"This Week"
Bahrain Meditation Centre
16th September, 2006

Are YOU too Busy to JAM?

If you connect a battery to a light bulb the light will shine brightly. If you don't recharge the battery at regular intervals the light will gradually fade into darkness. When your mind is clear, your thoughts consistently positive and you can easily see the right thing to do, it means the light of your consciousness is being powered by the battery of your heart, and the battery is full. Not your physical heart but you spiritual heart. But if there is mental tiredness, grumpiness, irritability, the slightest confusion, or any form of stress it means your power is running low.

How are your power levels right now? How bright and focussed are your mental creations? How clear are your insights and how sharp is your decision making? Or are you just constantly busy getting through life, seriously pursuing your goals, amidst feelings that some days are more about survival than the satisfaction?

Busyness is a modern disease born of unease. Not just at a physical level, but at a mental level. The Chinese have a word for 'busy' that is made of two characters. One character means 'heart' and the other character means 'killer'! When we are too busy physically, it sabotages our heart, the strongest pump in the world. But when we are busy with too much thinking, too many thoughts filled by worry, animosity and regret, it means we are draining the power of our spiritual heart. When someone suggests we take a rest, take time out and recharge our batteries, our first thought is often, "Sorry, too busy!" Little do we realise that busyness is just avoidance, it is a way of running from ourselves. Even when we take a holiday we still find ways to 'keep busy' which is why, when we return from holiday, we can be heard saying, "Now I need a rest!"

And so, in a world where everyone is busy being busy, and busyness seems to be the right thing to do, we become 'rushaholics' and 'hurry addicts'. It's no wonder so many physical hearts break down, so many minds go fuzzy and our spiritual hearts have frequent 'power outages'.

There is no instant cure to free us from our addictive patterns of mental and physical activity. Neither is there a way to ramp up the power and give ourselves the energy 'fixes' that we need in order to sustain out 'busy' habits without paying a terrible price later. To go from a human incessantly doing to a human just being, to go from needing to do something and sometimes trying to do everything, to deciding to let go and do a lot less, is just too big a shock to our system. Except for those already doing nothing at the other end of the spectrum. But then, they are often still just as busy … doing nothing!

There is a middle way. We can punctuate our days with oasis moments in which we can interrupt our patterns and recharge our spiritual/mental batteries. Like good punctuation in a sentence, these moments give us the chance to push the pause button, relax mental muscles and make sure there are no blockages on our line into the power station of our spiritual heart.

This very weekend sees the global launch of Just A Minute, an international initiative that aims to make available the methods and tools to build oasis moments into busy lifestyles. Using any one of seven methods people can easily and creatively insert Just a Minute pauses into a variety of real life situations. From a simple moment of relaxation to a profound meditative experience of silence, all you have to do is decide to care for your self, your heart, your true heart, and be a just a little less busy for a few minutes each day. And the good news is it's free, it's non-fattening and it's legal!

Question: How busy are you in just keeping busy for busy's sake?

Reflection : Constant activity, which is justified by our need to move on to the next 'important' task is just a way of avoiding ourselves – true or false?

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)