Kamini Desai - Life Lessons Love Lessons: A Gurus Daughter Discovers Knowledge Is Only Half the Journey

Life Lessons, Love Lessons

A Gurus Daughter Discovers

Knowledge Is Only Half the Journey

KAMINI DESAI

Red Elixir, Rhinebeck, New York Inner Source, Salt Springs, Florida

Life Lessons, Love Lessons 2010 by Kamini Desai

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author except in critical articles and reviews. Contact the publisher for information.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Georgia Dent

Cover design by Deborah DeFranco:

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010939051

ISBN: 978-0-9830517-0-1

eISBN: 9781624883668

Red Elixir in association with Epigraph Publishing

22 E. Market Street

Suite 304

Rhinebeck, New York 12572

USA 845-876-4861

To my life teachers in the many roles you have played.

Thank you.

FOREWORD

Life is an Enchanting Journey
of Unconditional Love

T HE EXPERIENCE OF LOVE is what we seek in every expression of life. It is the inborn, evolutionary urge to merge that guides us to search for love in countless ways. We search everywhere; we explore every possible way to find it. We would give anything to get it; we are willing to lose everything to have it.

This insightful book by my daughter, Kamini Desai, is the lifelong culmination of years of study, practice, teaching, living and loving. She was born into a spiritual lineage and was exposed to the highest yogic teachings since her first breath. Growing up in an ashram, she was showered with the sacred ancient teachings passed down to me from my guru, and to him from his guru. Even though the teachings came from the highest, I was on my own spiritual journey and learning through living.

Kamini was on her own journey through her formative years. I attempted always to guide her with all the knowledge I had in the best possible way, but I was an amateur parent and replicated what I believed was proper parenthood from my Indian heritage. In retrospect, this prevented me from truly integrating what I was teaching. A clash of cultures created a conflict from which we both suffered. In retrospect, I would have managed my role differently as both a father and a guru.

Over time, Kamini learned from me and I from her. We are mirrors, showing each other what we each need to know all that is beautiful and ugly, good and bad, sacred and profane. We have matured in our capacity to delve into the inner depth of our relationship. Much of the credit for our personal growth goes to Kamini and her ability to hold the space for me to work through the challenges we have faced. This is the process of spiritual growth accepting each other and ourselves with open hearts and unconditional love. Through our conscious interactions we have both evolved, growing closer, working together and respecting each other. I am so touched by her courage to reveal herself so honestly. Her conscious journey through loving relationships can serve as a guide to readers in their own process of self-discovery.

The secret of love is that the moment you demand love, it disappears and conflict appears. When you simply give, conflict disappears and love reappears. Love gives you back what you are willing to put into it.

At its highest, love is the most powerful force and an evolutionary journey. Love embraces lifes ups and downs, both the spiritual and mundane, providing openings to manifest its miracles.

In the beginning, love may appear to be crawling through a caterpillar stage. Even though it appears to build its own cocoon, it is not a trap but a transformative process that gives wings to the earthbound love. When grounded in purity and unconditional giving, love goes beyond all dreams and reveals reality.

Ultimately, intimate relationships represent the relationship you have with yourself. They demand nothing less than the death of the ego. Intimacy is a mirroring relationship, where everything that was invisible is made visible.

Instead of asking for love, be loving.

Instead of searching for peace, be peaceful

Instead of wanting to be loved, be loving.

Instead of waiting to be understood, be understanding.

Instead of looking for attention, be attentive.

Instead of seeking acceptance, be accepting.

Love is complete within itself. Love is not an exchange; it is unconditional giving. It does not wait for a return. Anything you expect in exchange turns it into a commodity in the marketplace. When you give fully from your heart, you are fulfilled in the giving.

The words of my beloved teacher, Bapuji, concisely summarize this great awareness of oneself: The key that unlocks your heart is hidden in the heart of the other. Only when unconditional love creates an opening in the heart of another, will you find the key that unlocks your own heart.

Yogi Amrit Desai

INTRODUCTION

A S YOUNG WOMEN in the West, we live and breathe the romantic ideal of love. The unspoken given is that some day, just like Cinderella and her prince, we will be pulled out of the doldrums of our everyday existence and catapulted into a life of infinite and unending love where we will be loved and live in contentment, peace and happiness forever. We will bask in the sunshine of our beloved and through him we will feel whole. Reinforced through innumerable modern re-runs of fairytalesHarlequin romance novels, Love Boat episodes, and movies of Pretty Woman ilk, we fall victim to an ideal that makes our life appear as if it somehow does not measure up.

Fairytale love implies finding wholeness in, or through, another. It is based on an assumption that we can create an experience of completion through another that we do not possess ourselves. If we could stop looking at our lives through the promise of the fairytale, we might find we have gotten it backwards. We have always been in possession of our own completeness. It is only the assumption that I dont have it and you need to give it to me, which has made us overlook the possibility for fulfillment that has always been present. In other words it is the belief in the fairytale itself, the idea that someone out there will save me, that keeps us from saving ourselvesfrom realizing we ourselves are the key to finding the completion we are searching for.

WHAT IS THE KEY?

Romance is one of the most powerful ideals we hold as a society. It is all-pervading, filtering into every aspect of our lives from movies, to books, to pop culture and magazines. Once adopted, anything but that ideal appears lacking. This is why an enduring perception lingers in our society that people who are alone cannot possibly be happyand those who are in a relationship must, by definition, be more so. It is why some women who are alone past a certain age feel they have missed their window, as if there is only a limited time to find a mate, and therefore happiness. Perhaps it is why the successful career woman who doesnt want a relationship is looked upon with vague distrust. How could she possibly be happy? people ask.

The truth is, minus comparison to a romantic ideal, all of these could be perfectly satisfying states of being. Yet when we insist on a picture of romantic love as the pinnacle of achievement in the personal realm, everything else seems to pale in comparison. No matter how well our life may be working, or how fulfilling the other aspects of our life may be, the idea we