Lewis Richmond
We need to find a way for us, both men and women, to move beneath the surface of thinking about ageing to the “subterranean river” of emotion and intuition where the deeper changes and transformations of growing older actually happen.
The name of the inquiry which i call, ‘Every Breath, New Chances’ points out that while we may imagine that our waking self is a fixed, static entity, in reality we are changing all the time. Every breath is a chance to reinvent ourselves anew. This renewal is particularly important when we consider our own ageing process, which seems to be a fixed, irrevocable fact about ourselves that we cannot fundamentally change. With each new birthday we think, ‘OK, I’m 64 now, next year I’ll be 65. That’s just how it is.’ But the thought ‘I am 64’ (or whatever age you are) is just a construct, a mechanical counting of birthdays. In truth there are many ‘ages’ simultaneously alive within you. There is some aspect of you that is six years old, for example, whenever a memory from that time surfaces with all of its associated images and feelings. There is a deeply unconscious aspect of you that hovers over the moment of your death, in the sense that we all have, all the time, some level of awareness that one day we will die. Then there is your present-day age, which can fluctuate hour by hour, day by day, depending on how you feel, physically and emotionally.
For example, when you fall ill with the cold or flu, you are bedridden and have no energy. You languish in bed, bored, probably depressed, and maybe a little anxious. There is the irrational thought, ‘Suppose I never get better?’ When i was 52, i was struck down by a life-threatening brain infection and after emerging from coma spent two months bedridden in a rehab hospital. I sometimes refer to that time as the time i ‘felt like i was 90 years old’.
‘Every Breath, New Chances’ is a method to dive beneath these surface intimations of ageing. It begins by sitting quietly somewhere where you can be undistracted. It helps not to visit any ‘screens’ – your laptop, iPad, smartphone, or similar device – for an hour before. Once you have cleared your mind of all distractions, bring a single word to mind – for example, the word ‘ageing’. Let that word float lightly in consciousness, like a buoy on water. You can repeat the word silently ever so often. It may help to add an image to the word. It could be an image that is familiar to you, like seeing your graying hair in the mirror – any image that conveys ‘ageing’ to you. Let the word ‘ageing’ and the image fade in and out of your attention as other thoughts come and go. Note what other words or images come into your mind.
Ageing is partly personal, and partly archetypal or transpersonal. What this means, simply put, is that every creature, every form of life, every human being ages; it is a universal process. But each of us has our own way of experiencing that process. The ‘Every Breath, New Chances’ contemplative inquiry invokes intuition as a way to connect directly with both the personal and transpersonal aspects of ageing.
DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: The Times of India: The speaking tree: 14th Nov, 2018
Lewis Richmond
We need to find a way for us, both men and women, to move beneath the surface of thinking about ageing to the “subterranean river” of emotion and intuition where the deeper changes and transformations of growing older actually happen.
The name of the inquiry which i call, ‘Every Breath, New Chances’ points out that while we may imagine that our waking self is a fixed, static entity, in reality we are changing all the time. Every breath is a chance to reinvent ourselves anew. This renewal is particularly important when we consider our own ageing process, which seems to be a fixed, irrevocable fact about ourselves that we cannot fundamentally change. With each new birthday we think, ‘OK, I’m 64 now, next year I’ll be 65. That’s just how it is.’ But the thought ‘I am 64’ (or whatever age you are) is just a construct, a mechanical counting of birthdays. In truth there are many ‘ages’ simultaneously alive within you. There is some aspect of you that is six years old, for example, whenever a memory from that time surfaces with all of its associated images and feelings. There is a deeply unconscious aspect of you that hovers over the moment of your death, in the sense that we all have, all the time, some level of awareness that one day we will die. Then there is your present-day age, which can fluctuate hour by hour, day by day, depending on how you feel, physically and emotionally.
For example, when you fall ill with the cold or flu, you are bedridden and have no energy. You languish in bed, bored, probably depressed, and maybe a little anxious. There is the irrational thought, ‘Suppose I never get better?’ When i was 52, i was struck down by a life-threatening brain infection and after emerging from coma spent two months bedridden in a rehab hospital. I sometimes refer to that time as the time i ‘felt like i was 90 years old’.
‘Every Breath, New Chances’ is a method to dive beneath these surface intimations of ageing. It begins by sitting quietly somewhere where you can be undistracted. It helps not to visit any ‘screens’ – your laptop, iPad, smartphone, or similar device – for an hour before. Once you have cleared your mind of all distractions, bring a single word to mind – for example, the word ‘ageing’. Let that word float lightly in consciousness, like a buoy on water. You can repeat the word silently ever so often. It may help to add an image to the word. It could be an image that is familiar to you, like seeing your graying hair in the mirror – any image that conveys ‘ageing’ to you. Let the word ‘ageing’ and the image fade in and out of your attention as other thoughts come and go. Note what other words or images come into your mind.
Ageing is partly personal, and partly archetypal or transpersonal. What this means, simply put, is that every creature, every form of life, every human being ages; it is a universal process. But each of us has our own way of experiencing that process. The ‘Every Breath, New Chances’ contemplative inquiry invokes intuition as a way to connect directly with both the personal and transpersonal aspects of ageing.
DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: The Times of India: The speaking tree: 14th Nov, 2018