March is magical. March is when my season starts. I am not a winter person. Through the winter, I am just lying under my duvet waiting for all the coldness of life to blow over. I don’t know if this makes sense to you, but in my head, I am pretty coherent as I write this. In Delhi, we have shed woollen layering, and the bougainvillea are blooming. I am grateful to life

But hey! This isn’t about me. I am digressing. It’s about us and os.me. March has been one of the best months, this year, for the os.me community. I am going to list out at least 10 reasons to be grateful.

Wisdom from Om Swamiji

1) Practice of Gratitude: Swamiji is an authority on all things wise and life. He says, if you are grateful, you become loving, blissful, peaceful, and calm automatically. In this article, he offers the practice of gratitude, the two types of gratitude, and what all you can do to be grateful.  

2)    Because Swamiji is the Best
I am always here for you. You can count on me. You aren’t alone ~~ Swamiji on Zoom Satsang (attended one yet?).

Swamiji’s Zoom Sessions: Our most respected and beloved Swamiji is the reason we are here. The desire to hear him, interact with him and just see him is insatiable. So, when he started Zoom Satsang, we couldn’t keep calm! Kindness incarnate that he is, he made these free for all os.me members, allowing us to contribute what we could. In one of the sessions, he assured us, “I am always here for you.” You can watch the recordings and schedule here. It’s held on Sundays, so don’t forget to catch one tomorrow. 

We are meeting Swamiji on Zoom and we can't keep calm! tell a friend

A Potent Tool

Creative Writing: Every newsletter offers you a way to become better. In the spirit of our newsletter tradition, this one offers you a way to become a compelling writer and also express gratitude better through the written word. The course is by Swamiji and Sadhvi Vrinda Om (an award-winning author). Become articulate, become a phenomenal writer, write amazing posts on os.me, and maybe, write books like some of our members are writing.

7 True Experiences

1) A Better Father: About 15 years ago, Vejay Mehta was very upset with his newborn child, blaming him for complications that arose at birth, putting his wife through a great amount of suffering. He wouldn’t even hold his son in his arms. Until one day, when tragedy struck. He had to rush the little one to the emergency ward. He knocked on every door in an unknown neighbourhood for help. That day, he fell in love with his child. Parenthood is a reason to be thankful to the almighty, he says.

Vejay Mehta was very upset with his newborn child, blaming him for the complications that put his wife through a great amount of suffering tell a friend

2) My Journey of Becoming a Cook: “My Mother died January last year”, begins Mohit Aggarwal’s article. So, he learnt to cook for his father and himself. He shares a few pictures of the sumptuous food items he has learnt to cook since. Grateful to have food and have someone who can cook it for you.

3) A Prayer of Request or Gratitude: Lina World meets a delivery boy who can’t hear or talk, a passer-by on a wheelchair who can’t walk, a massage therapist who can’t see, young children in Africa with a cleft lip. They are all smiling, going about creating a more meaningful life. They are competing with a world that is full of people who can walk, talk, see, laugh and have enough to help. Yet, you need reasons to be grateful? This heartfelt piece put me to shame, tears rolled down my cheek and made my heart bleed. God’s given me enough.  

4) The Taste of Classic Coconut Cuisine: Surekha Chandrasekhar is out with her debut book. She is grateful for friends who push her to grab those dreams. The os.me community is grateful to a delicious treat of a debut book.

5) Luck of My Life: This once, Sundaram Venkatesh got his hands on a treasure chest. He decides to buy a house in the posh locality, a car, a TV, a VCR, three shiny necklaces… Oh you have to read it to find what he found! We are grateful for his pearls of wisdom that he serves subtly through his wit and humour.

Sundaram Venkatesh got his hands on a treasure chest. He decides to buy a house in the posh locality, a car, a TV, a VCR, three shiny necklaces tell a friend

6) Covid the Great Teacher: Keshav Om is grateful for COVID. He contracted the viral fever and had to quarantine. Yes, there were worries but he learnt a lot of lessons in this period. He is thankful to COVID, you’d be thankful to him for sharing the wisdom.  It’s the perfect time to read this one, for it has been a year since the tiny thing disrupted our modern world equipped with science and what have you.

7) The Void: We all have a void inside us. It nags us, breaks us, fills itself up with insecurities and bogs us down. But what we forget is that it is also a portal to light. Shanaya Girdharlal writes:
“All this is complete, all that is also complete.
From complete, has emerged complete.
When you take complete out of complete,
What is left is also complete.
You are complete…”

Time for Stats

March is when os.me saw a lot of action. Can you guess which post got the greatest number of comments? I’ll reveal that later. First,

  • Our community of exceptional writers wrote 370 posts between Feb 25 and March 24. This was a significant jump from the past month. No wonder, I am still catching up with a lot of posts, what about you all? How many have you read?
  • A lot of new authors joined us. Overall, we had 124 authors who were active during this period
  • Meera Om and Sandeep Singh wrote the maximum number of posts, 19 and 17
  • Meera, Tanvi Sharma and Komal R received the maximum number of comments
  • Meera, Sushree Diya Om, and Shalini Pandey said the most wonderful things (maximum comments)
  • One of you wrote to me saying you don’t want to be in the stats this time because others might feel this person is getting a lot of shout-outs. It’s plain facts, my dear. If they write more, or comment more, et cetera, they’d be here, too. Should one stop giving out medals to Michale Phelps because he already has so many? Now what do you mean what is this analogy, hum world champions se kam hain kya 🙂 

So which post did get the top spot in the ‘highest number of comments received’ category? Swamij’s अब कै राखि लेहु भगवान. That was easy, right! I mean whatever he does, he does it the best. He always gets to the top. He motivates, guides and cares for us. He is our hygge. Even Flowers Smile when He is Around. He is in our hearts, and sometimes he is in our Neutron Experiment Lab helping the scientists amongst us, such as Biswa Nanda (Biswa gives hope to so many people with his own transformational stories). 

We? We strive for Swami-tioning and Swami-ness in our being (you are a cool neologist, Kaivalya Lal). We try to be mindful of our speech because he asks us to, with Jayshree Om’s journal idea, Supriya Patnaik’s Easy–Peasy way to keep at mindfulness. I am sure with your help, I am going to fly like the Many Kites in Karan Vijayvargia’s collection (the one’s that Tinu got, not the ones that got wasted in a dungeon). But If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy, asks Aditya Shahi. Well, because maybe I need stocktaking of life more often (thanks for the PDF, Kaivalya).

With such versatile writers sharing their remarkable experiences, hacks and teachings, I’d learn to embrace Life in all its hues (Sonia Om captures it well in her verse), because Jeevan Ek Sa Kahan Rehta Hai (says Yash Chawda), Zindagi Roller Coaster hai (according to Satyam Tiwari) and os.me is a saviour, I agree with Anu Jain.

OSdotMe helps us float, no matter what colour life throws at us. Happy Holi!

Are there any posts that made you grateful for what you have? Drop the link in the comments. Meanwhile, I have to order Jayshree’s second book.

Did I tell you, I love it when you say the lovely things that you do about me. Grateful! Did you check out the login feature? You can now log in using your social media account. Try it!

Until next…

PS: Next month is Sri Hari’s birthday, and also Medha Shri’s. Yay! Keep me in your prayers 🙂