“Life in India is so fast and hectic, isn’t it? “ . We were discussing the fast and furious pace of India with friends. We were each reminiscing our respective trips to India – both made under difficult circumstances, and we were both glad to be back home in the United States.
I nodded fervently, and said wistfully, “Yes – at least during the time I was there, the concept of solitude was rarely acknowledged.”
“Solitude?” And we all laughed. It was true – the populace, and the ways of life make slowing down much harder than usual. It isn’t made any easier with the speed of communications and transportation in cities. The very essence of vibrance that is a huge advantage and a beauty to the civilization was also a disadvantage.
There are times when I have marveled at how the Indian way of life came up with practices such as meditation and yoga, but then I also realize that it was there that it could have developed, for it was required to build still pockets of serene moments into one’s life. in fact, the concepts are nothing short of brilliant. The pause between breaths is essential to be mindful of, when it may be all you can get in terms of mindfulness. The breath becomes the prana in very significant ways. The pause, when rarely taken, becomes harder to practice, and yet the pause becomes that tiny moment of choice in our agency of life.
There are so many aspects to the Philosophy of Being (I am amused it has such a strictly medical sounding name: Ontology)
Keeping ontological explanations aside, if The Nature of Being comes down to simple techniques of breath, fluidity and movement, it makes the simplicity behind it all brilliant.
For many years I had thought of this quote, attributed to Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning:
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
-Quote widely attributed to Viktor Frankl, Author of Man’s Search for Meaning, but not sure: Between Stimulus & Response
Back home, I savored the morning air, as I stepped out for a brisk walk embracing the nippy air. I felt like I could finally hear myself think, and I had a beautiful walk weighing and thinking of such topics as courage, resilience, choices, decision-making etc in the context of our work and personal lives. How one helps us evolve in another sphere, and how we are as human-beings are nothing more than the function of life’s ebbs and flows.
Nourish-n-Cherish 