I'm going back to India for two months

Over the past five years, only a few writers have held my full attention, and only when they confront the biggest questions: What makes a life? What is God?

If I must identify myself, I am a philosopher—a philosopher who has returned to the body. When did we sever the mind from the body, as though brain were some disembodied organ floating in a jar? The rishis of Yoga, Daoist sages, Hebrew prophets, they knew that it all flows through our flesh. Christ spoke of the "kingdom within," pointing to the body’s potential to channel heaven into earth. To think is not to float above the body, but to live fully within it.

I think because it brings joy; I write and I speak because it is essential. The path forward is simple and total: to translate the fullness of human experience—the beauty, the grit—into words, hoping that even 1% of it captures something real. For that, I devote myself daily to the practice, to the work of self-inquiry and expression.

Lately, life has felt like a slow-moving river, uncertain and unclear. How do I devote myself to service in the face of all that I do not know? I listen closely to the feedback of my body, checking in with each layer of self. Pathology, I've realized, arises when stillness hardens into immobility. If I hold on too tightly to any one idea, any fixed stance, it will only congeal and eventually be torn from me. The illusion of solidity fades. The key is detachment—letting go, breathing it in, and then breathing it out. I do not know where life will take me, but I am learning to release the need for certainty.

I breathe, and in each inhalation, the cycle of life unfolds—reaching its peak, resting in stillness, then dispersing to begin again. The breath mirrors the motion of my being, a wave up and down my spine, an ongoing flow that responds to the rhythm of the body. I move with it; without movement, I fear collapse.

I reach for a familiar book, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, where her protagonist utters, "God is change." A truth as resonant as Vedanta, Torah, or the Dao. God, I’ve come to understand, is not a static entity but a process of becoming, a force of mutation and transformation. God, to me, is the pattern of life itself—the underlying principle that drives everything. It is not confined to the universe or divinity; it transcends it all.

The universe is a map, something we can measure and observe, but God? God is the unseen force beneath it all, not a thing to be seen, but the flow and rhythm of change. I can point to it, but words will always fail to capture its true essence. Like the moon, all I can do is gesture toward it, and in surrender to the process, I rise anew.

This journey is not driven by willpower, but by surrender. The path is to relinquish control and trust that the unfolding is the goal itself. The pattern—body and sky, earth and sky—is written in the deep cycles of life. In Kerala, the soil is rich and teeming with life, but change is afoot. The rains are unpredictable now, the pattern shifting. People can no longer predict the rains without their phones. Something has changed.

This change—what is it? The world’s systems are no longer balanced, disrupted by centuries of human greed and accumulation. But the pattern itself is not broken. It is the folly of humankind that has caused the rupture. The covenant with nature, the law of reciprocity, has been broken. Still, nature remains, a web of interdependence between all beings. The bacteria in my body, the trees outside, we are allies and antagonists, bound together by karma.

Karma is the law of causation, the pattern of life, and our responsibility is to recognize our place within it. The world, as vast as it is, is also as intimate as the breath in our lungs. We are all part of the same pattern, accountable to each other. To become One, we must acknowledge the law of reciprocity.

And so, I ask myself: can I distinguish what is mine from what is not? Remission, like all things, is not fixed; it is a practice, a constant unfolding. The journey is ongoing, a return to balance within the pattern.

As I prepare for the next of my , I’ll be in India for the months of December and January. This time will be one of reflection, learning, and deep connection with the self. I look forward to the sacred chaos of Amritapuri, where I will immerse myself in the rhythms of life and practice that continue to shape my path.

In this moment of preparation and inward focus, I invite you to reflect on your own journey of becoming. May we all remember that the process of transformation, both personal and collective, is continuous, ever-unfolding, and woven into the very fabric of our being.

Before I go, I’m sharing a poem that speaks to these themes of surrender, presence, and the sacred unfolding of life. I hope it resonates with you, just as the practice of writing has become a daily devotion to my own growth.

You can read She Seeks That here.

May we all find peace in the unfolding.

Laure