6 minute read
An Interview with
An Interview with KIRAT RANDHAWA
To watch and listen to the full sit down with Kirat Randhawa click here.
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1. Tell us about yourself and what motivated you to a career in development, conscious exploration, transformational practices, and life’s shifts of others
• being invited to navigate my own experiences without the proper resources I needed. I understand the importance of utilizing support during these experiences, and most importantly understand the power of community and empathic connection. I realized I needed a more compassionfocused refuge during my own experiences than concrete answers, per say, and I wasn’t able to find that anywhere. 2. Was meditation and mindfulness practices something that clicked with you immediately or was it an ‘acquired taste’?
• it clicked immediately. I grew up in a very spiritual and religious household and found the inner world to be incredibly comforting. It was safe - and sacred. A space that I could rest in that wasn’t open for external access. I realize now that we all have these inner sources of comfort and support that are actually rooted in the same purity of awareness. 3. What was your journey like from the time you started practicing in meditative and mindfulness activities and how did this reflect into other aspects of your life?
• I very quickly realized just how much I was suffering and that has been an ongoing discovery, really. When you seek to know the mind, you seek to know everything that is true for you - including your pain - and that was a humbling experience for me. In my life, I experienced dissonance for a while after, trying to make sense of the world. After some time, I noticed an increase in thoughtfulness in the way I spoke, moved, ate, consumed, etc. It was a very overwhelming, lonely, yet necessary adjustment.
4. There’s a stereotype that people who practice meditation and mindfulness never feel angry, stressed or frustrated; what are your thoughts on this?
• Haha, absolutely not true at all. Meditation has never been about controlling your experience or rather, curating your experience. It’s a practice that enables you to be with the entire scope of your experience with such spaciousness and understanding that it ceases to become a problem. That’s the long goal - yet we can experience tremendous benefit right now just by releasing the need to grasp onto or push away what may be arising.
5. There’s a view that meditation and mindfulness just involves sitting with your own thoughts and ‘doing nothing’; is this true?
• It’s definitely not doing nothing - and in fact, it’s tiring sometimes! Mindfulness is a way of being in relationship to your experience in an intimate way. It’s a way of familiarizing yourself with the range of your experience so that you can learn to better respond to it. With this stability in mind, we can begin to cultivate discernment in what leads to peacefulness and what leads to suffering, and align with those modes of behavior that feel freeing. In turn, we create space for the liberatory nature of the mind to shine force - a space of just deep, open awareness. 6. For those who feel the need to keep moving, living fast-paced, and struggle with patience to dedicate themselves to actively doing mindfulness or meditation. What are your tips and recommendations for people who feel this way?
• We can really meditate in any moment - meditating is an acute orientation toward the truth of the moment, and to learn to drop into this truth despite the impulse to remain attached to the story about the experience. In turn, we can naturally sense and utilize the wisdom of the mind and body to act in ways that will result in more freedom. Formal meditation practice is crucial - so setting aside some time each day to relate to the mind in a very precise way is a necessary step to developing mindfulness. Starting small is important, start where you are. 5 minutes a day - and work your way up slowly.
7. How did you find COVID-19 lockdowns, social distancing and reduction in employment impact your existing clients who were already practicing in meditation and mindfulness?
• I found that those who had a strong practice were less struck by the extremities of the global landscape because they were able to tap into something stable within themselves. That doesn’t mean they weren’t distraught or experiencing great distress, but rather that they were better able to manage it when it arose. They were less reactive and seemed unlikely to abide in existential doom.
8. Were there a lot more clients trying to seek help when COVID-19 took hold of the world?
• Yes, I saw an increase in the interest in mindfulness, meditation, and the healing path overall. Whether it was to reduce stress, cope with anxiety, or face the absence of meaning in life as we knew it, a lot of people knew that when the world returned to normal, they would want their life to be different. 9. For those who live in a city like New York, finding space can be quite challenging with people living in high towers, very busy and dense streets, and not as much natural open spaces; let alone being confined to potentially small living spaces. How can people make the most of small spaces to practice mindfulness and meditation if they normally like large outdoor, natural, open spaces?
• Light and plants! Surrounding yourself with beautiful objects is such a wonderful way to feel inspired and uplifted by your space. This doesn’t require a ton of money either - they can be carefully chosen products that allow you to feel cared for. 10. What are your personal health and wellbeing goals for 2021?
• More balance! I’m not someone who struggles with discipline or focus, and I’m focused on creating more room for rest, joy, play, and spontaneity. This applies to everything in my life - my food, my calendar, my travel, my work, and definitely my relationships. █
The Future Timelines Of Our Planet
In David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet, he explains that scientists have predicted, if you were born today, you would be witness to the following:
The Amazon Rainforest cut down until it can no longer produce enough moisture, degrading into a dry savannah, brining catastrophic species loss, and altering the global water cycle The artic becomes Ice-free in the summer, meaning that less of the sun’s energy is reflected into space, and the speed of global warming increases Frozen soils thaw, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas manytimes more potent that CO2, and accelerating the rate of climate change dramatically
2030s 2030s 2040s
