The Essence of Goodness
What has happened is Good. Whatever is happening is also Good. Whatever is about to happen will also be Good.


The Essence of Greed
What is it that you are despairing for? What is it that you think you have lost? What did you bring into this world to have lost? What do you think is yours to take with you when you leave?


The Essence of Detachment
What do you think you have created that is yours to take with you? What have you taken thus far is only taken from this world. Hence, it was not yours to take or even to give, as it will remain here long after the taker and giver leave


The Essence of True Wealth
Any possession of yours today will belong to another tomorrow. Who in turn will have to leave it to another the next day. Wealth in Practice is what you do with what you temporarily have, before it is inevitably taken away from you.


The Essence of Life
That all things will change. That Change is the ultimate law of he Universe and the objective of Creation. Leaving Him as the only Constant in all this Chaos...and the Chaos in all that appears Constant

Lets take a look at what this whole ‘contemplation’ is all about. Ultimately the contemplation  is about NOW. This moment in time. Right here and now. Unfortunately most of us do not live in NOW. We are lost in the vagaries of yester years or we swing forward to our vision or day dreams of years to come. Either way, they are totally illusionary.  To be lost in the past or to be what might be the future is in essence, mental masturbation.

Hence,  just like the act, it produces no productive result. Its only self satiating.  Let’s take a look at yesterday, the past so to speak. The past does not exist. It is only there when you step into it. And u can only step into it from now. It’s only from this moment in time that it exists. There is no past. And your past can be dramatically different from someone else’s past. If u had an argument with someone yesterday,  your version and his version will be dramatically different. So whose past is the past?

So what is past? The past is viewed from this present. It is our tint on it. Our lenses that define it. Again the past is ruled by the present. And what about the future?  The future does not exist. It only exists in your mind at this moment. It only exists in the present. Your vision of the future can be dramatically different from the person sitting next to you. The past exists in the present and the future exists in the present. And therefore the point of contemplation as defined in the Sphere of Silence, is about controlling Now. Because when you control Now, you control all your past and you control all your future. Now is the only thing that exists.

Everything that we feel sense, taste, hear or see is processed by the mind. The world as we see it, only exists in our mind. And it is the same mind that can change the perception of how it is filtered. And how we choose to react. Its not about what happens to you in this life that counts. Because everyone goes through valleys and mountains in their lives and you are all going to go through that. To be lost in euphoria for any length of time just because you are successful is equally as redundant or as damaging as being depressed or despondent or even self destructive because you are going to be hitting on the valleys in your life. The trick is to recognize that it’s not about the incidents themselves or the environment that you live in but rather how you react to it.

 

Choosing how we react, being able to control, communicate and consolidate that reaction is the single most fundamental element of success in managing one’s life. Now how much can one do that? Its easy to talk about that but challenging to put into practice.

 

 

One very simple way of time management, which by the way, is itself a wrong word since one cannot manage time. It is something u leave to the almighty to do. This grandiose term time management is actually just about managing yourself. And there are poeple who call themselves Time management experts. There is no such thing!

 

Trying to manage time is like trying to put a fence around the ocean or hold a cup full of air! So that be the case, my friends. So what are u managing when u say u are managing time? In the simplest essence you are managing yourselves.

 

A classic example – there was a  time I lived in the Philippines for close to 4 yrs. And Manila is very much like Bangkok, notorious for its long traffic jams. Arguably Manila is worse than Bangkok.  While I was there, I had to put up with these very long traffic jams and sometimes u can be caught for so long that it takes an hour to cover one mile. So making sense of schedules in Manila was totally nonsensical. However one attempted to make appointments and attempted to keep them and leave the rest to the forces of the traffic Gods.

 

So, during one of these tempestuous moments, I was seated in a taxi with a good friend of mine and  I was already about 45 mins late for an appointment and it didn’t look like I was going to get there anytime soon. Now even by Manila standards that particular jam was horrendous. As we were edging our way down the traffic, it appeared that I was going to have to cancel this appt or not make it at all. And in particular for me, this was the 3^rd time I was trying to meet this individual. So it was frustrating for me. I was venting my anger on anything and everything that moved. The birds in the sky to the people sitting in the cars around, to the seat I was sitting on. I was doing this for a good 30 mins before I realized that my friend was sitting there amiably with an almost beatific smile on his face and his hand in his jacket pocket and he seemed to be murmuring to himself. For a moment there I said to myself- maybe he haslost it! The traffic situation after all these yrs of living there had demented the poor chap. I tapped him on the shoulder and said- what in the blazes are u grinning about?  I don’t see anything to smile about! We are caught in the middle of the jam and we cant go back to where we came from. We can’t move forward. We can’t open the car doors and the AC is not working. And I can count on the drivels of sweat running down my spine.  Thence, he looked up to me with an almost saintly smile of his face – what’s the problem?

