Category Archives: environment

That Which is From the Sea, Shall Return to the Sea

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As I sauntered along the shores of the Ganges River in Rishikesh several years ago, I was given a gift.

In the High Holy Lands Where Magic Sometimes Happens

As I ambled, headed upstream in a relaxed kind of mood on that sandy riverbank, I happened to glance down. There, right at my foot I noticed a small shell. Flat with the stereotypical fan shape so many shells have, and a about a centimetre  across. I picked it up.

At that moment I sensed that this little shell was a gift from the river to me. Still, I had to wonder how it got there, a seashell on the sandy banks of a freshwater river with it’s source not too far from where I stood, just a bit higher up in the Himalayas – the highest mountain range on the surface of the planet.

One possibility is that this shell originated in the sea that once existed in the lands above, where the Himalayas now stand. Mind you, I’ve only ever heard of the fossils of sea creatures being found in that region.

Another possibility suggested to me at the time, is that some other traveller having picked up the shell on a beach somewhere other on their travels, kept it with them till they arrived at this sacred place.

Then, perhaps as an offering that traveller – fellow pilgrim?- let that shell go into the waters of Maa Ganga.

Of course it doesen’t matter in the least which – if either – of these scenarios  reflect what actually happened. Somehow this little shell travelled from an ocean somewhere (and somewhen!) to this precise spot on the banks of the Ganga to be discovered, to be gifted to me.

I received that offering, now a gift from the river to me, with a deep and prayerful thank you, and a sense of the sacredness of that moment and of that place.

And, today, the journey made by that little shell, has come to a kind of full circle. This morning I released it to Varuna, to the sea here on the Pacific Coast at the beach over the dunes from the hermitage.

That initial giving and receiving  took place about eight years ago now and I have that little shell with me ever since.

First I wore it around my neck attached to a mala (prayer beads) made of Rudraksha seeds I used for chanting mantra.

After that, it migrated to another mala – this one made of beads of black volcanic rock, perhaps very fitting given the little shell’s possibly ancient origins.

Then, one day about a year or so ago, that little shell developed a crack and then shattered into several little pieces.

Still, I treasured those remains, those fragment I kept with my other ‘holy bits and pieces’. Then, after a while, I began to get the sense that I was going to have to return this little shell to the sea from where it had come.

I knew, though, that it would have to be the right place, a place I was drawn or led to. So, time passed, we travelled to several different hermitages for about a year.

Then, two days ago, we moved here. To a cozy hermitage on the side of a sand dune, just across a bridge from and on the outskirts of a little seaside town on the Pacific Coast of Australia.

It’s one of those spots where the elevation, distance, and whatever else by nature’s arrangement, all combine in just the right way to allow a vast view that takes the eyes to the curve of Earth herself; the horizon isn’t flat here, it’s a sweeping giant curve. Add to this the equally dramatic view offered by the dome of the sky.

The coast is beautiful here. Not that it’s not special in so many places, but there is something here that speaks to me.

At the top of the dune just beside the hermitage there is an extremely convenient bench seat overlooking the beauty of the ocean.

And it just felt right: here is the place that seeks the return of the remains of that little shell, by now reduced to a couple of small fragments.

So, after a time sitting and contemplating at the above-mentioned convenient seat, I walked down the dune to the beach, and then to the water’s edge. In a mood of prayer, with the edge of the incoming waves lapping at my feet.

After first consigning to the water a shell native to this shore, to show the way to my little shell, I thought of the journey that little shell and I had undertaken together. Then I thought of how far and for how long that little shell had travelled so far on its own journey.

Then I returned what was left of that little shell to the sea from which it had come. And I watched it carried by the waves returning from the sands of the land to waters of the endless ocean.

PS See the Lava Rock Mala? Well, it too has changed form in recent times. It is now no longer a full length neck mala; it has evolved to become a compact and convenient pocket Mala for what you might say is ‘everyday use.

Things of beauty are, like all things made of

material stuff, transient.

Beauty, however, is not

Hiccups on the Road to Enlightenment

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These last couple of days I’ve been getting a good lesson in enlightenment. Wait, that’s a silly thing to say. What I mean is that these last couple of days I’ve been getting a good lesson in what it means to be not enlightened. That’s a bit better I think.

Not that I’m not receiving lessons all the time; the reality of not being enlightened, is that the entirety of one’s life is really one long ongoing lesson.

Anyway, moving right along.

Not our actual hermitage

We’re about to move to another hermitage, to one more safe-haven by the side of the road (in this case a very small, very quiet road). Obviously it’s a process we’ve been through quite a few times. This time, the concept excited us (well it usually does!) and the arrangements began on a smooth and happy note.

But, just as when any of us make a plan, take some action to fulfil that plan, and proceed from a good start, the path forward doesn’t always remain smooth and hiccup free.

