— the clothes on the chair. We can also do this exercise as a way to sharpen perception, the seat of the right brain’s hemisphere. You see, most of us lead with a strong left-brain orientation which leads to our thought processes being more linear and analytical. To such minds, this exercise may feel strange or pointless at first. That is useful because, paradoxically, the stranger it feels, the more it loosens the grip of habitual analysis. The right brain works through imagery, sensation, intuition, and spacious awareness. When you explore the qualities of your inner state, you bridge both sides. You train the mind to perceive in more than one direction. You teach yourself to feel rather than explain. You give the chair a chance to be seen with fresh eyes. And once the chair is seen clearly, the weight of the pile begins to fall apart on its own.

Before we go to the guided meditation(which is included in the voice-over, or if you care, you can find it on my YouTube), I’d like for you to take a few seconds to get quieter to notice what’s happening in your inner space. Notice there is movement of thoughts, activity, palsations etc inside of you. Now ask these crazy questions: if they had speed, how fast do they move? Perhaps, they are slow vibrations, slow movements or fast rumination? Perhaps, there’s a sense of confusion about what I am even asking. Notice how fast or slow this sense of confusion appears? If your inner state had a texture, what texture would it be? Rough? Smooth? Coarse? Sharp? Dense? Loose? If all went well, these are the textures of ‘clothing’ on the chair of the localized mind. You are not judging anything but instead, naming the quality of the moment. You have mapped the surface of your inner pile. We will use this exploration in the guided meditation. You are practically exercising the right hemisphere and cutting out of the habitual thinking process.

But before we go, I offer up a treasure to hold on for contemplation. The treasure is a reframing of the chair metaphor. What if the chair becomes the Universe, the ground of ALL THINGS? What if we are the ones who can sit there. What if we can let our lives rest on something far more stable than our thoughts? What if I can allow myself to remember the last sentence? The chair becomes the presence that holds all experience without strain. We rest as the one who is held. We melt into the chair, becoming one with the chair.

What, oh what, can be wrong with anything?

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

I am no stranger to the emotion of fear. Sometimes life events would rise to unearth energetic residues within me, and then sometimes I resist what life is presenting and suffer even more. Sometimes, all that is there to do is see what’s going on under the hood. In observing today about what was showing up for me, I thought to share a reflection from the Skanda Purana, one of the Mahāpurāṇas. If you’re like me a couple of years ago, your question would have been ‘what the heck is that?’

You see, Hindu imagery used to lowkey terrify me. I mean, a blue woman with a necklace of skulls? Or a creature with a man’s body, an elephant’s head, and way too many hands? Don’t even get me started on the monkey-faced warriors or the pale figures draped in heavy flower garlands. It wasn’t just Hindu iconography. Believe it or not, even the illustrations in the Jehovah’s Witness My Book of Bible Stories— as polished and colorful as they were, also made me uneasy. Now that I think about it, Greek mythic images didn’t seem to faze me as much. Who knows why? I suspet it’s because we tend to carry those greek stories with a secular lens; making them feel safer with the triumphant character and strength and vigor of figures like Zeus. Or let’s be honest, maybe I was more comfortable because these were just Western mythic stories.

The last three years or so have allowed me to revel in the wisdom of these traditions as opposed to putting them far at arms length. As my practice has deepened, I’ve realized that objects, concepts, and ideas aren’t as solid, objective and true as I once thought. The rigid form that I used to hold of them no longer holds like before. Instead, everything seen and perceived is obvious to me to be bendable. Like Play-Doh, things have become something to be held, molded, sculpted, and put down just for the fun of it.Hindu tradition, like any tradition of old, is obviously baked in myth. It turns out the gods and symbols aren’t necessarily meant to be concrete, objective, literal figures, but representations of our earthly energetic experiences. When we look at mythology this way, the stories give the mind something to suck on like a lollipop…keeping the inner child happy and occupied. And for the practitioner, the seeker, they provide a way to make sense of experiences that simply aren’t grounded in matter. No experience, it turns out is what it looks like. Now, if you were to see your experience from the lens of archetypes and stories, they will definitely take shape.