 

The problem is that we are wasting our time and our day! He said- why would u imagine that I would allow a silly traffic jam to waste my time!  If I had to leave my house everyday and allow the jam to affect my life which is a daily occurrence in Manila,  I might as well not leave my house.

 

Now that stuck me as strangely rational. Here I was raising my blood pressure and condemning anything and everything and feeling helpless, and he seem perfectly calm. So I asked him what he was doing sitting there staring at the window…that can’t be particularly delightful! Then it struck me – Are you on something? What are you on? Give me whatever you are on…give me 2 of it!   Right now I really feel like I could do with it.

 

He said no drugs my friend. This morning as I left my house, I got up too late to do my normal spiritual practices. I usually allot an hour to do my prayers and a round of my rosary beads. I missed it this morning and I was very upset because it throws off my day. And right now the good Lord has kind of balanced it out for me by giving me back my one hour. 

 

Then after I finish this I have at least 6 letters I need to send out and he brandished a pen and a letter pad and said, “I am ready to get to work!”

 

And at that moment in time. …This is a little bit before cell phones became the norm, I was blown off the wall….if I am in control of my life, then I wait for no one. The more I am out of control, the more I find myself waiting. And that is essentially what this practise of the Sphere of Silence is all about.

 

The topic by itself is a paradox! The mind at any given point of the day for most of us is inherently chaotic. Hence, the activity is not progressing in any particular direction, in essence its directionless. Like floatsam, or a  piece of driftwood…its picked up and thrown back, picked up and thrown back and the process continues repeatedly.

 

The ultimate result being that the driftwood is bent out of shape. The truth my dear friends is, that piece of driftwood is essentially us.  If we do not choose to exercise control over our life, that is what will happen to us.

 

Alternately,  what one has to do is pick a log off the beach, fix a mast and a sail and take off wherever u need to go. Hence, the process of contemplation in itself is a process of not stilling the mind but making the mind active in a productive manner, in a focused manner. Hence the term contemplation is not referring to introspection or retrospection. Although both of these are very common tools that are utilised. But they don’t define what contemplation is all about. The contemplation here is more of a self discipline process. Of bringing the mind and its entire array of strength into the direction that u choose.  The trick is to recognize that.

 

Unfortunately because of our exposure, to western philosophy we believe, the mind is out of our reach. That it is sacrosanct in a theosophical sense. An uncontrolled mind, a mind that cannot focus, a mind that is in essence in the reins of any force that flows through your life is your greatest obstacle and hindrance. It is in fact your enemy. It will resist you just as any body part would after you, having ignored it over a period of time, suddenly decided to exercise. If you pick up weights today, your muscles will resist. You body will spend the next 24 hours screaming in pain.

 

The mind is similar. It is going to rebel, scream and buck, as you try to use it and stretch it to its limit. The unfortunate thing is that you can be immensely intelligent and reasonably successful. Hence you could actually fool your self into thinking that u have your mind under control simply because you are able to get it to do what u want it to do under a specific parameter. The simple act of silence being done continuously everyday is harder for most people than climbing Mount Everest.  It’s a challenge that people who have supposedly attained spiritual elevation will find almost impossible to surpass. And for those of us who are in the midst of society per se it can be indeed our waterloo.

 

But not attempting it is worse. For, it leaves us at the mercy of the vagaries of nature. And our final recourse will be to resort to astrology, the stars the sun the moon or any other sign of inference out there to try and make sense of our lives. The answer is not in reading tarot cards. The answer lies within.  In the words of the eminent, beloved Mother Teresa- God’s Voice is clearest in Silence.

 

For those of you who choose not to believe in the lord, the voice of reason, conscience, and the voice of truth is clearer in silence.  It is in fact the greatest agony for most of us to be in silence for any length of time By silence here I am referring to a conscious silence, as opposed to an unconscious silence. Not when you are sleeping or watching a movie. Conscious silence is where one recognizes that you have nothing to do. Sitting outside the principal’s office waiting to be called in can be agonizing. It seems like every minute is drawn out painstakingly.  We find it so difficult to control the mind. We get restless and irritated and frustrated. We get annoyed that we are made to wait. We feel that somehow we are at the mercy of the waiting process.  Again the reality is if you are in control, then time is yours.  If you are not in control, you will always be seeking time, chasing time, trying to find time. Any definition you can choose.

It is an absolute necessity. Sense of urgency says, “I do not have time”. Let me burn the candles at both ends. The sense of urgency is felt precisely like cutting off your air supply.