And so it is this time with the hermits’ plan to relocate: one or two quite small hiccups have cropped up that we have had no control over.

‘Quite small’ are the key words here: it’s more my reaction to said hiccups that’s the point of this post.

You see, I’m not enlightened, nor am I the toughest kid on the block, and my skin’s not that thick. As well as that I’m no expert at letting things run off me like water off a duck’s back (guess who is a cliché lover?).

You talkin’ ’bout us?

The hiccups under discussion themselves are trivial and as I say out of our hands. As such, they are not especially interesting to talk about.

Getting back to the water off a duck’s back thing: it’s actually a pretty neat description of what occurs when one in enlightened. Just a thought for now.

Contrary to popular myth, being enlightened isn’t a flash or some sort of mystical thunderbolt from heaven or from some other transcendental wherever, a flash that leads to bliss ongoing, superhuman or magical powers; It doesn’t render the enlightened one an intellectual or any other kind of giant.

And right to the point, being enlightened will not protect the enlightened one from the normal, natural apparently real troubles, ups and downs, pain, illnesses, sorrow and grief, and all the rest of being a physical creature living in a physical world.

What enlightenment does mean – in my interpretation at any rate – is the enlightened one is able to let these perfectly normal problems, hurts, pain, illness, and so on, (Oh the joy of repeating a great cliché) to roll off them like water off a duck’s back.

Of course the enlightened ones still experience the pain, the sadness, grief, the disappointments and so on; it’s just that those ones have attained to the knowledge – been enlightened to -that none of those things can really hurt them.

Sure they are still there, the pains in the body, the sadness or whatever in the mind. But the real us – the true Self that is the consciousness that witnesses all that’s going on in our lives right now – is unaffected.

That true Self, that Consciousness, is constant, it is and has always been existent and unchanging. All those pains in our bodies, those emotions, distress and the rest in our minds, will pass; they aren’t permanent. However that Self, that ‘I’ won’t pass, and it is permanent.

Anyway, back to the current topic. What happened to me was this: the hiccups refered to were minor – less than trivial in the context of the ‘real world’ – yet the disappointment resulting from one, and the annoyance coming from the other, were profound.

An enlightened person might say ‘That was disappointing.’ Or, ‘That was annoying.’ But me? Well I sank into a pit of negative emotions and negative (to put it mildly) thinking. I may as well have declared: ‘I am disappointment embodied.  I am annoyance itself.’

Look dear reader, this was supposed to be a fairly light, quick telling of me reminding myself that the pains, sorrows and other stuff of the world can’t hurt me. That ‘me’ is the Self I talked about earlier, the ‘I’ who is, as I said, the witness to my experience here and now.

So, in conclusion as they say, all there’s left for me to say (in this post at any rate) is that I am most definitely not enlightened. Having said that, I wouldn’t say that I’m completely unenlightened. There was a time (a long stretch of time) when, far from letting things roll off me like water off a duck’s back, they very often overwhelmed and threatened to drown me.

Of course there is a lot more to be said on the subject of enlightenment. Suffice it to say that it is my dream and deep, deep aspiration to one day, one life (if there is indeed another one waiting for me) to get there, to realise enlightenment.

As The Seekers used to sing:

Some day, one day
time’s not so far away.

PS There is no need to worry. I feel a bit better now. I managed to gain a little perspective, a truer perspective. In fact gaining perspective is an important step on the path to enlightenment. The tricky thing about perspective though is hanging onto it once it’s been gained.

Bushland Contemplation

Wear the Tender Miracles: When a Magpie Sings

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Wear the Tender Miracles

What a beautiful expression, I thought when I first heard this said a couple of weeks ago.

I’m not sure who said it, but that’s not so important. And  I thought isn’t quite right either. My reaction was more from the heart than the head; more visceral, more ‘real’ somehow than something concocted by the mind.

Now we’ve dealt with one of the ‘w’ questions writers so love, there is another that’s important to ask at this stage: What does this fantastic sentence actually mean?

Naturally I’d had this question from the beginning as well, but despite it going round in my mind almost like a mantra, I don’t think I’ve quite worked it out yet. Perhaps a part of the reason for this failure is the nature of my reaction when first hearing it that I mentioned above: My reaction was one of the heart, not of the mind, so harder to look at analytically.

Still, the emotions and even the (spiritual) heart itself originate in the mind. So, let me share with you what I’ve come up with so far.

Wear the tender miracles. It seems to be a very straightforward sentence. But is it merely a well-intentioned piece of advice? Is it more a spiritual injunction? Well, as I thought about it, I realised it was in fact both.

Certainly it feels like good advice – though before we can finally decide that, we need to work out the meaning and intent of the words we have. Mind you having said that, I have to say it resonates with me as something one might hear from a spiritual director, or read in a sacred text of some kind.

