I was on my regular walk in the morning seeing the sights in the garden.
It was when I came to spot this Butterly, I observed the practice of stillness! This Butterly remained in this posture for minutes till I lost my patience and moved away to other sights in the garden.
I remembered the verse in Psalm 46 in the Old Testament of the Bible, when the palmist made an invocation to himself: 'Cease striving and know that I am God...'(v 10).
While watching a dragon fly or Butterly in their still posture, the message of the opposite of striving comes forth clearly and persuasively.
Striving brings results but causes tiredness and exhaustion as it involves efforts to achieve.
Another sight I look out for is the flowing water in the stream below our property. The water flows and carries with it fish and other aquatic life.
The water is life giving to the earth and to all lives on earth.
It has a natural flow downward !
When Jesus of Nazareth said to Zaccheus, '... hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your home' (Luke 19:5), when Jesus spotted him on a sycamore tree in the hope of seeing Jesus, it was a call to unwind, descend and choose another way than striving. Zaccheus lived striving because of which he amassed wealth.
The call to 'come down' was both physical and metaphorical.
It was a call to choose differently because Jesus offered to 'come home'!
Zaccheus lived strivingly so much so that he isolated himself from others. The people did not offer him a space to be with them to see Jesus, because of which Zaccheus had to climb the tree. The effect of striving was distancing from others leading to a stressful experience of indifference from others.
A lonely path is what is left for those. who live strivingly to pursue a selfish path!
Jesus befriended the striving and stressful Zaccheus!
Jesus perceived the unspoken needs of Zaccheus, which I believe would have come from the inward stillness with which Jesus lived.
The words, strife and stress have a common root.
Being oneself and becoming the true self is a transition which happens by being in touch with oneself. That is living without striving. Living to become who we are to be, is a restful path.
I remember what professor C.K.Job told me about Dr Chinoy Chacko, a former professor of Pathology at CMC Vellore. Dr Job was trying to balance between his research on creating an animal model for culturing lepra bacilli at Karigiri hospital and his regular work in the Pathology department at CMC. Dr Chinoy came forward to shoulder additional responsibilities during those initial years. Dr Job's words were: ' Chinoy did not live with a personal ambition, but he had the interests of others and of the department in his focus'!
I remember those words as a way of living mindfully!
Jesus reaching out to Zacheuus made him to come to be his true self. He became a mindful person and offered to share his wealth with others.
The ascending path of striving and a descending path of living restfully in mindful ways !
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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