Second year was a tough time in my life. I was engaged but didn't want to be. I had changed my major and my best friend was killed by a train. I sought for the answers with the expectations that only a 20 year old can have, that the higher learning institution and its chosen ones might provide the guidance I so desperately sought. I can remember little past the revelation that my esteemed professors were mostly tired and merely human. I remember one other thing, still, nearly 30 years later. Stopping the World.
So profound was the call to still the mind that it held the promise of all, but the turning of the mind is like a giant steamroller that goes on and on.
However, we hear tales of the mighty who after dedicated years of discipline, achieve this peaceful magnificence. We think they live on mountaintops, in Indian Ashrams. But hockey legend Wayne Gretzky used to slow time down so the action was so quiet he felt like he had all the time he needed to line up his shot, wind up and make the goal. His focus must have been extreme to clear through the chuffa and frenzy to do that.
It is that chuffa and frenzy that we all are bombarded with. We instinctively know that we must seek the stillness to find clarity. Just as when we look into water, it is only in the stillness that we see the detail in the rocks below and the reflection of the sky above united. The reward is all that we seek for in that place Deepak Chopra calls 'the gap' between thoughts. We find all possibility of acceptance, truth and meaning -- and choice.
Slowing things down is important because it takes us to an entirely different level of understanding.
Consider a film. When we go to see a movie we involve ourselves in another reality and if it's a good film we identify with another's story. That wouldn't be possible if we didn't have the capacity to blend still pictures moving by our field of vision at 24 frames per second into a moving picture.
External stimulation in our lives is like that, a blur that we attempt to make sense of. However, when the machinery slows down we can become cognizant of the reality of our own lives, sitting in the theatre and choosing to involve ourselves in a made up drama.
When the picture slows enough, we can even see the tricks that advertisers used to subliminally direct our behaviour to the concession stand. Only then may we bring our actions back into conscious choice.
Finally, when it turns so slowly that we sit in the blank space between frames it is another experience, one without external input. It is an unfamiliar place and therefore uncomfortable. It's sort of like someone handing us a blank piece of paper inserted in an unending stack of documents filled with information. We are not sure what to think of it. We don't know what to do with it. What is expected of us?
In our mind, the constant stream of thoughts racing by is like the filmstrip. We become involved in the story that's constantly thrown at us. All the while, unconsciously, we attempt to make meaning of the onslaught of data. Occasionally we become conscious of the reality of our role as the viewer and may consider the film as a whole ("This is terrible!"). Sometimes we even consider our place as the viewer in the context of this theatre we choose to enter ("What am I doing here?").
However sometimes we can consider the contexts we find ourselves in, that is, the theatres in the movie of our
lives, in which we act and star. After some practice here we might even consider directing the actor and eventually from a powerful loving place we might understand our capacity to write our story. For that we need the blank piece of paper, the still, silent, waiting gap between our thoughts.
Our inclination is to jump into another pile of paper, or another movie. Or put it another way, to jump on the steamroller of thought. But consider that, at the speed we live, we need the stillness to bring our hearts back into balance and develop the first and last relationship we will ever have: that is, our own with our self.
My belief is that when we can willingly, fearlessly embrace the stillness, we find there the truth of our importance, our place, and the belonging that is ours simply because we are witness. We suspend judgement and considerations and simply give our attention to these moments as portals to dimensions of our existence. The more we practice stillness, the fewer limits we experience and therefore the fewer we project on others. The more love we find there in the deepening perspective and therefore greater capacity to love. We can begin to see others and recognize the power of co creation and perhaps the place of sameness.
Imagine the impact of that
on the plot line of your life story. Imagine inspiring stories in places of beauty, with characters secure and loving in relationships based in honesty and acceptance. Imagine stopping the world.
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Biography