So, what exactly are tender miracles? Are they soft and gentle, happy happenings that come from some place ‘out of the ordinary’?

You know, in my Contemplative Photography practice and in my earlier Street Photography days, I had a few maxims that I worked by and tried to live by. One of those maxims was: There is no such thing as ordinary. Which is another way of saying that there is nothing that is not extraordinary, and therefore out of the ordinary.

Photo by data9090 on Freeimages.com

Just now there are several Magpies making beautiful melodies outside the hermitage. I know very well that these vocalizations that for this particular species represent an expression of biological and or evolutionary impulses or drives.

But, is that all there is to it? I don’t think so. As I listen, I smile. And my heart feels something. I sense beauty, and realise that I am receiving a gift; you might even say it’s a miracle.

Biological imperative or tender miracle? Why can’t it be both?

How many times a day do we experience or encounter ‘little things’, that appear ordinary, but are hardly noticed (or not noticed at all?) in our hurried and harried lives? Yet, anyone of those little things may be a tender miracle waiting for you to come along.

I know, the glorious singing of Magpies is a fairly obvious miracle, not so hard to miss – if one looks at that way. But even then, I know we don’t always notice. And what about the smile from a random stranger passing on the street? Or the comforting warmth of the sun? All things easily missed and if we actually do notice, we likely will simply take for granted.

Talking about taking for granted. What about the million little things our loved-ones do for us every single day that we either don’t notice, or just let slide without any real attention? Better stop here: this list really could go on forever.

Now, wear. Of course we all know what wear means; we might wear a coat, a hat, shoes. We all wear clothes. There really is no end to what we humans can and do wear!

Perhaps, though there is a deeper way we can think about wear. When a hat (purely by way of example obviously) comes your way, you at the very least try it on to see how it fits, how it looks, how it feels.

Of course you do need to be paying attention when engaging in these tryings on don’t you? So why not as you live your lives and when miracles might be coming?

Well the first thing to be said is that in our busy, distracted and stressed out lives (sorry to be so repetitious) much of the time we aren’t ‘there and available’ to pay attention. It seems that our minds are rarely in sync with what we’re doing with out bodies, where we are or even when. The mind is more often than not way off in the future or stuck in the past somewhere.

So, if we want to wear the tender miracle, we need to begin to cultivate presence. We need to be paying attention to and in every moment we possibly can. It’s really just about Mindfulness . In this way we make ourselves available to actually notice and recognise when a miracle come to us.

Okay, the miracle has happened, you’ve noticed it, seen it for what it is, what now? Put it on! After all it’s yours. When you put on a new hat you look in the mirror: How does it look? How does it feel?

And as with the hat, if you like what you see, you proceed to go about your normal life, wearing the miracle for all to see. People will notice: after all if you are wearing a new hat and think it suits you, your demeanour, your smile, and your stature, the way you carry yoursef, will say it all.

But really that last bit is about yourself. Don’t forget yourself, share the good vibes with you. See yourself being contented, satisfied, grateful.  Wear the miracle lightly.

One word we haven’t really looked at is tender. We all know what tender means, and I’m sure you agree that not a lot of whatever we might call miracles could be described as tender. In any case, most of us know that life doesn’t really work that way.

Much of what we experience in life – both the big stuff and the little stuff – looks and feels more like hellish nightmares than some sort of ‘miracle’. Besides, a grumpy boss, or a sudden illness, are both to grab our attention more readily than singing Magpies.

Life is full of variables . It’s unpredictable in that we can”t know for certain what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and most of the time we won’t ever get to the why something happens either (there’s those ‘w’ words again).

What I’m going to say now is just my theory. I can’t say I’ve realised its truth. And I probably won’t get there anytime soon either.

Every single thing that happens in the Universe – absolutely everything – is a miracle. Why? Because everything that happens expresses – manifests – the laws of nature, the laws of life, the universe, and everything else.

Maybe the most tender, the most beautiful, the truest miracle is the one we are actually there and now, sorry here and now, to experience and acknowledge it for what it is, good, bad, or anything else.

Pay attention; be present in the presence of the miracle.

love from me to you.

When Love is a Yoga and Lovers are Yogis

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There was light at the end of the research tunnel

These last few days I’ve been researching and thinking about an idea for a blog post. But I’ve come to realise that I am grossly underqualified to write about the topic I had in mind. Let me put it another way: I am completely and utterly unqualified in any way whatsoever to go there. In fact, after all the research, I think I’m going to disqualify myself from ever going there in writing.

However, I’m a great believer in the idea that no quest for knowledge is ever a waste of time or effort; there is always something to be learned. During my research I came across a topic I believe I am qualified to discuss, as it forms an integral and vital part of my own personal spiritual practice.

