To view this newsletter in the browser, click here                 Issue #213       A newsletter from Creativegarh to help you live a life of passion, purpose and meaning.         There are a rare breed of people who go all in, give it all. People like you.                     Someone is trying again because you reminded them that they could. Someone pulled back the curtains of their home yesterday after bed rotting and doomscrolling for weeks because they saw your story on how you overcame depression with expression. Someone who has been grieving and carrying the weight of past mistakes, feeling unworthy of forgiveness, gave themselves a second chance because you held them tight and didn't let go until both of you had cried buckets. Someone whose knees bucked on stage went for the audition because you were there for them on the sidelines cheering with fanatic fandom.           There is a rare breed of people that go all in.           People like you.           People like you who keep their word, show up with love for the beautiful life that this life is, and go the extra mile for loved ones and strangers. People like you who change the temperature of the room the moment they walk in, turn down the volume of the world with just their love and light. They speak with love, they engage with love, they receive with love. Conscious, soft words over harsh gossip, listening more than talking, holding space more than taking space, and allowing life to unfold with all its wrinkles instead of steam-ironing it into perfection. They create tables on which people who want to talk about life, goals, forgiveness, passion, afterlife, spirituality, and soulmates can sit.           People like you are a rare breed who may not always receive the same love, passion, and effort in return, yet never change and always give their all, fiercely giving with as much devotion as always, not as a transaction but as a way of honouring the infiniteness and abundance they have been endowed with.           Om Tat Sat. They see the divinity in everything and see everything till the end, not giving up because suddenly their ego has other plans and other playmates. Seeing it to the end because they see everything as a devotion to God and not a checklist item to satiate the world and ego. They take advantage of every little moment they are given by life, breathing in joy, breathing out love.           These people are harbingers of hope, and the simplicity of their happiness lies in being excited. Being excited for everything - making a cup of tea, having friends over, making a reel, monkey hugging someone, watching the next episode, buying a new dress, your favourite show, sunsets, travelling, falling in love… everything. They love a life they are excited about.           There is a rare breed of people who are just the walking form of light, and sunshine, irrespective of the trials, tribulations, and drama in their own lives. No, they are not evangelists of toxic positivity. They know the difference between sitting with oneself, standing for someone, and walking with others. No, they are not spiritual bypassers who have learned the lessons from a podcast. They have done the inner work, have sat in solitude for months, and are still slaying the demons of their past.           There is a rare breed of people. Thank you for being you!                 'Maybe' what you think went wrong, went right.                     There was once a young girl who had spent most of her school years dreaming of going to one particular university. She lived her dreams interwoven with daydreams. She had imagined the friends she would make, the subjects she would study, the cafés she would discover, even the person she would fall in love with. She had already lived those years several times in her head.           Then came the rejection email. We regret to inform you… and in five polite words, her dream fell apart.           Everyone told her there would be other universities. But then, she didn’t want something better. She wanted what she had wanted.           Life moved on, she reluctantly joined another university in another city and she was convinced that life had somehow taken a bad, wrong turn.           A few weeks later, walking back to her hostel, she heard a faint whimper from a furball following her. There was a puppy. Tiny, muddy, frightened and shivering. She picked him up and smuggled him into her hostel room, despite a rather strict ‘No Pets’ policy.           She called him Maybe. Because maybe was exactly what her life had become. No certainties. Just maybe.           A few days later, the hostel warden discovered Maybe. The puppy had to go but then a boy from her class offered to help. His parents lived close by and were happy to keep the puppy until she figured out what to do. So that day, she went with him to drop Maybe off.           The puppy stayed. And somehow, so did the boy. In her life.           Friendship became love. The university she had arrived at reluctantly became home. The city she had never wanted to live in became filled with memories she couldn’t imagine living without.           They joked and laughed about the rejection letter. Imagine if you had got in, he would say. No Maybe, no me, no us.           Soon, marriage happened and a solemn life that she had imagined became a joy to live. Years passed and they wanted a child. But nothing happened. There were doctors, tests, procedures, prayers, disappointments and months when hope itself seemed exhausted.           By then, Maybe was old. And one afternoon, he passed away. The puppy who had accidentally brought her husband into her life, and had been there through courtship, marriage, and grief was gone. The house became unbearably quiet.           A few months later, unable to sit with that silence, she began volunteering at an animal shelter. Not that she was trying to replace Maybe. She simply wanted to put somewhere all the love she had, but had nowhere to go.           One day, a little girl came to the shelter as a volunteering programme for children in orphanages. She was petrified of dogs but as life happens, she was seated beside a woman who was still grieving one.           They spent the first afternoon sitting several feet away from the kennels. The girl returned the following week and the week after that. Conversations happened, silences became comfortable, stories were shared, they learnt about each other's life. Something that had begun with two strangers sitting awkwardly beside a kennel slowly became something neither had gone there looking for.           A few months later, the woman and her husband adopted her.           One evening, she found her daughter asleep on the sofa with their newly adopted puppy curled up against her. And for some reason, she remembered that university rejection letter from more than twenty years ago.           She began tracing the strange trajectory of her life. Had she got into that university, she would never have gone to the other city. She may never have found Maybe. She may never have met the boy. There may have been no marriage. No years of trying unsuccessfully to become a mother. No grief. No animal shelter. No little girl. No parenthood.           Life. Happening for you? Or to you?           How strangely and quickly we label the events in our lives as good, bad, blessing, disaster, success, failure, lucky, unlucky - jumping to the last page of our book while there are chapters still to be written. We put full stops where life has only put commas.           We probably simply have to admit that we don’t know yet. And move from believing that life is happening to us to wondering whether, in some mysterious way we may never completely understand, life has always been happening for us and through us.           When you look backwards far enough, you realise your entire life has never been an accident. Every person, city, event, relationship, experience has led you to this day and you are in the middle of an answered prayer.           Every day, through its little miracles, life again brings us face to face with gratitude. Not only gratitude because everything went according to plan but maybe because it didn’t. Gratitude for this ridiculous, heartbreaking, surprising, inconvenient, magical life that kept unfolding even when you were convinced it had gone completely wrong. We don't always have to label our life as good or bad. Leave a little space for Maybe.           Shukr hai! Shukr hai! Shukr hai!             Our upcoming retreats                         Jodhpur Last 2 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 Last 6 Seats Left 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     Bhimtal Registrations Open 14th to 20th March     Bhimtal offers a rare kind of Kumaoni serenity. This landscape creates the perfect setting for inner work, allowing reflection to unfold naturally.   More details     Reignite conversation           This week, let's revisit     Bhimtal May 2026                         Experience a life full of purpose                     The purpose of my life is to bring people together for shared passionate experiences.   Ridhima Bahl Nainital, May 2022         The purpose of my life is to enable others to have a life of purpose.   Shashi Kapur Kasauli, September 2022               For a daily dose of Creativegarh and our retreats, follow us here:                         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. If you would not like to receive any more newsletters from us, please click here to unsubscribe.