And so today, for this post, I would love to introduce a story from the Mahāpurāṇas. The story of Skanda Purana. If you don’t already know, the Mahāpurāṇas are a massive ‘spiritual-biographical’ collection of ancient Hindu texts that mix mythology, theology, geography, moral teachings and devotional stories. The story of Skanda(or also called Kartikeya) is one of the 18 major puranas in this Mahāpurāṇas which exploits the teachings of Shiva(who for anyone coming from the Christian thought carries the attributes and conception of the Abrahamic God).

Okay, so stay with me here for a second and then we will go into the contemplative reflections of this story in relation with fear as I am turning this into. So, in the text, the demon Tarakasura had become so unstoppable. Part of the reasons was he was allowed to cause havoc and perform severe austerities using the advantage he had from a ‘loop hole’ in his right to existence. Now, if you are coming from the Christian or Western school of thought, see this figure the way you’d see the mythical Satan figure. The unfortunate loophole in getting rid of him was that he could only be killed by the son of Shiva. Tarakasura, was the perfect trouble maker. This was like a Loki(if you turn to Greek mythology) Why was he the perfect trouble maker? Did you ask why? Well, it was because Shiva was so deep in meditation. He was gone into meditative absorption for years, centuries, etc. Shiva was not interested in marriage, sex and children. In this ascetic withdrawal, he seemed to be outside the world and all its affairs. So this was perfect for Taraka! It meant for him, ‘No son of Shiva, no death for me’. So he terrorized the worlds and none of the gods could stop him. Until they also realized the loophole. The only way they were going to restore balance was to actually find a way for Shiva to have this son.

They had to awaken Shiva from austerity and unite him with Parvati, Shiva’s consort. Well, Parvati is not a ‘wife’ in the traditional sense. Converting our mythic image to what she represents energetically, she’s the other side of divine polarity. She represents energy, manifestation, vitality, the movement of life, the impulse toward connection, the play of form and all the things you could associate with the Holy Spirit(if you’re coming from the Christain faith tradition). In the sense of oneness, you could see Shiva as stillness and Parvati as the creative power that moves from that stillness. Or if you see Shiva as the sky, Parvati is the weather. If Shiva is the silent witness, Parvati si the dance of experience. Get the point?

So the gods and the universe conspired to bring Shiva and Parvati together. Their union, the union of both poles(in Taoism, see it as the yin and yang coming together) beocmes the joining of pure consciousness with creative energy. This becomes clarity that moves. This becomes an explosive spark. Shiva’s seed became six sparks. The sparks landed on a lake and six celestial mothers nurtured each spark into children. Parvati arrived, saw the six children and then embraced them. In her embrace, they merged into one being with six heads.

Now, in several classical interpretations across Tamil, Sanskrit and tantric traditions there is one consistent thread to what the six heads represent. Each head sees a different angle of reality. You see, our human vision in one-directional while divine clarity is multi-directional. The one head sees outward. It is the awareness of the world, appearances, the concrete facts of experience. The second sees inward. It is awareness of what I would describe as the interior world: the omvements of mind, emotion and identity. The third head sees the back/the past. It is the awareness of the patterns that have shaped us, the causal threads that produced this moment. The fourth head sees the future. It is aware of consequences, trajectories and the possible directions of life. The fifth head sees above, it is the awareness of the larger whole, the transpersonal, the absolute vantage. Lastly, the sixth head is the awareness of the roots, the foundations, the hidden forces under the surface.

When they all come together as Skanda, they become one integrated vision, not fragmented selfhood or splintered attention. They become just one clear seeing, as I often express here. In other words, six heads become one awarness.

So why is this story meaningful?

Remember there was Tarakasura who was this demon that was creating chaos and unrest. The solution to the problem was his annihilation by the son of Shiva, who was now Kartikeya/Skanda, the 6 headed man.