Why I’ve decided to write this post, though, is because I made a discovery that lead to an insight that I know will lead to a great progress in that practice. It’s nothing new, not really, but it was one of those occasions we’ve all experienced of ‘I knew that, but now I really know it.’ For me, it was a realisation of something that till then had been a nice cosy theory and belief.

Bhakti Yoga is that practice. It is really a key foundation, a valuable component of my spiritual life.

Wikipedia opens its entry on Bhakti Yoga (see the link just above) with a description of the practice that mirrors what I think is the traditional understanding of Bhakti Yoga:

Bhakti Yoga (also called Bhakti Marga, literally the path of Bhakti) is a spiritual path or practice within Hinduism focused on loving devotion towards any personal deity.

In the same entry there is a description of the origins and meanings of the two words, Bhakti and Yoga:

The Sanskrit word Bhakti is derived from the root bhaj, which means “divide, share, partake, participate, to belong to”. The word also means ‘attachment, devotion to, fondness for, homage, faith or love, worship, piety to something as a spiritual, religious principle or means of salvation’.

The term Yoga literally means “union, yoke”, and in this context connotes a path or practice for ‘salvation, liberation’. yoga referred to here is the ‘joining together, union’ of one’s Atman (true self) with the concept of Supreme Brahman (true reality).

For some, dancing while chanting the names of their God, demonstrates their devotion and celebrates their union with each other and with God

In other words, those called to a religious or spiritual life, practise Bhakti Yoga whenever they pray or otherwise express devotion towards their personal conception of God, or the Divine. This particular definition seems to be saying that such a conception of the Divine, or God, is in the form of a personal deity who is a kind of representative of true reality, which the devotee is aspiring to join with.

Some Bhakta Yogis are full-time, full-on practitioners. People like contemplative nuns or monks, hermits who retire from the world into seclusion. Anyone basically whose entire life and activities are spent in devotion.

So, when I discovered all this, I became intrigued; I decided to go off on a tangent and explore the word Bhakti itself. Wikipedia has a separate entry for the word on its own:

Bhakti is a term common in Indian religions which means attachment, fondness for, devotion to, trust, homage, worship, piety, faith, or love. In Indian religions, it may refer to loving devotion for a personal God

…

is often a deeply emotional devotion based on a relationship between a devotee and the object of devotion.

…

In ancient texts the term simply means participation, devotion and love for any endeavor.

May refer to devotion to a personal god? While I thought this entry doesn’t contradict our first quote above, it does seem to broaden, and deepen, the meaning of Bhakti. Expand might be the better word.

In some traditions a simple life on the road is a way to commit full time to Bhakti or devotion.

It struck me that that object of devotion might be anything. Or even everything. You see? I told you it wasn’t a new idea. It’s just that it’s resonated deeply within me now. It appears that the object of Bhakti Yoga practice doesn’t necessarily have to be a ‘personal god’.

Many many people would say ‘I like animals’ or ‘I think we should save the world’. But, while that may imply a kind of love for or at least a fondness for, I think Bhakti is something more – actually several somethings more!

For example, some people have a particular attraction to and love for, the ocean, or it might be a river they view as, if not sacred in a religious sense, then as special to them in some deep, comforting, even therapeutic way. Others have similar relationships with and feelings for trees, or even a particular tree.

Animals as either individuals or as a species or group, can have the same appeal and call to other people. Then there are those who feel strongly in their hearts you could say, that Earth itself is a sacred object, or others have a knowing that the planet is a living entity and worthy of our devotion.

Bhakti begins with love and devotion, which is about caring for, affection towards, loyalty to, emotional engagement with the object of devotion. But even more than that, there is faith in that object of devotion; faith as in trust, confidence that the love is real, that the ‘relationship’ is sound and real.

Homage and worship too are key aspects of Bhakti. The deep inner feeling we have towards a thing, person, or other being, that is beyond what we normally call ‘love’. It’s about seeing and actually realizing ‘in our hearts’ our desire to be merged or united with that thing, person, or other being.

Actually, seeing that word other just now got me thinking. I had to go back and reread our definition of Yoga up there near the beginning. It says Yoga means ‘union, yoke’. It goes on to add: yoga refers to a ‘joining together, union’.

This passage seems to be suggesting that Yoga (in our case Bhakti Yoga) is both an already existing union, and a process of joining together to achieve union. One thing I would say here is that in my practice of Bhakti (and love as a general thing to strive for and be) it’s both.

Trees are special beings for many people from a whole variiety of cultures all over the world

But, in the end, it seems to me that the process or practice, the path of Bhakti, serves to awaken us, to assist us to acknowledge, recognise, and realise in that really knowing way, our pre-existent true nature.

That true essential nature can be said to be the reality of our oneness with all things, living and non-living. And their oneness with us too of course. In fact, by putting it that way, I’m saying there is only one, or oneness. What’s that expression? One without a second.

