Slow Down!

This contemplation is about slowing down to notice if the way we speak, act, or think has any loopholes or shortcuts that we are taking to cause us to drift toward lack of clarity and or unhappiness. Most of the time, speed masks the clarity and coherence that is needed to live a peaceful, intentional, calm life. Slowing down helps us see the direction in which we are heading and make course corrections, if necessary.
This contemplation walks us through the different flavors of speeding up and its out-of-synch from nature's rhythm that leads to stress and anxiety in life.

Transcript

Let's close our eyes. I was doing yoga the other day and the yoga instructor said something which was very profound, At least for me. And although the context in which she was saying was very much the physical postures and physical movement, What I realized was that it has a lot of practical implications as well, Whether it is in our jobs, In our relationships, In any aspect and any facet of our life. The posture, If anyone is interested, At least the Sanskrit name for it is Skandhasan and she was guiding us through Skandhasan on your left leg to moving on to your right. And it's a, If you don't have strong knees, It can be a very difficult posture. So essentially you are squatting on one leg while extending the other. And then without getting up, You're transferring all your weight from the leg which was straight and sitting in that leg in a squat and extending the other one. So while explaining this posture, She talked about using momentum versus using strength. And what I realized in the moment was while I was transferring from one posture to the other, One half of the posture to the other half, I was cheating. I was using momentum to quickly go sit down and reach the posture. But when I heard this breakdown about posture versus, Sorry, Strength versus momentum, The next time when I did that posture, I tried to go slow. And right when there was an urge to use momentum and speed up, I realized that I didn't have enough strength to hold my weight, To transfer my weight slowly, That I was resorting to momentum and speed. And that's when it struck me that how wonderful of an insight it is where slowing down reveals the strength or the lack thereof, While the momentum masks the weaknesses under the pretense of getting it right at the end. I've always used physical training, Whether it's yoga or weightlifting or running, As a means to get deeper into my mind and understanding myself. So this was not new to me. So internalizing it, Expanding the horizon of the insight into other areas of my life came very naturally to me. And that's what I wanted to share with all of you. You know, Our life has a momentum. And that momentum is, The grandeur of that momentum is quite unfathomable. So an example of this would be, Suddenly we'll realize that, Oh, It's already Thursday today. Time is just flying. Or a realization might happen that it's already July, Middle of July. Where did the six and a half, Seven months go? It's the momentum that is driving, Driving all our lives. It's not driving it in a mindless or a violent way or a haphazard way. It's driving so sneakily that we don't even realize the momentum that life has. The only recognition we have of this momentum is in these moments of clarity. When we pause, When we slow down, When we come to a stillness, That seven months has passed by in this year. Or half my life has passed away. Then it's easy to align ourselves to the momentum. Because then we don't have to see this grandeur, This extravagant magnanimity of this nature running through momentum. While we cannot control nature's momentum, We can realize that there is a momentum within our life as well. Just like what I discovered for myself in that yoga class. Of course, No one's going to come and tell me I was cheating. A. It's a very internal process. B. I was not aware of cheating. And C. Even if someone were to see me cut corners, It's not polite to tell them that. That's why most of the teaching is given in a generic format, Just like I'm giving you right now. I don't mind sharing my own neurosis and my own shortcomings and my own process of stumbling and fumbling into clarity. If it helps to get context, If it helps to recognize, This could apply to me as well. The thing about an insight like this is that it quickly colonizes at least my mind and starts finding more and more instances where this applies. I know a lot of you have told me, Either directly or indirectly, That my style of contemplations of speaking slowly, Pausing, Helps you reflect. The same is true about our conversations with others. The momentum of speech, The momentum of speaking fast, Deprives us of this opportunity to verify whether what we are speaking is coherent or not. It makes sense or not. Is it going to hurt the other person or not? You know, I speak with a lot of people, Especially younger adults, And they're so fast in speaking that this is what success is and I'm not feeling fulfilled. And then they keep giving reasons and after I get an opportunity to speak, I just ask them that, Hey, You mentioned success, What does success mean? How do you define it? And they have no answer for that. So somehow, The entire conversation is based upon something that is not clear, Not clear to them. And that lack of clarity perpetuates into actions but gives us the illusion that I am operating from clarity because our brain is designed for survival. So it doesn't need to plug in the holes unless the holes are so wide that there is danger. And finding holes in our speech, In our approaches, Is much harder than seeing a hole in the ground to avoid it. Again, This is not a suggestion to speak slowly. Just speaking slowly does not reveal the holes. Speaking slowly is an invitation to your mind to slow down, To become in sync with the natural flow. So the coherence or the lack of coherence can be sensed. And all you need to do is find one example where you do this, Whether it's a yoga posture, Whether it's while talking at work or with your spouse, With your kids. Same applies while we are rushing and doing things. The end is more important, The momentum is more important. So we don't pay attention while doing things. The autopilot is working. We are on cruise control. That's why they say, Smell the roses while walking. Although I'm talking about the momentum that life has, That nature has, As being so sneaky and so tremendous, It is still much slower, Much more rhythmic, Much more enjoyable than the momentum of our minds, Of our individual lives that are happening inside our minds. Sometimes it is so disconnected that we are operating a level or two faster than where nature is at. Our bodies belong to that nature. So our bodies are moving rhythmically or at least trying to, Whereas our minds are moving at a tremendously increasing speeds to get things done. And our bodies are getting dragged in the process at a speed that they are not designed to work at. That's why we have disease in the bodies. We have dissonance in the mind. Everything that seems matter of fact will suddenly start looking like it has no foundation of logic or of truth. That's why there is a lot of inefficiency in offices, In corporate world, In jobs particularly, Because a lot is said fast without really asking what that word even means. The one that is at the heart of the point being discussed, Like success, Like failure, Like progress, Like meaning, Or in relationships where miscommunication is normal, Is expected. But I find the most important place to excavate using this tool that we found is in our own life. Because we all want to live a life based on clarity. We all want to move through life in harmony, Smoothly. And the only way to notice inefficiencies, Incorrectness, Lack of sound arguments is to slow down. That's why writing it down works wonders because you have to slow down to write it down. Your hands cannot operate like your mind does. Suddenly you will start seeing craters, Not even holes, Craters in the way you think, In the way you approach anything. That's when you start realizing I don't even know what precedes this. How can I be working on this piece? But the survival brain is going to find excuses. The momentum of our minds is going to resist this slowing down. It might check out, It might want to multitask or just get angry and frustrated. But if we were to endure that, What we'll find is there is a lot of clarity and depth on the other side. That is what helps me come unprepared, Completely unprepared. And hopefully, As I meander through all the different places, I reach the point. In a way, That makes sense to me, My heart and also you. Not that I am a gold standard for anything. You'll see a lot of people, A lot of wise people, When they speak, They speak so coherently. I know I remember sitting in my teacher's meditation room and not only was he answering the question that was asked, He was also raising the doubts that might arise from his answers. What would our lives look like if we were clear in the way we think, Clear in the way we communicate? What would our actions look like? What would our relationships look like? What would be the quality of the work that goes through our hands? What if we let the strength become emphasized and momentum? I heard this phrase that I want to share with you while concluding this session, Is that in the military there's a rule which says, Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Thank you.