So Kartikeya goes to battle. He’s young, fiery, overflowing with focus. But at one point, in battle together with the devas(or the other gods), they all panic. The battle looks hopeless and they start to flee. Kartikeya does something important! He stops running. He turns towared the fight, picks up the spear and pierces through. In many traditons this piercing through is the integration of all six heads.

Now what’s the meaningfulness and relevance of this to our situations? It seems when we stop running from discomfort, picking up the spear of clarity and face what stands before us, then we are transformed. Oh, remember the mythic story of Moses? When he stood in front of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army racing behind, almost catching up. He prayed to God! God please save us? What was God’s response? Why are you praying to me? Yes, that’s what Exo…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

Friends, a lot has been moving in my personal space. Life has been full! From waiting for my body to heal from a flu to accepting the wishes from friends on my birthday to preparing for a critical appointment… life has been full! This just means my posting has been slower. Today I am hosting friends for Friendsgiving at mine—which means practicing surrender…for someone who would rather be secluded. Before the noise starts, I wanted to share something small. Something to mule over.

You know the most obvious, undebatable fact of our entire lives is this: That We Are! It is the Mystery at the center of everything. We do not need a special tradition to point us to it. We do not even need a new practice. We do not need a new conclusion. The most obvious thing in our whole lives is this simple fact.

That is it.We are.We ‘exist’. We are conscious.

What that means, all of the definitions and labels for consciousness and what we are is totally unimportant but the sense feeling of the obviousness of this fact. This knowing does not need a story. It does not need a fresh idea. It is enough to notice the sheer obviousness of this are-ness.

But what’s the consequence of this knowledge? If we stay with it and let attention settle into it, something shifts. Well, at least it becomes so totally obvious how miraculous everything is. In that noticing, everything seems to quiet down. The daily pressures soft. The sense of being a separate person with a problem(or problems) loosens. In that softening there is wonder. In that wonder there is joy.

And I am not referring to the sugar-coated joy that denies pain. It includes pain. It is a quieter type of joy. A joy that lives even when life feels tense or broken.A joy that does not depend on outcomes.

This is what the sages have spoken about again and again, each in their own way. Rumi whispered it when he said, “Look past your thoughts so you can drink the pure wine of silence.” Meister Eckhart pointed to it when he said, “There is something in the soul that is unmovable, a simple stillness that no storm can touch.” Richard Rohr described the same truth when he said, “Everything belongs, even the parts you fear, because all things rest in God(as God)”.

Different voices. One truth. Right here. Right now.

Friends, think about this. Beneath our roles and our thoughts and our worries, something steady holds everything. Something simple. Something without edges. Something without a name. It is there before our next breath. It is there after your next thought. It is not hiding.

Today, mule over it. Don’t even do it with effort. Just notice! Just notice!! Let the Mystery reveal itself in the middle of your day. In the kitchen noise, on the bus, on the barber’s chair, in laughter. Or in the small irritations. Yes, even in that! In the quiet moments when we step aside for a second. Notice this ‘weirdness’. I use weirdness to describe this Unknown! Notice that this, whatever ‘this’ is, was there before we picked up the identity of ‘self’. It is the one thing in our lives that does not move.

And so I extend my wishes to you too, Happy Friendsgiving.I am grateful you read this at all!

Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity.

Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. That way, you support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

In the after math of an ecstatic explosion of a meditation session yesterday, I quickly penned a reflection in verse. It was this: that i can walk is an absolute miracle, my left leg unsure where we go, the right coming along for the ride, my belly bellies and my crotch crutches, my nose knows and my ears hear. my beard itches and my pinky wishes. that i can laugh is a mystery, sounds leaping free from, somewhere wordless. that i cry is absurdly beautiful, water finding its way down my face, exploring what it means to kiss a cheek so loveable and also backed by the soundtrack of laughter. don’t you see that none of this makes any sense? this living!