May you be a Bhakta Yogi. Or, perhaps you already are one?

Love and peace from Paul the Hermit

Life has manifested itself as the multitudinous forms that comprise the universe. It is the one Universal Life, Power or Shakti (the laws of the universe or natural laws) that controls, guides and actuates all movements and activities in all beings, creatures and things.

                — Swami Ramdas

A TRIBUTE TO THAT WHICH IS SEEN

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An affinity with trees;
crowns moved by the breeze.
    The Sentinels stand firm.

Sentinel Rising
Neighbours
In the Grove of the Sentinels

A Grove of trees we came to know well as The Sentinels, a creek, a field of grass, and nature in abundance.

Our cottage was small, but richer than all.

We do indeed stand always upon sacred ground.

Peace and love

Paul

A small remembrance and a prayer of gratitude for some old and sadly missed friends.

Sentinel Magic

My Visit to the Beach, and a Poem Shared

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Greetings friends

One of the key elements of the current temporary hermitage, the current safe-haven by the side of the road, is that it is literally two minutes walk from a very uncrowded and quiet coastal beach.

It is a place of golden sands (I know that’s a cliche but in this case I have the evidence!), gentle wave action, and the promise of a possible serenity of a kind I’ve not been close to for a long while.

While I don’t visit this little slice of Pacific coast every day, I get to walk and or sit there several days a week. And when I do, I find that it’s always uplifting and relaxing. A reminder too, of my oneness with all nature. All of us are actually nature, along with every other living thing on our planet (and of course elsewhere too).

Today, for the second time I built a little ‘shrine’ on the sand.  Walking away from my little temporary temple, a poetic voice entered my mind and wrote itself a few lines. Too engrossed in the moment, I neglected to record it on my phone, so when I got back to the hermitage I wrote it as remembered.

And now, I would like to share it with you. I am grateful that I am actually able to share it, so thank you.

WE STAND ON SACRED GROUND

I planted the branch,
the branch of a fallen tree person.
On the beach,
in the sand of the beach.

And I built a shrine
around that branch.
A pop-up shrine.
Shells, stones, and a piece of coal.

A shrine to Varuna.
A shrine to Surya, to Saraswati.
A shrine to all the gods
of Earth, Sky, Water.
A shrine to the gods of all beings.

A shrine on the beach
is subject to tidal flow.
And soon, this simple shrine,
pop-up and temporary in nature,
will be engulfed.

Lord Varuna will make his claim.
What has emerged, must always return.

with love and in peace

   

Flee, Be Silent, and Pray Always

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A few days ago I began a new work to study and contemplate in my not quite daily Lectio Divina practice. It’s actually a spiritual classic that, although I’ve read it before, I felt the need to explore a little more, dig a little deeper, rather than simply reading through it as I did the first time.

It is The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers by Henri Nouwen. It is essentially a sort of guide book for those of us who are looking to live more spiritually oriented lives. And I agree with the author when he suggests that the Desert fathers and mothers are the ultimate examples for us to today, even though they lived several hundred years ago.

I haven’t gotten very far in the book; like I say it’s going to be a slower, more reflective process this time (I’m amazed how little I remember as I reread now). A small story the author tells us by way of describing how he’s structured the book, is actually where I’ve left off, so that I can share it with you before I go on with the text and forget!

Abba Arsenius (courtesy Wikipedia)

It concerns Abba Arsenius who was a high ranking Roman official working in the household of the Emperor. Clearly he was looking for a more meaningful, more spiritually oriented lifestyle away from the dogma running people’s lives, politics, the decadence and the rest, because he constantly prayed to God, seeking a way out that would lead him ‘to salvation’. He was wanting badly to be free.

Well, he heard an answer, from deep within his soul:

Flee, be silent and pray always.

So, that’s what he did, fleeing first obviously. I don’t know the rest of his story. I mean I could look him up, but for our purposes here today, all we need to know is that he took off secretly to Egypt and went to live alone in the desert.

Nouwen believes:

“The words flee, be silent and pray summarize the spirituality of the desert. They indicate the three ways of preventing the world from shaping us in its image and are thus the three ways to life in the Spirit.”

Flee. It’s quite a strong word isn’t it? On the face of it, it simply means run away or escape. But it seems to suggest something more urgent, as if the one doing the fleeing needs to get away as quickly as possible; sticking around could be (or actually is) dangerous.

And that, as I said, is where I stopped to think. Sorry, I mean contemplate. I was so struck by the concept: in its essence, it is exactly the life I am attempting to live. Anyway, since reading it I’ve been thinking a lot about the three imperatives given to Arsenius in that very succinct answer he received to his question.

In fact, looking the word up just now I see that some slang terms for flee are: bolt, scram, schedaddle, or get the heck of out Dodge (or in the case of Arsenius, Rome). Let’s just say, to flee means to run away as quickly as you can, to escape imminent danger of some kind, real or metaphorical.

