Nothing Ripples (2003)
What happens when you choose to do/be nothing?
It was my last day in this beach in Kerala. After a long trip, I came to Kerala to take a break for two days from my routine and to rediscover my self. Last time, when I was here, we had our group along with Sue, Colin and NLP. Flashes of some new type of thinking occurred to me after the training...and I dreamt as if those flashes arouse from the calm serene backwaters, which was still, but always with ripples all the time, when I was watching it from my sit out in my small hut...just above the back waters..
The calm serene backwaters resembled to me the calm undeterred mind within me, come what may...which had all the resources and gave me those resources, only when I paid attention to it, in my search for my directions in life...just like you will see the fishermen had to throw his fishing net and wait in stillness, till the back waters allowed some of its fishes for them.
It was as if I am watching the reflection of my mind...every ripple a thought...and I had to wait for the ripples to stop...and my thoughts wouldn't… just like the ripples wouldn't...
In Kerala this time, the challenge for me was to do nothing and study my mind in tranquility...There are distraction all the time in life. When I had done with my works, when there is a free time...sometimes, it would be so hard to pass time, that my fingers would constantly check email to just keep me occupied and it would be at times frustrating to see no new messages in my inbox or to check the news updates in my mobile or play a game in my mobile or I would visit the cinema hall to see whatever movies and to judge it...if the director has done a good job or the actor or the actress or the music..and by admiring their greatness or by laughing at their poor performances...I wanted to pass time, without knowing that I am passing time...all to just to return to that same old "nothingness", which bores me like the hell.
Once I recollected, Sue telling me that she and colin goes to france to just have a peaceful time, away from their busy trainings and that’s the time she writes her book...She often talks about her time in france in her trainings...I thought Sue has learnt the art of using that "nothingness" to follow her self...and I was just finding it hard...My life was going as a series of waiting...I was just waiting for the next email, next assignment, next movie, next cricket match, next dinner, next trip..and this wait was never ending..and it was just an eagerness (excuse?) to escape from the nothingness, which was again and again coming back to me and smiling at my inability to use that… It has taken so many years for me to realize that I am running away from it and this realization was my latest learning…Thanks to Sue for her constant facilitation....in identifying my self..
I had this break at Kerala, to challenge that "nothingness" ...to just do nothing, think nothing and be nothing...
The first thing I did was to sleep till I slept… All the tiredness I had stored was exhausted…With a lot of freshness, I was looking at myself rejuvenating...and when I am done, I go to my sit-out to see the back waters, I start paying attention to my thinking ripples...one by one…When I am hungry, I go and have some fresh crab masala and curry meen fry, specially cooked on my order…When I am filled, I take a walk on the beach...I look at the endless bluish water infinitely spread till the end of my visual boundaries...I had some massage, oil bath...When I am paying attention to my nothing, I realised how much I have neglected my body and now my body was regaining its freshness...after all...only now I had time to respect and listen to my body...During the routines of work, I have so much noise inside and outside, that any pleading and begging that comes from the body is met with dumb ears, till some kind of illness breaks- out…even then I apologise to my colleagues, that I am sorry, I had a little headache yesterday…so couldn't get that done...I would finish it now…To my body, I say...yeah there are some tablets for you to deal with that and just please allow me to do my work ....
and here, I was peaceful...I had two books and I didn't want to open them, for it will open a fresh bunch of ideas...a new set of ripples...I recollected the story of Milton Erickson driving the stranded-horse back to its home, by just bringing it back to the road, whenever it was distracted...with a new bunch of ripples, inspired by a greenery or a river or anything that brought him out of the horse's way back home...I just want to go back to my home and find out where I came from...by going to where I was being led by my self...and all that I wanted to have was the awareness between my those ripples, which lead me to distractions and those ripples, which lead me to my way back home...
Do you have that awareness and if so, will you tell me about that?
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