Instill gratitude- Black Lotus by Sandeep Sibs

A greeting full of love and gratitude to all of you.

First of all, the ‘Instill Gratitude’ is free for anyone to use.

It took me eleven days (mostly 30 minutes a day) to complete the course. It is a wonder how half an hour daily can bring so much positive change. My yet primitive mind has yet to grasp the implications of the years of meditation Om Swami Ji has undergone. The level of patience required to complete 30 minutes in silence on my part was quite overwhelming. But there is something in Om Swami Ji’s voice which I can’t pin down. Just when my thoughts were drifting away in all those creative ways, Swami Ji intervened. Almost like gravity, my thoughts flew once again towards instilling gratitude. I can’t say that I have managed total self-reliance in meditation, but do I really want that? Who can when I have been ‘meditating’ (if I should even call that meditation) for years and couldn’t even do anything and in only a matter of few minutes, my everyday life changed with this course? It is the incredible difference you feel in quality when tasting all those heavily publicized thali foods versus humble freshly cooked ashram food. The latter is soothing yet incredibly delicious.

Visuals

The app is literally teeming with amazing artworks bold with pastel colors. When the earth around us is beaming with vibrant colors, it would be condescending of me to garb monochromic colors. The artwork within the Black Lotus app has sincerely blown me away. The simplicity of them, their consistency across the app, from the logo to the meditation visuals itself. I would urge you to attentively experience those if you have not. My wish here would be someday we could access the same artworks as wallpapers for our phones. They would certainly act as a constant reminder that Om Swami Ji is merely a click away.

Music

The fusion music is laced with amazing layers upon layers, taking you on an internal journey with Swami Ji, guiding us with incredible mentoring and culminating in a beautiful crescendo. I have not come across anything of this sort on Swami Ji’s YouTube channel. That piece was really my favorite. The percussion instruments were so soft. It was not battering to the ears. I do feel that an incredible amount of efforts were put in for that piece. I yearn to hear more Indian classical though. Nothing is closer to my heart.

My transformative journey

There are no shortcuts to experience itself. If you follow the lives of others and passively observe their amazing transformation, it is not enough. You have to set down your foot and decide for yourself what’s your own worth. Why do I think Om Swami Ji is an amazing Guru? I experienced the direct effects of his guidance on my psyche. Once I was battling the constant assaults of my self deprecating mind-cage in which Facebook and Instagram were all that actually mattered. I couldn’t go out with my friends or any other real person. It was intimidating to face another person. Being behind a screen was much easier. I felt a sense of fake empowerment. Swami Ji helped me break the barriers of my self created prison. The problems that are at every nook and corners haven’t evaporated, yet my mind is strong enough to handle them. Earlier I was quite reactive; the other person had yet to complete his/her sentence that I had already formed an opinion and geared my war uniform to make an enemy of everyone, ramming everyone with utter nonsense that I am so ashamed that I could once have conjured. After this particular course, I do believe that those habits still linger somewhere within me. But now, I do have an upper hand in shutting my mouth before blurting anything out. I speak to my mind that replying now is not important. A few more minutes would make so much of a difference.

I do feel that I am still lost. I wish I could work out the problems I have in my career, magically make the financial hardships that me and my family are enduring vanish. Make the health issues of my mom disappear never to return. Please pray for me. Your blessings would be of immense value. Yet if Om Swami Ji would not have been here, if he hadn’t guided me, hadn’t made quality meditation available, I know things would have been grim for me. I do battle everyday, but blessings are amazing. My eternal gratitude to Om Swami Ji, to the team behind the Black Lotus app and every other person who has read my writings. I will answer to every comments once I have the funds to get a subscription. Till then, thank you, thank you so much to everyone.