I read once of a woman who had the debilitating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In an attempt to recover and heal, she moved to a remote cottage in a tiny town ‘in the middle of nowhere’. Why such a drastic move? Surely if she is ill she should stay near to doctors and other resources?

Well, for her being in a city was the problem. Noise, crowds, pollution, pressure to conform and consume, interaction on so many levels all the time with other people, trying to meet daily needs in a complex, crowded and hectic environment was precisely what was making her ill.

Not to mention the effects on mental health that living in such conditions has on a lot of people, and I think we can all relate to some degree to this idea. We’ve all felt sometimes (or even very often) how we would like to just get away from it all.

For me it was about the gross materialism, the lack of ethical and moral thinking in the running of businesses, governments, and the rest; I longed also for a deeper connection with what one might call the sacred; more time and space for contemplation and just a simpler, slower, less rushed, less complex life.

Now, I hear you saying: ‘not everyone can or should just give up everything and take off to live in a cave’. (or desert, wherever). And you are right, of course. In fact, we can say the cave is a metaphor for all sorts of spaces one might feel drawn to when fleeing and seeking separation from the world.  Actually, we’ll be talking more about this later when we get to the be silent bit.           

For these Hermit Pilgrims ‘fleeing from the world’  has meant a nomadic lifestyle, few possessions and material needs, a hermit life where our engagement or entanglement with the world is kept to a minimum, and in which we feel less of a pressure to conform, to ‘be shaped’ by the world around us’).

The reality is of course, at the end of the day for most of us and for most of our lives we have to make money to feed and clothe ourselves and our families. And for that we need to work. And in order to work we need a house to live in, and to have a house to live in we (perhaps) have to get a mortgage, and to get a mortgage … . Well I guess you get the point.

But, for a moment ask yourself: What would it look like for me to ‘flee’? For each person it’s going to take on its own unique meaning. I suppose the easiest way to put it is to say that fleeing for all of us essentially means laying aside those things (or people, places, behaviours) that we look at as ‘dangerous’ , ‘bad for us’, or from which we constantly feel the need to escape. Sometimes they’re little things, sometimes more serious.

It might be that we’ve taken on too many social media ‘obligations’ that are swallowing up any precious spare moments we have, that we’d like to be free of. Or it could be our compulsion for bringing our work home that we are desperate to give up (the bringing work home, though of course it might be the job too), so we can actually make some more free moments.

Perhaps it’s our drive to ‘know what’s going on’ by watching the news every night that’s doing our head in. These are some of the so-called minor things that we know are shaping who we are, and often against our own wishes too. Now I think about it, maybe none of it’s ‘minor’ after all.

Oh dear, I’ve done it again: word count is very nearly 1000. Too many words is another thing people try to flee from: we’re flooded, overwhelmed by words. And as much as I personally love words, I get the point and I will leave our contemplation on what was actually a message of very few words, till the next post.

Thank you for being here. Peace and love

Paul the Hermit

‘Sometime Soon’: When is it?

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There used to be a thing – maybe it’s still a thing – that would happen sometimes. You’d be talking to someone and suddenly they’d burst out:

‘Hey that rhymes! You’re a poet and don’t know it!’

This exclamation, this sudden and surprising interruption, was always prompted by some sort of accidental rhyming happening in something you’d said.

Or, sometimes, it even happened when you had written something and had through no fault or thought on your part, created a rhyme, even a little impromptu and accidental poem.

Well, that’s what happened to be. It was a while ago now and I was writing in my journal. It must have been ages ago because I don’t keep a journal anymore.

In any case, with nobody reading over my shoulder, it was left to me to express surprise at a sudden outburst of poetics on the page. And along with the surprise, I was able to make a quick note of what I’d written:

Anyway, this post isn’t about this little demonstration of spontaneous poetic genius; it’s actually about the ‘sometime soon’ tagging along on the end.

I have no idea where or what the walk to take, the pilgrimage to make, was – or is. Which suggests a rather obvious conclusion: ‘sometime soon’ never came. The walk was not taken; the pilgrimage was not made.

Now, I’m thinking to myself, if the walk under discussion was so appealing – as well as so significant that it transformed into a pilgrimage – then how come ‘sometime soon’ wasn’t right now, or rather right then. If you follow me.

Of course there’s no telling the reasons for the sometime soon. Maybe plans would have been required; travel to arrange; equipment to gather; fitness to acquire. Who knows?

Clearly I was inspired to at least put down in writing that I thought this walk, this pilgrimage, was (or would be) a good thing to do.

Meaning, in that moment, in the present that is (or was) of that moment, that walk/pilgrimage was a thing I wanted to undertake.

