Living Creation (1.b)

Let me continue from where I stopped during the previous part (1.a). I had been looking at each part of my body, appreciating the contours and beauty of each part, chiseled by the master craftsman. Now it is time that I own up my body as it is, and not as I would have loved it to be. I have very little power or option to change the way I have been created (and even the best of plastic surgeons may not be able to give an original appearance to my body, as I have been created!), but it would do me good to accept my body as I behold it here and now, with all its proportions, shapes, and contours. Let me accept my body as it is, without wishing anything to be different from what it is!

I would like to apply the Ignatian application of the senses contemplation to “commune” with my body as I behold it here and now! I had already completed the first part of the contemplation, seeing each part of my body; now let me listen to my body, let me listen to every little sound that my body makes; the heartbeat, the heaving of my chest, the breathing in and out, the knuckles, the movement of different parts of the body… let me listen to my body. What does it say to me? Let me run down my body from top to bottom listening to each part, and maybe even in the stillness of their being, they may be telling me something profound; maybe the muscles may ask me to release them, the chest may wish to breathe in and breathe out at its own pace… Let me pay close attention to their “speech”.

I have almost forgotten how I smell? It is not that I have to smell my body only when I wear some fragrance or body spray; everybody has its own odour, and scientists may call this pheromones, which are supposedly responsible for love attractions, all that I am interested in here is to be aware of how I smell. Am I comfortable with the body odour of my self, or do I hate it, and wish to cover it up with an artificial body spray? The next phase of the exercise is to taste how my body is; new-borns and toddlers do it spontaneously. When toddlers suck their thumbs, what they do is taste their body, though Sigmund Freud would have a different explanation. Let me lick different parts of my body and see for me how I taste!

The last part of this exercise is to feel my body as it is; to be alert and conscious of what is happening to my body; if I am not going to be conscious of what is happening to my body, then who can? Let me close my eyes, and lying on the floor on my back (in savasana – dead body posture), legs spread apart, and both the hands about 10 inches from the hip… let me become conscious of each part of my body, and let me enter into a dialogue with each of them! What do they have to tell me here and now? Let me release every form of pain or tension and uneasiness, and relax all the muscles. Let me not hold any tension within, but leave them all slowly and joyously.

When I have relaxed my entire body, I might fall asleep, but I would appeal to my body not to fall asleep, and sure enough the body would respond to my appeal positively. There is no obedient subordinate to me than my own body. I continue to lie on my back in savasana position. Now following the exercise by Anthony De Mello, considering myself as dead, and my body placed before others, let me see how different persons respond to this body. Let me look at this body as if I am a third person; look how different persons look at the body. Let me listen to what they say, what they do. Is there anything which is striking to me in the way how they treat my body? Let me stay for a while looking at my body… Then I would be ready to enter into the third phase of the day’s journey inward!

Art of Listening - Body

It is obvious that the person who does not listen to his/her inner self, cannot listen to nature and to other persons. The art of listening needs to start with us, and we need to go through the process of fine-tuning not only our sensibilities, but also our priorities. When a person begins to hear less due to old age, or due to any other ailment, the doctors may provide a hearing aid; but there is a process through which this person has to go through in order to make the best of the electronic device: first of all, the hearing aid has to be tuned according to the specific problem of the person. But that does not solve the problem; when the person starts to use the aid, he/she begins to hear all the noises, the wind, the fan; all the noises are amplified, including the sound of persons. And here begins the tedious and painstaking process of sorting out sounds from noises. That is what we need to undertake before we become good listeners.

After Windows became a household name in all offices, one of the catch-words that went rounds was 'multi-tasking'; that is to say, the computer can do several works simultaneously. You may be typing a letter, while the printer is printing yet another document, and song may be being played. It is only the human mind which is capable of multi-tasking. When we are reading, not all of us pay attention to what we read; while listening to another person, only part of our attention is given to the speaker, while the mind is elsewhere. This can create a lot of problem in getting the best out of our efforts. At least when we are with human persons, we may need to avoid multi-tasking, and give our full selves to the person, because persons deserve our full attention.

It is a problem, because it is not that easy to give our full attention to what we are busy with; our minds are too fickle, and we may find ourselves helpless before the mind. But it is not impossible to control our minds, in order to focus our attention to what we want to. That requires training, tuning, even fine-tuning. There is a need to sift the different sounds that reach our minds, taking the ones that need our concentration, and throwing out the unwanted noise. In communication process as proposed by Strauss, between the speaker and the receiver is there a medium, but over and above the medium is a noise, which is caused by the external circumstances, and this may distort the message that is being communicated. We need to reduce the noise, so that we don't need to strain ourselves to get the message.

