To view this newsletter in the browser, click here                 Issue #209       A newsletter from Creativegarh to help you live a life of passion, purpose and meaning.         Life is your guru. Love is your guru dakshina.                     Before you were born, you sat in a long session with your guides and teachers sipping ginger tea as they took you through your syllabus for this lifetime.           The lessons are non-negotiable, they said, but you can choose to learn the lessons whenever you are ready. You also have a choice of teachers - you can choose either joy or suffering to learn your lessons from.           Life will be your guru and this world will be your classroom. Your syllabus will be tailored to your soul’s evolution. Life will also throw some surprise tests at you along the way to see if you have learned the lessons and broken the patterns which were the universe’s way to create teachable moments.           Life will not use words and blackboards but experiences so that you can learn your lessons. Heartbreak, death, delay, pain, passed over for a promotion - all these would be teachings in disguise - different chapters in the book of life, but your book will be different from the other 8 billion out there. Your takeaways from the lessons will be unique only to you.           Every experience will be a feedback loop. The triggers, the joy, the longing, all will be invitations to deeper awareness and graduation to higher classes.           Life will never rush you. It’ll be wise, it’ll be patient, it’ll allow you to learn when you are ready, but once in a while, it’ll give you a tight whack across your face if you have just not been listening. A wake-up call of sorts.           So if life is your guru, what does it ask for as guru dakshina? In return, life doesn’t ask for your wealth, words or rituals. It asks you to go naked - to strip away your ego and all the masks and cloaks of fear and inauthenticity that you wear. It’s not interested in your LinkedIn profile but in your devotion, resilience, humility, compassion and truth.           Life is a gift and our syllabus in this lifetime nudges us to find our gifts and then give them away in the service of everyone’s life - not ours.           The purest offering we can make to life is our becoming - to become an embodiment of love. It is a vow to live the teaching with more love, awareness and grace. Our return gift is to return to the source by walking gently, speaking kindly, and living truthfully. Our biggest gesture of gratitude to life is to re-member ourselves to the divine and dis-cover the untruth that keeps us away from this divine oneness.           If life is the guru that gave you everything - your breath, your grief, your art, your healing - then let your love be the return gift that touches everything.                 True spirituality doesn’t give you anything. In fact, it takes everything away.                     True spirituality doesn't give you anything. In fact, it takes everything away. Everything that you ever thought was you or defined you, true spirituality slowly and slowly strips off everything till you are fully naked.           Most of us are nudged to walk the spiritual path when one fine day, life stops going according to our own plans carved. That day, a new path opens where you hope to get peace, clarity, healing, better relationships, a calmer mind, well, even enlightenment.           But the real spiritual path does not add more to the person you are but starts dismantling you, belief by belief, one story after story, one guilt and shame at a time, till it slowly takes away every identity that you have mistaken for yourself.           No, no! It doesn't take away your home, work, relationships or bank balance. What it takes away is your dependence on them… just to show you who you really are beyond everything that you call your own.           However, it does take away far more than just your possessions. It takes away your need to be admired, the need to be right, your need to control outcomes, your attachment to victimhood, your pride of being a saviour, your identity of a successful one, the wounded one, the strong one, the spiritual one, the one who always knows.           It doesn't take away your roles or designations but your clinging to them. And it does not necessarily make you let go by tickling your armpits but by a kick on your backside.           Letting go or emptying does not mean rejection. You do not need to abandon your family, resign from your job, give away your home, or walk into the Himalayas. You may continue to be a parent, partner, entrepreneur, teacher, artist, or friend. But you stop believing that these roles contain the whole truth of you.           You have a name, but you are not the name. You have beliefs, but you are not the beliefs. You have a story, but you are not the story. You have wounds, but you are not the wounds. You have success, but you are not the success.           After all this, the most important question is, when everything you use to introduce yourself is removed, what remains?           The journey is not about finding a more impressive answer to ‘who am I’ but about allowing every borrowed answer to fall away. And when everything false has been taken away, what remains cannot be explained to you by a teacher, a scripture, a retreat, or a morning post. You have to meet it yourself - alone and empty. And maybe for the first time, completely full.           Spirituality does not give you a new identity, it frees you from the need for one. It takes away everything you are not, until only what cannot be taken remains. Enlightenment is not about being more but about being nothing. Shunya.             Our upcoming retreats                         Andretta Sold Out 15th to 21st November     To reconnect to your inner child at a beautiful hillside retreat with 14+ soulful individuals will make this a life-transforming experience. See you at Andretta!   More details         Jodhpur Last 6 Seats Left 6th to 12th December     In a place of princely palaces and forts, travel back in time as we seek to relook into your life. Rediscover yourself amidst the undiscovered side of Thar at this retreat.   More details     Reignite conversation     Andretta Registrations Open 21st to 27th February     To reconnect to your inner child at a beautiful hillside retreat with 14+ soulful individuals will make this a life-transforming experience. See you at Andretta!   More details     Reignite conversation           This week, let's revisit     Athoor September 2023                         Experience a life full of purpose                     My purpose is to facilitate and teach people to be the most evolved versions of themselves.   Jyotsna Singh Kasauli, April 2023         The purpose of my life is to create wealth and respect for artisans who are reigniting Indian handicrafts in people's hearts.   Pankaj Bhaandari Kasauli, April 2023               For a daily dose of Creativegarh and our retreats, follow us here:                           Mantra Gold Coatings & The White Paper Creative         Sunita Somani         Pedal On               View Our Collabs for Joy                   creativegarh.com             You are receiving this newsletter because either you have subscribed to it through our website, interacted with us by filling an invite form or because you have asked us to put you on the database. 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