My short write-up seemed to have been the sweet seed of an earlier journal entry that I intended sharing here a few days ago— a reflection on the nature and wonder of appearances that show up in our lives moment by moment. Doesn’t it also feel you with sheer wonder to notice that we are? That anything is? It does not matter if what shows up for us are wrapped in good emotions or bad ones. That they exist is just utter wonder! You see, some of my day-to-day experiences take the shape of individual fragments that wear very ordinary disguises yet have the incredible opportunities for practice and the integration of that which is so darn obvious. And this obviousness is what I want to share today for practice. Okay, okay, here’s what I mean: just the other day what appeared was the strained relationship with a friend I had been in conversation with. I had stated my position on something they objected to. This event was followed by a political conversation with yet another friend who had very strong opinions about the lives of an oppressed population. The conversation being another appearance on this screen of consciousness left my chest slightly tense. In another instance I had to deal with an immigration update that very naturally created stress in this body. Afterward, there was another dull ache as I watched a business graph lean steadily downward. Ordinarily, these situations follow the natural path for how our experiences unfold— one issue to the next, one celebration, one sad news, a peaceful moment and then another upheaval. Each situation, I clearly see now, is a door, a tremor in stillness that is calling attention to where the idea of “I” tries to hold its ground. Like everything else, these have become thrilling springboards for my daily practice. And the practice is not for fixing anything, but in learning how to see.

What falls out of this seeing is a strange and total enjoyment of being. A freedom that cannot be fully articulated. When we stare deeply at what disturbs us without running, without defending the “thing” seems to melt. The edges blur. The story unravels. The metaphor to describe this is how if you were reading a novel and suddenly pulled out of the story you’re reading and start to see the words that you’re reading. For a moment it becomes clear that the story is made up and the words are just words arranged one after the other to create meaning. Now, of course, we do not deny the story we are reading as false. We only see that it’s created and made sense of through our perceptual filters. So also, all of experience. We are able to see how they are shaped by clearly looking at them. What remains is the same spacious awareness that was always there, quietly watching.

The prompt for the contemplative practice that I will share today is asking ‘What is this?’ as we look through each notable fragment of our experience. The way I see it here, to ask What is this? is not to analyze the sitaution theoretically. It is to wonder. It is to turn the light of awareness toward the experience itself rather than the story about it, gently moving away from the stories we are living in to the nature of experience itself. Don’t you see that we spend so much of our lives trying to fix or escape what arises. But each appearance, pleasant or painful, may in fact be an invitation to see through the veil, to awaken to wonder.

When someone criticizes us. When we feel lost. When joy bursts through unexpectedly. When our plans fall apart. The invitation here is to figure out What is this? What is this moment made of, before it is given a name? When we’re angry, we think we’re angry at something. When we’re afraid, we think we’re afraid of something. Could it be that if we paused and asked What is this? the shape of the emotion softens. We begin to sense the field in which all emotions appear. It’s like standing at the edge of a lake and suddenly realizing that the ripples, no matter how turbulent, are never separate from the water. So also, this prompt is not about labeling or getting a psychological or spiritual explanation. It’s about pure experience, unfiltered, noticed right before thought claims ownership. It also does not seek for the answer to the question “Why is this happening?” but “What is this presence, right now, that is aware of what’s happening?”

Maybe each event in our lives is not happening to us but as us. The breakup, the delay, the health scare, the laughter of a friend, the birth of a beautiful baby, the promotion at the job, the stubbed toe, all of it is the same light refracting through different forms. If we follow this thread far enough, it leads back to the source. We may find that our inquiry peels away the layers of identity, habit, and resistance until there is nothing left to stand apart from what is seen. And then the realization may dawn on us: there was never really anything to deal with, only something to see. And maybe that is what it means to see God.

Everything we meet is an opening. Every sensation, every thought, every encounter, a mirror showing us the face of what we truly are. And the key to seeing it is simple, almost childlike curiosity.

What is this?

Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity.

Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

This episode explores the paradox that life is both benevolent and brutal. From lions suffocating prey, wasps laying eggs in living hosts, and dolphins killing for play, to the deep grief of a mother losing her child, we see that nature’s intelligence is not sentimental. It destroys and renews in the same motion. Through these reflections, I look at how the mind resists this truth by grasping for control, trying to manage what was never ours to manage. Trusting life is not passivity; it’s remembering that life has always taken care of itself. The same force that moves the planets moves your breath. The invitation is to relax—in body, in mind—and see that what remains is presence. Life takes care of life. Always has. Always will. And none of it is your business.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

Believe it or not, I used to be one of those toxic productivity coaches. I’d set goals, crush them, and then preach about how others could do the same. I even taught people how to “own their mornings.” Oh, I have a book called Good Morning: How To Win Your Day(still on Amazon). But behind the curtain, I was quietly shaming myself every night, wondering why some of my to-dos kept sneaking onto the next day’s list. These days, life laughs at my plans more than I do. Just this very afternoon, I had dinner clearly figured out—Nigerian-style rice, which meant having some good ata-dindin with dodo(plantains), all ingredients neatly scheduled for a Publix delivery. Yet, as I write this, I’m almost certain my dinner plans are down the drain.

Yesterday was no different. I drove to the dealership for a simple oil change. Simple oil change! I budgeted seventy dollars, and even padded it with an extra twenty, just in case the economy and Trump tarriffs had other plans for my wallet. Well, I walked out of the dealership without my car and with a $3,000 invoice for “discovered damages.” My gosh! Don’t these surprises just keep coming?

But that’s the thing: there’s absolutely nothing that’s certain. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Yet, we want to somehow peg things into the ground to give it as much certainty. And lately, this has emerged into one of the most beautiful practices for me— an adoration of the Unknowing. You see, Not knowing is by itself a type of prayer. It is the quiet turning of the mind toward what it cannot grasp. Don’t you see that now, more than ever, we live most days reaching for understanding, rushing to tie loose ends, and stacking answers like bricks to make our lives feel solid. Yet, in most of our experiences, when we feel the most alive, it is when the mind pauses, when we gosh at the beautiful pastels of the skies, or when we are tickled by the laughter of a baby, or when we frozen from the kiss of a lover. In these times of short freezes, certainty dissolves and we are opened up to something vast, tender and yet wild.

By the general nature of the mind, it seeks knowledge. It longs to KNOW. It believes knowledge will secure it, that understanding will complete it, that explanations will relieve it. It chases explanations the way a child chases butterflies- never still long enough to notice the air itself. And yet, every answer it finds leads to another question, and soon the pursuit itself becomes a cage. Tell me you have not yet clearly seen this! Tell me! And so, the more we know, the more we defend our knowing. The more we defend our knowing, the less we see.

So the practice of Not Knowing, this(what I will now dub the Prayer of Not Knowing) is a call to intimacy with what unfolds as it unfolds without a need to force it our way. It means sitting with life without needing to define it. It means letting a sunset be light, not language. It means hearing someone’s pain and resisting the urge to fix it. It means trusting that reality is already whole without any labels. In not knowing, the mind loosens, the heart softens, and life shows itself as it is: unfolding, mysterious, kind.

Now, I am not saying not to have wishes for what we want our lives to be like. Oh, no! There’s a fine line here if you can bend a bit lower to see what I am putting out here. It’s seeing that our wishes, preferences are also a part of this divine play that we can clearly honor. But it’s also knowing that in the fulfillment or not-fulfillment of them, what we are(whatever this that we are is) transcends even these desires. The sweetest spot in all experience lies here. It is in the bowing to what exceeds us and what we exceed. I swear, there is a quiet joy that comes when you realize you do not need to hold the world together. Even if you tried, you…could…never! We can rest in the Unknown and call it worship. We can let our questions be our songs. We can let silence be our teacher.

When we stop clinging to answers, even for a moment, the world becomes spacious again. The trees are no longer “trees.” They are shimmering presences. The wind is no longer “air in motion.” It is this mysterious movement without explanation. We begin to see that we have never really known anything, and that this is not a failure but grace.

To live in not knowing is to fall in love with the infinite. It is to live as wonder itself, humble, alive, and free. It is to trust God.

