"This Week" by the Bahrain Meditation Centre
17th February, 2007

Are YOU Going Round the Bend?

It flows freely. It's almost impossible to contain. It has the power to smooth the roughest edges. And it can penetrate almost everything to maximum depth. Such is the nature of water. Such is the nature of life. Life is like water. It is never static. It flows. It takes many forms. When life itself is seen as a river, almost by instinct we catch the rightness and importance of the idea of 'going with the flow'.

Letting go, and going with the flow, is not original wisdom. But going with any old flow, as history teaches us, is not so wise. Each day, if we are awake and aware, we are faced with the challenge of choice - where in the river of life should we stand? Should we go where the current is strongest and the rapids create white water? This is where we know we will find the most challenging relationships and what can appear to be the greatest obstacles to our progress. When we do go where life moves fastest, we take risks - but a life without risk is a life unlived, and growth is impossible.

Many people live 'white water' lives, but few do so consciously and choicefully. They tend to be the action addicts and the rushaholics, always competing with others and living life as something that has to be either survived or conquered. They often seek to stimulate crisis, are sometimes the catalyst for chaos and their drug of addiction, and therefore choice, is adrenalin. They tend to carry a fair amount of 'baggage' but they cannot see that it is their baggage that hinders their ability to 'flow', to be fluid and flexible, to yield when its time to yield and to smooth the way when its time to smooth the way. Stress will be a frequent companion.

Others have cultivated the wisdom to find and visit a bend in the river of life, where the movement is gentler. Time spent here is created with the purpose of standing back, observing, learning, and preparing for the right moment and right place to enter the mainstream again. Time spent 'on the bend' is time spent on the mend. Time spent in reflection on the process of life itself, perhaps several times a day, allows insight and wisdom to reach the surface of awareness. It is an investment with guaranteed returns.

The wisest however, have found a spot just 'around the bend' where they conspire with the currents to create a place of total stillness. Here is the time and the space for renewal. In silence and solitude the human spirit is refreshed, the mind refocused. Regular time, spent just around the bend, out of site and beyond sound, provides the calm and the power necessary to avoid being driven round the bend by the frenetic, high anxiety, 'white water' games of others. This is no cop-out. This is where the power of real wealth is found, the wealth of personal peace and the power to handle the thrashing and the crashing of others! Few appreciate the efficacy of time spent around the bend.

Action balanced with reflection and empowered by silence is the masterful way to live. Then it may be possible to see that if the river is a metaphor for life so water is a metaphor for our consciousness, our self. Just as water has the ability to take many forms according to the place, space and immediate environment, so consciousness can take many forms according to what is perceived to be the need of the moment. Knowing what form to take lies at the heart of being effective. Here are the seven 'ways of water' that signal possible states of being.

1 You can be like ice, solid and stable, and able to support others as they face and negotiate their life challenges and occasional crisis.

2 You can be like a fountain, available and able to quench the thirst of others for understanding and insight. But for this you must have drunk at your own fountain for some time.

3 You can be like a cloud, raining your knowledge and experience across a wide area reaching many parts, places and people.

4 You can be like a faint mist. In your most subtle form you can detect the slightest movements of the feelings of others and needs of others. Often when the other is far away.

5 You can be like a lake. When the lake is calm and still it is like glass as it perfectly reflects both mountain and sky. When you are calm and still you provide the perfect mirror for others to see and know themselves with absolute clarity.

6 You can be like snow, lightly sprinkling the coolness of your intentions and attentions on all, and in so doing helping to cool the hottest heads around you.

7 Or you can just be a river. But what is the purpose of a river? What is the purpose of life? Is a life without purpose a life that is wasted? So what is the purpose of life? Is it the same as a river? Is the purpose of a river to carve it's own path across the land, from mountain to ocean? Are you carving your own path, ploughing your own furrow? Or are you allowing someone else to tell you where to go and what to do? Is the rivers purpose to provide a home for all who would live within it? Are you letting someone live within your mind to such an extent that they are absorbing all your mental energy? Is the purpose of the river to carry sand and silt to the ocean, clearing and cleaning as it goes? Are you carrying the negative baggage of others, do you take on the burdens of others? Can you see that when you do it clouds your view? Perhaps the highest purpose of the river, the true purpose, if rivers have true purpose, is to nourish all it touches on the journey to the ocean – the grass, the flowers, the trees, and all who would come to the banks of the river? Could this also signal your highest purpose – to nourish others whose lives you touch by being in their presence?

Question: Where do you spend most of your day, in the river, on the bend or around the bend? Which part of the river do you need to visit more frequently?

Reflection : Visualise going with the flow, being fluid, in a situation/relationship where you currently experience much white water!

Action: Write down three key relationships in your life today. Which of the seven forms of water (forms of consciousness) would help you and the other to move that relationship forward?

Om Shanti
(I am a peaceful soul)
 Tel: +973-17-712 545, meditate@batelco.com.bh, www.bahrainmeditationcentre.org
Bahrain Meditation Centre is administered by B.K.W.S.U. (visit: www.bkwsu.org.uk)