Forget about Time. It’s all about Space.
I’m always particularly careful about discussing meditation with strangers — mostly because of the numerous misconceptions around the notion. And I must warn you that if you’re expecting to read about placing calves over your neck in an affirmatively appealing manner or tips for mastering the Padmasana, you are bound to be disappointed. However, dreaders of absolutes and percolators of countless theories about the surrounding universe, such as myself, may find the perspective interesting.
The ultimate source of suffering amidst the ongoing pandemic for most people I know or observe via media seems to be anxiety about time. “It’s passing so quickly!” or “There’s so much I have to do!” or “I certainly didn’t have time for this now!” are the most frequent status updates I’ve seen over the course of the past few weeks. And even though I’ve been wanting to touch upon the subject for years now, the current state of affairs seems to be more appropriate.
With all the time and performance optimization methods discussed in modern media and productivity skills impelled by employers, it is no surprise that we are constantly in a rush. Multi-tasking abilities have become the new superpower and the propensity towards exploring and experiencing the countless options of whatever there may be out there is now the modern normal. As a result, we’ve been driving sales of disposable tableware, paper towels and plastic shopping bags — after all, time is now money and we certainly couldn’t care less about dish-washing or adding kitchen cloths to the overflowing piles of laundry that we would have loved to take off our daily to-do lists, had it been an option (and definitely has been, for the slightly better-off bourgeois). We spend thrice as much on salads, merely for the sake of tripling productivity with our daytime jobs, and order groceries from a local supermarket via the internet to avoid an extra five-minute walk through the neighborhood. And that’s just a portion of ways in which we’ve lost touch with the surrounding space.
It was a few years ago that I first caught myself trapped in a mechanical state of being. While I waited for the kettle to boil water for my morning coffee, I would try to throw in laundry, brush my teeth, take out the trash or maybe even buy a couple of items from the grocery store downstairs for the afternoon. In essence, I was being productive — a multitasker extraordinaire of sorts, as I liked to refer to myself. For years, I had been used to overspending my earnings on eating out and outsourcing as many tasks as possible. Little did I realize how absurd my salary expectations were — simply to afford to get my hair blow-dried at a salon in the morning or have a cleaning lady dust the wooden surfaces in my apartment.
What changed everything was my interest in Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way (and I certainly would not want to devalue Tai Chi, my biggest philia of recent years). I had already been to India and tasted the sweet savor of wheatgrass, but, still, I had little understanding of the Causal Body or the significance of Ratha Kalpana as a powerful metaphor for mastering the Self. A WhatsApp group by Asad Braverman, the founder of the https://BePeriod.com active learning community, proved to be cathartic. I must admit, I have never been great at sticking with habits or accepting specific ways as ultimate paths, but always capable of extracting important messages that I believe we are constantly surrounded and blessed with throughout our lives. The task for a dozen members in the group was simple: to observe ourselves throughout the day and report a moment when we’d catch ourselves being distracted i.e. mechanical. As I adopted the practice, I spent minutes stirring my coffee and brushing my hair, watering plants and making a simple omelet. Intentional focus on the five senses served as a pathway to a boundless world of perceptions. Not only did I get better at virtually everything, but I even tossed the pills I had been prescribed “for the rest of my life” (this is a whole new topic I intend to discuss in detail for those that may want to know more about mental health and so-called best practices in modern psychiatry). Forgetting about time, I got to know my surroundings. I began to hear voices beyond the uttered words and read gestures concealed with ear-to-ear smiles. It finally sunk in, what the interdisciplinary approach I had been exposed to at high school was really about — picking truths and tossing fronts, seeking commonalities and avoiding rencounters.
And this naturally leads me to one of my favorite topics and possibly the true solution of modern-day issues: the interconnectedness of the universe. How is that relevant, you wonder? I once watched Nassim Haramein, a Swiss amateur physicist and founder of the Resonance Project, who basically argued that the ultimate reason why scientists have possibly hit a cul-de-sac of sorts is the fact that they have locked themselves up in their labs, losing touch with the very world that they are theorizing about. Haramein’s way of exploring Einstein’s field equations is through hiking, yoga and general interest in the minuscule intricacies of Mother Nature.
To me, that’s a powerful practice, an invaluable habit that promises to protect us from extrinsic stereotypes and infuse us with boons of intrinsic sensitivities — the imperative to mindfulness and conscious living, which has been trending lately among intellectual elites [and beyond]. As much as it pains me to watch my loved ones trapped in their smartphones and the mad rush of the everyday, I am genuinely looking forward to seeing the fruits of mandatory lockdown, involuntary meditation and devaluation of time.
I’m sure you’ve already caught yourself losing track of the calendar and confusing Friday for Saturday. Yes, TGIF may not seem as relevant at the moment, but the loss is insignificant compared to the joy of waking up to TGIM.
So, dust your dejected book shelves, gently massage that shea butter moisturizer into your thirsty calves and stick the tip of your nose into a glass of fragrant local wine. Smell it. Smell everything — even the subtle scent of unbathed skin over your shoulder, which is always there to remind you how very human you really are, standing here, in seemingly petrifying silence.
By great luck (or lack thereof, for many), you are no longer in a rush.
