Sab Mein Narayan

Written by my co-pilgrim, Swara

This morning, as we left Saatdev village, a dog came running to us. I guess he figured out who the dog lover was and kept jumping on Trupti. He would keep playing with her dress and pulling it. In between, he would go and play with the buffalo until it got annoyed. Interestingly, he kept walking with us for a kilometer. 

With this playful morning, the chant that came to mind was: Hari Narayan... Hari Narayan..This prayer was introduced to me by a dear friend, who would replace the word "Hari" with a friend's name, like Trupti Narayan or Sheetal Narayan. It just points us towards seeing the divine in everything. 

In the tone of the playfulness of the morning, both Trupti and I started singing by taking the names of near and dear ones. And gradually it kept expanding: friends, family, teachers, neighbors, the do, the trees, and the birds.

And what happened next was amazing. There was a subtle encouragement we gave each other to say the names of people with whom we might have set some boundaries, and we saw the dance of sensation within us. Just observing it for sure was shifting something in us. And we continued sending love and prayers to everyone. What started as a playful chant ended in stillness and sharing metta.