Now, while I might have longed to take that walk, to make that pilgrimage, in the present of that moment of writing, and even though planning may have been required, thereby putting off the actuality of the taking and making till some future time, I at the very least could have taken some action – again in the present of that moment – to get the ball rolling so to speak.

So, what’s the lesson here?

Well it’s simple really, very simple. Maybe simpler to say than to actually put into practice, but I think my lesson here is just this. Tell myself the truth as often and as much as I possibly can. In other words:

Be honest with myself

Let’s look at the options

If I’d really wanted to take this walk, to make this pilgrimage, no matter how remote, how complicated the logistics or planning, why didn’t I take action in that present? Or at least in some present before I actually forgot completely what the walk/pilgrimage was.

And why add ‘sometime soon’ if I didn’t actually desire or intend for this thing to happen? Well, possibly to put of any decision about doing or not doing. Or perhaps it was a way of saying (in completely other words), ‘Well, it sounds very nice, but I doubt I will ever end up doing it.’

So, honesty, and clear thinking about what I want and what I don’t want. That way I won’t be so attached, so keen on clinging to outcomes that I can’t see clearly, can’t easily know what I am to do or not do. Presence. Being present is what this is really about isn’t it?

To be completely present, to be fully here and now, requires me (all of us I suppose) let go of the maybes, and the ifs and buts as well as the endless ruminations about do this or don’t do that.

If I want to take a walk, or make a pilgrimage, then I say to me: just get on with it! If I don’t, then just say so, and move on.

Last little comment: I would really love for the present to remind me of what this walk/pilgrimage was. I’m a bit curious I guess(yes I know, curiosity is a present moment deflater) Maybe it’ll come back to me now I’ve written this post.

Peace

A Journey to the Centre of the World (sort of)

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Namaste and greetings

Yesterday I came across a couple of stories – true ones – that I wrote years ago. They are what we might loosely call ‘travellers’ tales. I thought it might be nice to share them here. So here’s the first one. Enjoy

Not the Manu temple I write about, but another one close by

I’d walked up to Old Manali, and I’d kept walking through the town. Then higher still, past the temple to Manu, and the scattering of traditional houses and small fields clustered around the temple.

Three near-naked and stoned saddhus invited me into their cave – more a kind of overhanging rock shelf poking out from the foundations of the temple itself.

Naturally I declined. Politely. I wasn’t, never had been, and never shall be a stoner. Besides, here I was deep in the Himalayas walking through ancient villages and past temples to ancient gods. Seems to me that that’s enough to bring on a high all its own and like no other.

Then, a little higher up the trail. I rounded a corner to be greeted by a kind of open forest glade; a grassed and flowered field protected by a semi circle of forest sentinels, their crowns maybe thirty metres above my head.

And there, in the middle of this magic field, a large flat rocky area, like a series of ‘shelves’ layered one on the other. This maybe twenty square metre tiered platform was probably the remnants of an ancient hill (or mountain?) that got in the way of a more recent but clearly relentless glacier.

Whatever the history, here was an arena with views no theatre or movie could ever hope to reproduce. This natural amphitheatre faced several layers of peaks across the valley. But, before those peaks, and directly in front of me, just down the slope, stood the temple, then more trees, reaching down into the valley. Here the river flowed, surrounded by farmers’ fields and the brown dots of houses.

Then the forests begin again, thick at the bottom in the valley, but becoming more scattered on the higher ground. Then those many layers of higher and higher hills, mountains really, rolling off into the distance to, where on the horizon and behind it all, a row of the really high peaks covered in their permanent snows.

‘This is a special place, a sacred place,’ I heard myself sigh out loud. Sitting cross-legged now, I let my eyes wander over the scene taking in the blue sky, the white peaks, the multiple greens of the forests, the sliver ribbon of the river, and the rest.

At such times and in such places, one’s eyes tend to close of their own accord. And so it was for me then and there. I let myself drift. Thoughts came and went, to be replaced by more thoughts that came and went.

Then, my eyes opened. Again of their own accord. After a few seconds of that cliched ‘where am I?’ feeling one has when startled out of one state and into another, I made out the figure of a person standing facing me a few metres from where I sat.

‘I’m sorry,’ I heard her voice call to me. ‘You just looked so peaceful sitting there meditating, I just had to stop and watch you.’

She told me she’s been watching me for about fifteen minutes, which gave me a start: It’d felt l Ike I’d only just sat down and closed my eyes.

‘They say the light of the world is held about twelve kilometres up this trail. That means it’s the centre of the world.’

I had to stand to try to take in a revelation of this magnitude.

‘And apparently,’ she went on, ‘they’re going to move it soon and nobody knows where.’

Was she an angel? Was I dreaming? They, whoever they were, are about to shift the centre of the world? Even in India one doesn’t hear this kind of news everyday. Actually, I doubt you’d ever hear it on any day.