Contemplative Exercise: The Practice of Not Knowing

* Sit somewhere quiet. Let your body settle. Let your breath become natural. Do not try to focus on anything. Let attention rest as it is, open and unhurried. Feel the weight of your body on the chair or floor. Feel the gentle rhythm of breathing.

* After a few minutes, notice how the mind wants to fill the space. It searches for meaning, something to do, something to conclude. It may even ask ‘what the heck is this exercise going to do’. Watch it reach for thoughts and explanations. Gently notice it’s behaviour and the subtle tension it carries. But notice that you are noticing.

* Open your eyes and look around. See shapes and colors without calling them anything. Hear sounds without naming their source. Taste, smell, and feel without dividing experience into categories(for as long or short as you can). Allow perception to exist raw, before language. Notice how peaceful it is when you stop insisting on meaning.

* Between one thought and the next, there is a small space(don’t overthink it). Rest there. That is not knowing. It is not confusing. It is awareness before it attaches. Stay a little longer each time you notice it. Let it expand like the light of dawn.

* Now, whisper inwardly: “I do not need to know right now. All I have to be is here right now” Feel how freeing that is. This is the surrender I refer to. It’s surrender without defeat. It is reverence for Mystery itself. It is what it means to walk with God.

* When you are ready, bring your attention back to your breath. Let gratitude arise for this unknowing that allows everything to be.

* End with silence.

Repeat this practice often. Over time, the Unknown becomes friend, and you can join me in practice as we become less demanding of certainty, living in the open sky of wonder.

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A viral outcry over the death of Stranger Things’ Barb becomes the doorway to a deeper inquiry: why do we grieve fictional characters as if they were real—and how is that different from the “character” we call me?

This reflection explores how our sense of self is stitched together from memory, emotion, and cultural archetypes—the achiever, the rebel, the caregiver, the cynic—none more real than the roles we mourn on screen. When we begin to see these identities as shifting performances on the stage of awareness, the grip of the ego softens.

The piece closes with a contemplative exercise inviting you to witness the fluidity of your personas, to rest in the awareness that never changes, and to live with the lightness of knowing: what you truly are is not the character in the story, but the light that makes the story visible.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

Episode Summary:A reflection on the futility and beauty of seeking. How even the small, ordinary moments—like not wanting to get out of bed, or stubbing a toe—can open portals to deeper awareness. The episode explores how the search for happiness dissolves into the realization that joy was never missing, and how pain itself becomes an offering to love.

Key Themes:

The body as a mirror for unprocessed emotion

The strange permission to suffer consciously

The difference between happiness and joy

The exhaustion of the seeker and the simplicity that follows

Every struggle as an invitation to return to love

The ordinariness of awakeningQuote Highlights:

“Even in the unbearable pain of living, this too is permitted.”

“Joy hides in the background, not concerned with happiness or its lack.”

“The search dissolves like sugar in tea—what’s left is life tasting itself.”

“Every ache is a doorway, every resistance an offering.”

“The abyss of joy is not empty; it’s full—swallowing both the seeker and the sought.”"The Divine contemplating its own reflection"

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

A week ago, I found myself in the middle of a medical emergency. In one moment I was in meetings, sitting quietly in meditation, and moving through the day as usual. Minutes later my chest was heavy and my cognition slipped away. In that crisis I noticed something striking: while panic rose in the mind, something deeper remained unshaken, watching.

This episode reflects on that experience and the insights that followed. I share how unpredictability reveals itself in daily life, how words fail in the face of reality, and how contemplative practice turns even emergencies into teachers.

From there, I open up five contemplations:

Stepping out of our narratives opens space for wonder.

True love arises when the illusion of separation dissolves.

Wisdom is found not in control, but in surrender.

Fear guards illusions and dissolves when examined closely.

Grace comes through aligning with the Tao, not struggling against life’s density.

At the heart of it all is a simple truth: nothing needs to be known, nothing needs to be explained. Life itself is the practice. This podcast is an invitation to rest in that bewildering mystery, to see even fear and density as opportunities to wake up, and to slide more lightly through the unpredictability of living.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com