We spent the day at a retreat center called La Perfetta, which is in Arzo, near the border with Italy.
Something like forty or fifty devotees from Switzerland and Italy gathered there for Ananda’s traditional 8-hour Christmas meditation. It happens every year at all Ananda communities, but since we knew we would miss the one at Ananda Village, we reached out to see if one was scheduled for here in Ticino.
Of course, the powerhouse leaders of the Ticino meditation group (Triveni, Amrita, and Monica) quickly organized and magnetized this wonderful event.
I started writing this blog on Swami Kriyananda’s birthday in 2019, largely as a way to combat my tendency to doubt. I doubted not only myself, but also whether I had anything worthwhile to share.
On the day after Swamiji’s birthday that year — my second blog post — I shared how I had been inspired by what famous blogger Seth Godin had to say about the benefits of writing a daily blog, and how “The first 1,000 are the most difficult”.
Well, today I realized that four years of daily blogs means I’ve reached 1,460 posts! Not only am I well past my first 1,000 but I am, in fact, having a lot of fun doing it.
So, that’s the background to today’s post. But what I really want to share is how this is the first time in almost twenty years that Ramesha and I haven’t been in an Ananda community or center, celebrating Swami’s birthday with our spiritual family.
It definitely feels rather strange.
We thought about trying to perform somewhere, but we don’t even have a guitar with us here in Lugano. But then I thought about a recent (and very impromptu) “performance” that we gave during a family luncheon couple of Sundays ago.
The primary entertainment was the duo Tacalà, a lovely couple who’ve been specializing in the traditional popular music of Ticino for the past twenty years. A number of extended family and friends were in attendance, with everyone singing along with a lot of joy and great gusto.
But someone had told the duo that we were musicians, and at a certain point they invited us to sing. We were rather hesitant about making the switch from the fairly boisterous sing-along mood to our more “spiritual” music, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer.
So we sang. First we did a couple of perky, upbeat songs (“I Will Always Think of Thee” and “Life Is Beautiful”); but when they asked for a third one we figured, “Oh, what the heck!” and sang “O Signore mio altissimo/Make Us Channels of Thy Peace.”
There was actually quite a bit of talking going on in the restaurant as we began but then things settled down and people absolutely loved it.
It feels appropriate to share this on Swamiji’s birthday because it represents our ongoing gift to him.
Swami gave us so much — the music, of course, but also spiritual family, community, divine friendship, guidance, unconditional love, and so much more – and in return, we can keep singing and playing his music anywhere and everywhere the opportunity arises.
You see, Swamiji wanted his music to help people, mainly by raising consciousness. And every time we sing — especially in the extremely unlikely places! — we experience yet again the tremendous power of our music to change people for the better.
