If you watch how it flits from one slight to another, imagined or real, you will see a spiral. Darkness breeds spirals that spin wildly from nothing to nothing and their purpose is to make you feel like nothing. Peace is a simple thing though. It is a full circle. One peaceful thought leads to another and then another..till you feel there is no need, no lack because it is all complete.
The trick is this. Between one dark thought and another…just pause. Hold on to that pause, till it becomes a moment of silence..If you learn to hold on to this moment, it becomes a crack in the door. That crack in time can become a door as you step into a zone of absolute silence where there is no noise, no strife, no conflict. It is not as complex as it sounds.
It is just about being centered. For a very long time, I wondered what it meant to be centered. Then many years ago, I watched an acting workshop at Ranga Shankara where the teacher told the students to imagine themselves as trees with their roots running deep into the earth and then reaching out to a cool, subterranean river. And then feeling sated as the waters ran up the roots.
That in a nutshell taught me what being centered means.To have deep roots in your inner reserves so that when winds blow hard, you sway but do not fall. It is about always feeling that you belong to the world and the world belongs to you. It is about moving away from lacks to fullness. It is about not knowing what lies ahead and still being okay with the uncertainty. The lives we lead are full of uncertainty and the fact that we know so much about trivial things and yet nothing about things that matter most to us, causes immense stress. But every spiritualist and every child will teach you one thing.You cannot live in the forward mode or backwards. You can only live in the now. And the now consists of nothing more than simple things. Like a cup pf tea, a rain splashed window pane, incense wafts, a pet who follows you around the house, a favourite song that accompanies you on the way back home during a long commute.
Life as they say is not a big picture but many small bits that at some point, come together to show you just what it was that you built even when you were doing nothing more than just breathing in gratitude and quiet joy.
with The New Indian Express Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more boo