sacred time
… One day it started, that I wrote down less and less appointments in my diary. Lines, sections, whole pages remained empty, except for only a few trivial notes …
To be completely unintentional for a while, not knowing the meaning and purpose. Just listen, see, sense. Inside and outside. The momentary state of the body, the temper, the mind, and the atmosphere of the room, in which one rests, and where nothing happens.
Doing nothing.
Effortlessly, without intending anything – sitting – on a chair, a bench, a meditation cushion – walking – on the shores of a lake or in the forest – lying – on a couch facing the garden or the sky.
Sometimes it is good to straighten the back. It resembles a plant that aligns itself towards the sun and has an inwardly ordering and clearing effect.
... At first I still pretended, that I had to look in my schedule, when I was asked for an appointment. However, I neither looked at my calendar nor wrote anything in there. If I agreed, I kept it in my memory, and if I forgot, I guess it wasn’t that important ….
Perceiving and not having to improve anything. As it is at this moment, it is good. One might feel tired, restless, insecure, loving or angry – all states and feelings are welcome and have permission to be there without fear of being judged. One can ask oneself: how am I doing? How do I feel? Who or what do I find when I close my eyes and feel inside myself? And you can answer these questions completely honestly. Because everything is allowed to be here, just as it is, in the time of not doing (and of course also otherwise).
Whoever deals with oneself in this way, is like a sun, that touches with its warm light everything that is held out to it. A sun makes no difference whether it shines on a pile of wood or a garbage can. It does not judge anything, it does not favor anything, it only gives its light.
Seeing, hearing, smelling, it happens by itself, you don’t need to do anything for it – the ticking of a clock, the rustling of the wind outside in the trees, the delicate layer of dust on a vase, light shining on the leaves of a plant, the feeling of sadness around your belly.
… The only appointment that still seemed important to me was the one with time. This appointment was also when I began to accumulate again, began to have breath, began to have legs, arms, began to have a new kind of body that in the end, I knew, would wear a smile like a crown …
Noticing thoughts come and go. Feeling hands touch the fabric of clothes or the arm of the chair, cool and smooth. Hearing a phone ring outside, seeing the curtain move ever so slightly, almost as if it were breathing. Noticing how little by little more silence falls and nothing happens. A truthful person who is simply there.
You can consecrate a few minutes a day to not doing, or commit to it for a longer time, an hour, a day, two days. However long, every minute is precious. You never waste your time, on the contrary, you bless it.
I sat there alone and silent for hours and it was like arriving for the first time in my life.
In the beginning, one perceives silence mainly in the absence of noise. In an empty church or in a lonely valley, in the desert or in the middle of a silent lake. However, if one engages in not-doing for a longer period of time, sooner or later one will come to know yet another silence. A spacious, crystal clear, deep silence – more like a presence that can be felt. This silence is everywhere, in every fold of skirt, in every leaf, under every stone, in the clouds and the trees, in the puddles and in the shells, in the hair and in the thoughts, even between the thoughts. It permeates everything, is indestructible and present even in droning noise. If one abandons oneself to nothingness with all one’s heart, this trust invites silence and at some point it inevitably happens that one is touched by it.
Especially when I stayed in this state for a long time, at some point I no longer felt like a person sitting alone in his room, but like a silent thing among other silent things – like a resting animal, in the midst of other resting animals.
Doing nothing is neither a concept, nor a method, nor a strategy. If possible, it should also not become an application, that is, something that one does. In a way, this seems paradoxical. Does one do something and at the same time not do it? Doing something that one cannot actually do? How does one do nothing without it becoming a concept? The solution is to stop again and again:
Whenever I realize that I intend something, pursue a goal, or want to change something, I stop and surrender to what is so close. This is the practice of stopping, of giving up, of surrendering. Surrendering involves an almost blind trust and this trust is basically pure love.
Life is like a shy animal.
When I go towards it, it runs away hiding.
When I shout at it to come out, it will not come.
When I figure out ways to trap or capture it, it remains hidden.
Even when I perform the most beautiful dances, in order to seduce it, it will not be seen.
Only when I am here, silently and do nothing,
nothing to convince it,
nothing to attract it,
nothing to manipulate it,
it will slowly come out and reveal itself,
and finally I will be lying in its arms like a child and contrariwise.
©Rani Kaluza
A Quote by Franz Kafka:
“You don´t have to leave your room.
Just stay sitting at your table and listen.
You don´t even have to listen, just wait.
You don´t even have to wait, just learn to become quiet and still and for yourself.
The world will bountiful present itself, in order to be unmask. She cannot do anything other, she will roll in exstasy at your feet.”