As we end the inaugural year of the Dignity Project during an unprecedented year of pandemic and social injustice locally and globally, I reflect on what I have learned about working with youth and fellow mentors from diverse spiritual traditions. After years of meditation and yoga practice, with breath as the foundation, I sit still in the moment. Is there ONE word to capture it all?  

I ask, “Who am I in this moment?” and each breath tells a different tale: mentor, friend, mother, daughter, wife, coach, colleague, advisor, volunteer, leader, lover, warrior. So, I ask, “What am I in this moment?” and each breath yet again tells a different tale: spirit, soul, mind, heart, body, muscle, bones, emotions, actions, energy, flow, frequency, stillness.  I try another question, asking “Where am I from in this moment?”: India, US, Kansas, Massachusetts, water, fire, earth, air, ether, minerals, metals, atoms. Then I try, “To where am I going in this moment?” Light, grace, peace, love, balance, the Divine. “Why am I in this moment?” To heal, to be healed, to love, to be loved, to learn, to educate, to unlearn, to grow, to help, to hold, to give.

Breathe. In. Out. This illusive ONE word….AND…  

What I have learned about working with youth and fellow mentors from diverse spiritual traditions is to lean into this word “AND”—and thereby finding my fellow Renaissance kin, the “AND” people who do not force one-words, those seeking to live in a pluralistic world. You see, it is in my blood.  My ancestors originate from West Bengal (India) and East Bengal (now known as Bangladesh).  And before the midnight divide in 1947, during the period of the British Indian Empire from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, there was actually a cultural, social, intellectual and artistic movement in the Bengal region. It is said to have started with Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who ended the practice of sati (widows burning themselves at their husband’s funeral pyre), and ended with Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.  In between are amazing greats such as Satyajit Ray, who directed 36 award-winning films still watched with admiration today, and Swami Vivekananda, who travelled to Chicago in 1893 to represent Vedanta (a philosophy arising from the ancient scriptures of India, the Vedas) to the Parliament of the World’s Religions.  Many of the men and women at that time were polymaths, knowing expansively across art and literature, religion and spirituality, science and technology.

Yet modern days tell us we must have goals. We must make them SMART: specific, measurable, actionable, related, and time-bound.  If we do not have goals, we will lose our intrinsic motivation. Will we?  Cannot my goal be to be me. Fully. 

So here I sit, a person connected to my ancestors, full of the word AND, with curiosity and wonder of the many varied ways of knowing, a jack of all trades, with many talents, with so much desire to change the world for the youth, my children and their children. To bring lovingkindness to each living thing.  How do I do what anyone with my blood, my soul, my spirit can do? 

I Listen. I Surround myself with amazing fellow spiritual beings navigating this human experience.  AND. I Surrender.

Image: Wash painting by Sukanta Das, in the style of the Bengal School