Greetings Everyone,

We have returned from India and feel inspired by all we took in over our two week visit to Kerala. We covered a lot of territory on this trip, and saw a variety of landscapes and cultural experiences. My top 3 highlights were walking among the lush tea hills of Munnar, witnessing a sacred agnihotra (fire ceremony) at the temple of Sri Narayana GuruDev, and the delightful 2hour shirodhara (warm oil drip to the forehead) and abhyanga (herb infused oil massage) that we received in the beach town of Kovalam.  But the entire trip was incredible and it is hard to pick just 3 favs! We hope to share this experience with everyone by leading a group retreat to India in 2026.

If I could sum up my main take away in a simple sentence it would be this: Everything that matters comes from the heart. If it isn’t a heartfelt, or a deeply sacred thought, word, or action-it is superfluous to our existence. With 8 billion people sharing the same 5 elements for our sustenance, it is of extreme importance that we think, speak, and act from a place of Lovingkindness or Metta in Sanskrit.  The world is in peril-even though you read this from the comfort of your modern life, all around us is depression, addiction, tension, aggression, repression, deterioration, suppression, confusion, delusion, and repulsion.

Many people are living with one or more of these mindsets. Their inner world is chaotic and stressful. By many I mean too many.

We must start doing things differently. We are depleting our Selves and our Source. Our current time is a wake up call to shift a gear. We are grinding out.

We have no time or space in our collective existence for greed, hatred, selfishness, meanness, prejudice, deception, manipulation, gluttony, apathy, or vengeance. Our current living conditions cannot tolerate these egocentric behaviors any longer.  We either need to become heart-centered or we will perish.

This might sound extreme, and a bit exaggerated, but I truly believe we will soon face our demise as a human species if we don’t make a radical shift in our consciousness soon. We cannot sustain being self-ish and ego based much longer.

We have forgotten who we truly are- we are loving spirit beings. Instead, we have adopted the idea that we are separate and alone in this world-which is exactly the opposite of what we really are-and the entire reason we continue to have suffering and pain in our world.

We have a body, but we are not the body itself. We have thoughts, but we are not the thoughts themselves. We are Spirit, having a human experience in a body with thoughts. I like how Ram Dass frames it, “Treat everyone as if they were God in drag.”

The ancient wisdom teachings tell us that this life experience is like a dream, an illusion, called maya. And as long as we continue to operate as isolated minds-separate from one another, we will continue to know suffering and pain.

We will continue to spend our lives clawing our way to the top; competing and comparing, resenting and rejecting, manipulating and masquerading, deceiving and destroying, and it all drives the wedge of separation deeper.

But if we could look at one another and all of creation as sacred, and see that we share the same spirit, light, or divine spark, then we will find a way to co-exist in peace. We will shift from competitive to cooperative, from resentful to resourceful, from manipulative to mindful, and from deceptive to devoted. If we see each other as spirit beings cut from the same cloth of divine Love-which we are-we will be able to find the warp and the weft of this tapestry we call life. We are all individual threads woven together to form one unified fabric.

Yes-we are individuals, but we are not separate. Our common thread is God or Spirit. It weaves through each of our sacred hearts and is the seed of our divine essence. This golden thread is the highest vibration in the Universe (uni=one, verse=song: One Song) called LOVE.

This is why I say, Everything that matters comes from the heart.

I leave you with this beautiful sentiment from Sri Yukteswar, the beloved guru of Paramahansa Yogananda.

Sri Yukteswar had an emerald gold heart-the pure heart that many speak of as a heart of gold.

This is an excerpt from the final words he wrote in his book, The Holy Science:

CONCLUSION

*’Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,

The men below and saints above;

For love is heaven and heaven is love.’*

-Sir Walter Scott

“The power of love has been beautifully described by the poet in the stanza quoted above.* It has been clearly demonstrated in the foregoing pages that “Love is God,” not merely as the noblest sentiment of a poet but as an aphorism of eternal truth. To whatever religious creed a man may belong and whatever may be his position in society, if he properly cultivates this ruling principle naturally implanted in his heart, he is sure to be on the right path to save himself from wandering in this creation of Darkness, Maya.”   

-Sri Yukteswar

May we all strike gold,

our heart’s gold-the true mother lode.

And may Love flow like honey,

let it be our currency instead of money.

Everything that matters comes from the heart.

Much love, and Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers!

Katrina