Then she was gone, headed up the trail. I didn’t follow. I remember thinking: twelve kilometres was too far for me especially as I already had a long walk downhill to my hotel back down in the new town.

Yes, mundane, practical musings, a typical response to news of such a wild and far-out nature. So, not exactly in shock, yet not quite myself, I turned back. Down. Through the village, past the temple with three crashed out saddhus out front, back into the town.

There are cafes there. They sell Chai there. I needed one.

Actually, given the momentous news I was going to have to digest, I might even have a couple extras.

This is a true story; it actually happened more or less the way it’s described here.

Of course, there is no ‘light of the world’ stored in some secret spot, somewhere on Earth.

Well, I suppose if there is a light of the world, then it’s likely to be the world itself, I mean Earth, all the beings who live on this planet. Life itself I guess you could say. Life is light; Life is love.

Peace

Changing the World: Maybe not such a Tall Order

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I’ve always liked this idea, this notion, that by helping one person, you can change their world. I’ve always believed it to be true; after all,

Nobody ever made a bigger mistake than one who did nothing because they could only do a little.

  Sydney Smith

Reading this great quote again recently, I was struck by something I don’t think I’ve noticed before. Suddenly I saw: ‘might not change the world’. Might not? Then I thought why not turn the whole think around: I could as easily say ‘Helping one person might change the world …’.

But, you know, my thinking went even further: I realized that might and might not have nothing to do with it. The reality is that every action we take, and that includes the action of helping other living beings (as well as harming them, which is a whole other story for another time), actually does change the world.

Obviously we can’t always (actually it’s more like very rarely) see those changes, nor are we able to dictate what the changes will be or predict all the possible outcomes. We may think we know what the results of our actions will be; we may even guess right. Whatever the case, all we can do is take action while realising that impacts always occur and just keep on happening in a kind of cascading effect that literally never stops.

Then I thought about it some more, wondering how we can actually come to fully realise that the might not in this marvelous saying, which speaks of a negative possibility, is more an always will, which points to something definite, as well as a whole lot more positive.

All is One on the physical and the non-physical levels

We all have had at some time a sense that we are all connected; we feel that we are part of nature, part of something bigger than just a lone disconnected individual. But, have you ever had the feeling that you might be more than just a ‘part of’ the world or nature’? Have you ever had a sense that you are nature? Maybe this sounds a bit esoteric: But we are one Self; we are all physical manifestations of the one consciousness, the one Divine.

And of course we can’t know for sure what goes on beyond the physical world. But, even at that most basic level of the material, especially as we get down to the microscopic and even atomic levels, it’s hard to tell individual beings apart. Atoms merge and cross over, interact, and change, between all living and non-living things.

So, who’s to say that one small action on my part, one small change, won’t have a cascading effect as the ripples (that’s a good way to put it isn’t it?) from that action spread through the world and beyond.

The ‘What can One Person Do?’ Dilemma

Our Sydney Smith quote in a sense tackles this agonising question for us. Still, you might think that one person can’t do a lot when the needs are so vast and so many and so intractable. There is always something we can do, even at the supposedly one person, one individual level, even if as Mr Smith says, it’s a small thing we do.

Just think how many people everywhere are asking this same question: ‘What can one person do?’

If even a tiny percentage of those questioning individuals answered that they could do something, then you would start to see changes taking place for sure. How could all those actions not add up to a changed world?

The Multiplier Effect

Just now I used the words ‘add up’. Well actually it’s more like a multiplication effect.

Remember we mentioned earlier the idea of a cascading effect always in action whenever any action of any kind is performed? Isn’t there a saying that goes something like: if a butterfly flaps its wings in a forest somewhere in the world, then a polar bear in the Arctic sneezes? Okay, that’s not quite it but you know what I mean.

Then there is that concept of ‘pay it forward’. It’s an easy concept to grasp, though I don’t especially like the language.  For me it’s more to do with love, compassion, empathy, and a desire to make things better.

So, the truth is, helping one person does indeed change the world for that one person. And whatever we do for that one person, it also does definitely change the whole world. It may not appear to us personally that everything in the world has changed simply because of our one, apparently tiny action, but the world, (and that includes all of us who live here or anywhere else for that matter) is one living entity, one being, so those multiplying impacts just go on affecting everything and everyone in some way.

We may think of ourselves as just one separate little individual, but we are more than simply united with all life; we are that life, just as all life is us. And, as for believing we can be ‘agents of change’, we may think that it’s all too hard; too many problems; what can I do? The road to changing the world seems to be blocked, seems to be impassable.

Well, one teacher I admire is Ramdas. Among the many great things he said, this one stands out for me above them all. I may have the wording a bit wrong, but basically the message is:

If you set your feet upon the path, then you are already at your goal


Which is another way of saying that if you help one person, then you have changed the world.


Peace