Healing

What if, just as the Sun comes and goes and returns again - unquestioned, unhindered, silent, mute, all sharing, we also learn to be as we are - with all our tendencies? 

The most essential part of remaining silent and being observant/ mindful of our actions - is to heal ourselves. We need this experience for our own benefit. Everyday, we run, we fragment ourselves, we argue, we try to prove something, we pack in quantum of tasks and information, we multitask and we strive to be as productive as possible - all for that ghost idea of being "secured" and achieving comfort. In the end, it is just our thoughts that affect us to the core. If thoughts race ahead and appear fragmented, so we become. 

Healing ourselves involves being aware of the nature of our thoughts and how they seem to create and continuously fill our minds. Thoughts can't be stopped - they have come from our birth and they would continue to be created in us, as long as we live. Thoughts mean our basic urge to survive, sustain ourselves in the given environment. But they also display emotions, feelings, imaginations - since we are concerned with our own existence. We have the awareness to look at our own thoughts and control them, as we realize that only they create an experience we call "life". 

However, the conflict is in our expectation to control the thoughts in absolute sense. Our attachment to existential phenomena is enormous - mind, our body, family, people, physical materials and even concepts like prestige, desire, longing and so on. Attachment is because we believe that our survival depends on such things, and as long as things change, they affect our thoughts and we get affected. Any object, situation, manifestation is bound to change. Any object, situation, manifestation (or creation) has place-time quality and that is how we perceive our existential world. It is impossible to expect place-time to remain static or in our control - thus we continue to act or run with the hope that we will "catch" this elusive thing. What we are running for is a vacant space. The Space is to be "realized" in us.

To realize the space in us, is to experience that it is an all encompassing dimension of everything in this universe. Space is there and therefore, we exist as a phenomena and not the reverse. As Space has no start or an end point, it is beyond control or analysis or question or justification or security or comfort or stability or any other manmade concept. We exist in spatial terms as well as existential terms. 

By slowing down ourselves and our thoughts, we may sense the presence of space in us. This starts to heal us because, we no longer fight our thoughts or run away from something or run towards anything. What we start to do is to only "be" in this space-thought dimension and accept it the way it is.

Nature of Experience - Nowadays

We are in the midst of transformation. Changes in environment and technology are often talked about. Digitization and the speed of change are mentioned many times. I am interested to understand what seems to be at stake here. The central question is what does the rate of change in ‘outside’ environment (technology, digitization) result in the ‘internal’ change in consciousness? I will briefly talk of areas in which change is perceived:

1.       Language – We no longer or very rarely use the language of literature. We overuse the language of management and finance and anything related to the idea of personal consumption.

2.       We seem to delve a lot on virtual environment and the demands/ constraints of real environment seem to be conveniently ignored. This increases the gap of context with idea.

3.       Our experiences are majorly influenced by what the virtual environment offers us – experiences are getting lesser influenced by real environment. We do not know what environment are we a part of – seasons, flora, fauna, natural processes – all of these are forgotten or not known or not considered – which means that we are getting ‘disconnected’ by the natural behavior of the environment – we seem to fool ourselves by living in some kind of a virtual limbo. This raises the question  - what is authentic feeling or authentic wisdom?

4.       Since we live in a virtual world, (or an idea world), we act as if we no longer remain “tied” or grounded to the local context! Thus, we keep “floating” and a sense of placelessness has crept in our minds. Placelessness is disorienting, if felt for a longer period of time – and therefore, we look for “anchoring” ourselves again – in a situation, or a constraint, or a relationship or a job or anything that will make us think of the local situation and force us to respond! Full circle from the times when we were complaining of excessive constraints imposed by situations!!

5.       Our thoughts are fragmented and racing ahead – all a result of digitization. We are not aware of a comprehensive scenario and our character seems fractured. No thought is long enough, or deep enough or sustained enough. We are superfluous people – so superfluous that nothing seems to matter or concern us – neither the past or the future or present.

6.       This brings finally to the experience of “memory”. Memory, previously, was a result of environmental survival, communal living, social, cultural, implications and our own responses – i.e. we were grounded and emphatic. Nowadays, “memory” seems individual, disconnected with environmental, social, cultural implications, volatile, shallow.

7.       Thus, the significant rate of change is leading to less of memory creation and less impact of ‘time’ on us – we can’t figure out our own memories and time phenomenon.

The above state of existence may be confused with a spiritual state of mind. But the path to spirituality is embedded in “deep anchoring” (or engagement) with the worldly situation  - and not despite it. To reach universal or spatial experience, the “object” is the gateway to proceed ahead. In other words, “anchoring” our experiences and responses to environment, social, cultural, climatic, material dimensions is an inevitable journey for us. The manifested world and its constraints can’t be ignored – we must respond to it in order to move beyond. 

It may look exciting to be in the world of ideas – but they have to take some ‘form’ and manifest as a response to our situations. For this, our relationship with Memory and Time are crucial ingredients.

In a Contemporary Experience....

There are fragments of the overall picture….

There is no pressure of time….

There is no place for memory….

There is only ‘now’….

There is no hierarchy….

There are only flat relations….

There is sheer movement….

There is hardly any ‘pause’….

There is a lot of ‘noise’….

There is a fight for ‘silence’….

The Real and the Virtual appear seamless….

There is ‘lightness’….

There isn’t consolidated weight….

There is only logic....

\There is only 'production'....

There is information, but Truth is still elusive….

Function or Art

Any activity can be made purely functional or can transform into a work of art – choice is ours. We unknowingly carry out “mundane” things in life – which signify that they have been reduced to a series of tasks with minimum emotional or any other kind of an involvement from us. Why do we do choose to carry out activities in this manner? How does an activity become mundane? Reviewing it further we will notice that:

a.       We spend minimum time with that activity – which means there are numerous other tasks (lined up) that need to be completed by us in minimum amount of time. The key ingredient here is not giving enough quality time to generate a sense of involvement or attachment.

b.      We might be expecting only monetary returns (or quantifiable/ profitable/ personal) advantages from doing it.

c.       We wish to have it predictable – only a one way relation from us to the activity but not the reverse.

d.      Improvisation is done only to reduce time and pack in more quantum of the same activity – thus we only tend to produce rather than explore.

e.      The activity should be well managed, coordinated, logical and legal.

In trying to elevate any activity into a work of art, we are implying the following:

a.       More time to discover what we are involved with doing. We focus on the moment and not on completion. We do not choose to lay importance to the output, but the process becomes important.

b.      We internally change and accept the unexpected in the activity – thus the relationship is a two way engagement.

c.       We do not dictate, rather guide the process of activity. The activity may also change us in the process. Thus, we may realize that boundaries between us and the activity may be dissolved at times.

d.      We discover feelings, connections, attachments, reflections – as crucial dimensions of the mind as we continue to be engaged with the activity.

e.      The process is lateral, interconnected, absurd, unpredictable and refreshing.

f.        The highest form of art may reveal a quality of transcendence or universal connection with humanity.

Thus any relationship – son, husband, teacher – can be described in above terms.

Any action – cooking, stone cutting, writing, reading, designing can be done in above terms.

Life, as we know, can be lived in either of the two ways as stated above.