We cannot remove the noise that the mind presents (the excuse often is that the world is full of different noises), unless we take a dip into our inner selves, and that journey can sometimes be arduous and painful. One may come to know certain bitter truths, which had been kept hidden for several years; some of the hidden motives and agenda may pop up during the process, and it may be quite embarrassing to the person concerned, to find a not-so healthy self. But every growth process is painful; it is only after pruning that a plant can grow larger, and bear more fruits. If we are afraid of the pain that is intrinsic in any growth process, then we may have stunted growth, and should be happy with partial reality that our senses present.

We can enter into our inner selves only through the body, the senses, feelings and emotions. Therefore we shall need to start with a deep awareness of our body, how it responds to different impulses, responses. I find a quiet place, where no one will disturb me for the next five to ten minutes. I take a comfortable pasture, so that I don't move my body parts during the next few minutes; close my eyes in order to gain better concentration. This is going to be an exercise on the body. I start from the head; how do I feel, feel its weight, feel the strains and tensions on the forehead; move to each of the body parts: from forehead to the eyes, eye brows, nose, lips, chin, ears... Let me move slowly becoming aware of the different parts of my body. I will not try to change them, but just become aware of them. During the day, I will try to repeat this exercise once or twice, in order to become conscious of my body. Slowly my body may open its gates, for me to enter into the inner self!

Ever New, Ever Fresh!

New year! So they say, and I really wonder if any particular day can be called new! What about the other 364 days of the year? Do the days become old as they pass? In short, every day is new and every hour is new, and every minute is new. In fact, for the discerning hearts, every moment comes with decked in new attire, new attitude. It all depends on how we look at reality. Think of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said that every drop of water running through the river is new, though we might think that the water is the same, and that is what made this philosopher say that we do not get into the same river twice. Just as every moment that dawns sinks into past and future is made into present, and though we may think that we have moments ever new, ever present, but we don’t realize that every moment is born anew, eternity is sliced for us into fragments, and every moment is forever new, forever fresh. But the moot question is, do we ever realize the beauty of this newness all around us.

I sometimes do a simple exercise to make my senses look at reality with new senses. I go to a vast expanse, and stand in a particular place, close my eyes for a while, and then open them wide… awaken all my senses, sense of smell, hearing, seeing, tasting and feeling, as if I am in an altogether new situation. I turn even the familiar trees, plants, objects into new; gently forcing my senses to believe that I am seeing them, hearing them, feeling them for the first time. Often my senses so get used to reality around me that I fail to take note of things, even when they bear newness with them. I go close to the flower plants, and look at them carefully, and try to find something new which I had not taken note of earlier. Sure enough, often I come across many new elements in the most familiar surroundings.

Our senses do not wish to acknowledge that we are presented with new reality every moment, and it is demanding for the senses to adjust themselves according to the new realities, and so they wish to retain the old memories, and pretend as if there is nothing new in the reality. It is only when we take things for granted that we get used to things, we get fed up of them, we take things for granted. Often we hear people make excuses saying, Oh, I thought it was the same old thing, and therefore I didn’t take note of the changes. Reality all around us is ever new, and we need to focus our attention to find the newness; it is easy to forget the newness and indulge in the ever old, so that we cannot find vitality and newness in all that we do.

It is not only the external reality which is full of newness, but every human being too is ever new. Scientists have found that there are hundreds of body cells get replaced each day, so much so after a few years, we have a brand new body, with brand new body cells, all of them having been replaced in the preceding months. Therefore the skin, bones, even the nail get new cells, and most of the time we do not even realize that we have a new body. All that we take for granted is that we have the same old body which we had inherited at child birth, and we had grown in size, but have maintained the same elements. So also everything is changed in the universe at every moment; the stars and planets keep changing their places, and there are ever new developments in the universe that we cannot even predict what would happen the very next day. It is not that they are left to the fate of chances, but there is newness all around.

The whole universe is charged with newness, and though many of the realities surrounding us seem to bear the monotony of mundane reality, they all have the potentiality to be new and remain ever fresh, and it is time that we open our minds to recognize that newness all around us. Today I would like to pause for a while and recollect to my mind all the persons I met and events I participated in, and try to find out the new elements I had failed to take note of. Reality cannot remain monotonous, because remaining unchanging or monotonous may be the death-knell of any kind of reality. As one of my old professors used to say, change is the only thing that does not change, and every change brings in newness. It is this newness which makes life worth living, and makes life all the more meaningful. I know when I meet my partner in the morning, I will know that she is a new person, and that when I see my boss in the office the next day, and if I tell myself that I am going to meet a new person, life may become quite adventurous and exciting. Let me start looking at reality with new eyes each day, each hour, each minute, and each second, and my life cannot remain the same again!