If someone comes up behind you right now and grabs your nose and shuts your mouth. First minute you will say someone is playing a game with me, who is this person…trying to figure it out etc. You hit your next 30 seconds and start wanting to breathe, the person grips harder. Now you start pushing harder, because you want to breathe, and if it continues for 30 more seconds, you are into desperation. You scratch, you bite, you claw, you don’t care who the hell it is holding you. At that moment in time, you will kill to breathe. And that is burning desire. It is a lot more than just survival. It is basically recognizing that nothing can hold you back. Nothing should get in your way. Survival would have been there in the first 10 seconds. But at the last 10 seconds, it was not even the issue of survival. It came down to the simple fact: “I WANT to breathe”.  Total focus becomes tinier and tinier until it reaches the point that “I want to breathe”.

 Look at Thomas Alva Edison. He is there, working away, continuously for 96 hours in his lab, not having gone home or out at all. He is so focused on his work. Literally, his housekeeper has to force-feed him. Nothing can irritate him, nothing can take him out of the lab if he is burning after an idea.

Tagore would look himself up in the middle of the night, when he was writing his masterpiece  Gitanjali. Nothing could touch him. Until it came out of him (Gitanjali), nothing could get in the way. What drives these people like that?

Picasso locked himself in the attic until he finished his painting. They all have that, where their focus boils down to that particular thing being achieved and nothing else. But you do have it too. Every single one of us does. Almost invariably, usually, when we fall in love. Be it puppy love at the childhood phase or more serious mature things in adulthood, it comes at a point where those that you love deeply, your parents, your best friends, who before this thing happened had the greatest influence over you, the people for whom you had great respect and admiration, all of them flushed down the toilet because of someone you don’t know, have not really understood, not got to know very well yet, and yet who took over your entire existence. So the capacity is there.

The sense of urgency is not something that one can seek, it cannot be contrived, it has to be derived. It comes from within us.

A great Italian sculptor was brought by the Bishop of Florence to  create a  statue.

One tonne of marble was brought and put up in the front of the chapel. The sculptor was told: “They have the Sistine Chapel, now I want something special here, in Florence. I want it to be the best ever.” He commissioned him and asked: “How long do you need?” He said: “I need a year.” He said,  “Ok, take a year”.

The bishop went on a small tour and  when he came back, he walked straight into the chapel to see what had been done…half expecting a half-finished piece of work.

It had been three months…and the stone was completely left untouched. Not a single scratch, not a mark. All the tools were brand new, still lying on the side…nothing had moved, nothing had happened.

So he called one of the lay brothers and said “Where is my statue?”

He was told: “Every single day, the sculptor is here. He comes at the crack of dawn and he sits in front of that statue. Then he repositions himself and then he repositions himself  again, as the light changes. And he just sits and stares at the stone.:

“Does he take notes, does he draw sketches…what does he do?”

“Nothing. He just stares and stares and stares. And when dusk falls, he leaves.”

“This is going on for three months?

“Yes, it is going on for 3 months.”

 “Oh well, he is a great sculptor, maybe he needs time.” So saying, the bishop took off for another tour. He came back 2 months later. He went into the chapel,  and again not a single scratch. Again, when we he talked to the lay monks, they told him exactly the same story.

 So he called the abbot and said, “You are the abbot of the monastery. Go down to him tomorrow and tap him on the shoulder and ask him what is going on”. So he went, and there he was—the sculptor—staring intently at the white square marble.

He leaned over very gingerly and tapped him on the shoulder. At first, the sculptor didn’t react. So, he tapped him a little bit more…again there was no reaction. So he gave him a light shout and there was a massive eruption.

The sculptor turned around and immediately snapped at the abbot, cursing him vehemently, demanding that he get out of the chapel, and not darken the threshold of the chapel ever again for as along as he was there. If he ever took a breath, made a squeak of a noise again, or interrupted the sculptor, the sculptor would actually complain to the archbishop.

The abbot just slunk away. The archbishop, on hearing this, thought “Let us leave him for a little while and see what happens. I am coming back next month. By then, he should be finished. Again, he went into the chapel…there was nothing waiting for him to see. Seven months of the year had gone by.

The archbishop decided to talk to him the next day. At the crack of dawn, the archbishop sat in front of the marble, waiting. The doors opened. The sculptor strode right in. He did not even see the archbishop.

He went straight up, picked up his tools and started hammering. The archbishop quietly left. Four months later, one month short of the year, La Peitra David was born. It is considered to be the finest sculpture ever done.

Now the question would be: What was he doing for 7 months? The lay monks asked the archbishop this when it was unveiled.

The archbishop replied: “The question is what has happened to my other 200 Davids.”

"What 200 Davids?” 

The archbishop said: “Seven months of 30 days, makes is 210 days. Each day, he sat there and as he walked around and he has finished an entire sculpture in his mind, and then chosen to reject it. Can you imagine, I just missed 210 Davids.”

The sculptor had studied the grain of the stone, the colour, the lighting and everything. You cannot remove it after it has been sculpted, and the sculptor learnt from the stone.

If you can learn from stone, then the question even for an agnostic is, why can’t you learn from the person in front of you? Why would you need to asses him?

The question is: How receptive are you? That is studentship.