Why meditation is important

It’s important because it is basically the only activity (or non-activity) that teaches us how to tolerate being alone with ourselves. For the majority of us not to have anything to do, without some form of engagement or entertainment is torture. We are “driven to distraction” by boredom. Waiting in line, sitting on long flights, being unemployed, or even engaging in some form of activity that is disagreeable, puts us on edge or worse. Like murderous or suicidal. Meditation can gives us the necessary mental training to deal with such situations, and gives us a different understanding of being.
Once when I was on a trans-Atlantic flight I suddenly realised that I don’t need the in-flight entertainment system. This was an opportunity to enjoy just sitting. Time was of no importance, long or short. In the normal situation, we try to shrink time by filling it, either by agreeable activity or entertainment. Having nothing to do makes it stretch, so that every minute seems like an eternity. This is true: every minute is an eternity. We are very rich in time, if we don’t squander it. When we do, our lives are over in a moment. Before we know it, we are old, and then we die. We don’t stop to enjoy the miracle of watching our children as they grow, or even to enjoy the beauty or the fragrance of a flower.

Yesterday, walking out in the woods and fields, I began to fret about all that I hadn’t managed to attain in my work. In general, I feel low self-esteem when it comes to my efficiency, in terms of what I manage to get done. The more I manage to do, the more seems to be left undone. The days that are the busiest make me the most discontented. Whereas when I do nothing at all, I feel perfectly happy. So, on my walk, all the thoughts about how inadequate and inefficient I am were coursing through my mind. I even gave them voice, speaking out loud. Then suddenly I thought – or said -, I don’t need to be doing this. This is all just about doing. And it’s not even about now. It’s about things that did or didn’t get done. I said to myself, I can turn this around. I can enjoy this present moment of walking, and leave all the other stuff behind. So I did. I had a wonderful walk. Before the walk I had felt tired and lacking in energy. Now I felt alive and fresh.

I have a problem (still) with doing. I do not have a problem with being. Being alone with myself, and not having anything to do is wonderful. Something to enjoy. I’m not alone, and not myself. And time is just an artificial construct in which we try to confine and give shape to experience. But to be. truly alive. to experience. is. to be. out of time and mind.

All the news is bad

from today’s stories
– The Trump administration is rolling back Obama era nutritional improvements to school meals, in order to benefit the food industry.
– A former Motherboard editor is being hounded by the Canadian gov’t in order to reveal his sources.
– Israel is trying to prevent tour operators from booking rooms in the West Bank, preventing entry from anybody who has expressed support for the boycott of goods from settlements, and sending thousands of travelers back from the airport for various other reasons.

The pattern hidden in the dust

In the evening I read and listened to a couple of interviews by David Godman, a disciple of Ramana Maharshi. He was born in 1953 and in 1976 arrived in Tiruvannamalai, intending to stay a few weeks. He said he had a little money in his pocket, which would eventually run out, after which he planned to return home to the UK. Life worked out otherwise, and he ended up staying for good. He said that at a certain point, the mountain indicated to him that he could stop thinking about his return or worrying about how to support himself. It was his destiny to be there, under the shadow of Arunachala, like so many before him, including Ramana himself.

In 1977 I traveled to India after completing a yoga course of the Sivananda organization. I’d actually been on my way to Tel Aviv, where I had promised to join the staff of the yoga vedanta center. But while on the way, in Greece, I had decided to delay my arrival a bit in order to go overland to Rishikesh, and visit the ashram where Swami Vishnu Devananda had learned and practiced. I spent about a month in India, and then bought my ticket to Tel Aviv. I thought I would be spending just a few months or a year in Israel/Palestine and indeed after 6 months I returned back to the US. However, something drew me back again to the yoga center in Tel Aviv. I realized that I had begun to feel at home there. I ended up staying in Israel/Palestine just like Godman ended up staying in Tiruvannamalai, almost over the same period.

A couple of days ago I watched a wonderful feature movie called The Violin Player. At 112 minutes, it is fairly short for a feature film, but its slow and measured pace gives depth to it. Only in the final minute, or perhaps when the titles begin to roll at the end, is the film properly understood. There, there is a quotation of something Pablo Picasso apparently said: “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life”.

In South India every morning the women go out and deftly draw in powder a simple or elaborate design known as kollam or rangoli. Being there at the gate, the design gets stepped on and smudged throughout the day, so by the end of the day there isn’t much left of it. The following morning, the woman of the house obliterates what’s left of it and quickly traces a new kollam.

In temples and ashrams, there is an even more elaborate ceremony. In powder or coloured grains of rice, complex yantras are drawn and worshiped. The last time I was at Ramanashram I saw this. At the end of the ceremony, these wonderful yantras are deliberately destroyed, to indicate impermanence.

I’m thinking that sometimes the pattern of life is not obvious or clear to us while we are living it. It is covered and obscured with dust. The plot and its significance may become clear, if at all, only in our final moments.

In the mind of the universe, the underlying pattern is always there, whether we understand it or not. Every flower, every snowflake conceals an elaborate geometry. In our ordinary lifetimes, a hidden pattern gradually emerges and reveals itself , only to be swept away in the sudden act of our death. This must surely happen, in order that a new pattern may be drawn.