“What change has meditation brought about in you?” A dear friend of mine posed this question to me on WhatsApp. Silent contemplation. Where should I begin? The answer seemed simple, yet abstract to put into words. I texted her back with instances of challenges I have been facing in recent times and how I have […]
There is a popular belief that in order to change yourself and clear negative traits or behavioural patterns, you need to roll up your sleeves and work hard, devoting time, analysis and will power. It’s almost as though you are a sculptor dissatisfied with your work and you have to chip and carve away at yourself to smooth off rough corners and reshape certain unattractive parts of yourself…
If we really want to sustain our interest and enthusiasm, then it is helpful at all times I think, to adopt an attitude that ‘I do not know anything at all, but I can wait to discover something new that I have never felt before’.. Invite this possibility, with humility and even before you sleep or before you start the meditation…
It’s common to hear people give advice such as, “Take a break, it’s good for you.” It sounds convincing and appealing and most people do take breaks from whatever they’re doing, on weekends and more specifically on holidays. I’ve come to recognise myself as a workaholic and for long periods of time in my younger […]
In everyone’s life there are difficult times. This is how the medieval Italian poet Dante described his experience : At the mid-point of the path through life, I found Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way Ahead was blotted out. The keening sound I still make shows how hard it is to say […]
Looking back through the mists of time; cutting sharply back through 35 years of the “inner weather landscape” of my consciousness, and the endless scenes and scene changes of my life, I find myself landing centre stage, age 11 years, dressed as the Tin Man, somewhere on the yellow brick road on the way to […]