Container

Somewhere perhaps in Ursula K Le Guin, this thought appeared or got a nudge. And over years, here and there it has been collecting its like. This idea, that the first time a human being figured out a jar, time perhaps began for consciousness. Something to hold in. Something to hold in something for beyond the present, for a time yet to come. That raised the present locked gaze or sort of released it from its hold of now. It let it linger on future. And as Tao Te Ching puts, things come to being with their opposites, it simultaneously opened up the countries of the past. Future and Past seemed to float in on the horizon which always contained the now, was driven by will, perhaps unconcsious, physical and chemical responses to the stimulus nature provides, and learnings registering on the physical being, lodging deep down in the subconscious, eventually finding their narrow narrow path to the DNA.

So came up consciousness. Time woven in consciousness, and consciousness in time. One an infinite. Other too, an infinite, but seems to be carried by a 'self'.

From a child of nature, where nature provides for every 'now', human being started planning, saving, providing for future. In its wake, rose society, and as the concept woke up the gaze further, the extent of holding it began, it continues still, not finding its order or proper structure, proper organisation, the way nature seems to magnificently organise everything, the human conscious still grapples with this holding.

The physical holding gave way to numbers, the abstract holding, to words, language, books, epics, poems, the abstract holding to a future self or to future progeny, the passing on of what it has learnt, lived, perhaps earned wisdom through experience. There, perhaps it follows nature's cue, that of noting everything down, all good practices, all experience of the complicated response-stimului-response-stimuli shaped and shaping network in its long strand of DNA noted in every living cell.

But as mentioned earlier, this shape of self, of consciousness is not understood well. And if you don't understand the dimensions of the container well, it is difficult to organise it efficiently.

Perhaps here, one looks, reflects, learns from all the masters that have gone before. From the sages, to the artists, who have delved deep into this wonder of consciousness, life, time, existence.

A few things that come up:

- Practice. State of Being.  Like physical self, the invisble self needs a workout, a daily practice. A daily lifting up. One has to think it should be simple. 

    In Vedas, it is called 'abhyasi' the aspirant, the practising person - one focuses on breath, posture and concenteration. Just bring them to order any time and you kind of order yourself. 

    The other is to keep beginning, that a person is a growing changing thing, have loose binds, ready to be detached binds with your ideas of yourself. Be simple, open, come as a blank page to a moment. And keep beginning, 0 to 1. The first step. Just focus on the first step. 

    The third is this state. Since it is a state of being, it cannot be contained in a container, one often feels the need to bottle it up, but one has to pull oneself together, again and again, and yet again to feel that way. Even after generations of thinking into this, this seems to be the basic thing. That 'practice'. It is like the physical self, one needs to do one's own exercises or move one's own body to stay fit. So goes for the invisible self. 

These few simple things - breathing, posture, concenteration, begin again and again, first step, keep moving forward calmly, and things pass. And one perhaps knows how to restore some order to a self (even though we do not understand its shape). 

Perhaps the shape of container is irrelevant. Perhaps it is formless that way. Perhaps one orders it by simply ordering the present will.

- There are ways of doing it. Meditation of different kinds. The other is simple acts with presence. And yet other is reading uplifting things slowly. There is magic in these activities of concenteration.

- That it is all here, available in this now. One just needs to know that whatever force runs through the universe, runs through its every atom, every cell, through every self. Deep inside, the forever fountain sits. Keep finding your way to it. Sometimes deep writing helps. Sometimes reading helps. Sometimes reading and then contemplating through writing helps. It is all like a big sphere, our lives and its specific materials on the surface, but deep inside each one can access the eternal fountain. Our own personal journeys given our own personal relativities.

- Keep moving. Keep moving forward. It is the human thing that it all seems to be like a moving shuffling board, like a treadmill. Rest too long and everything changes. So you too change up. Figure out something else with full presence. Not a dwelling, a bridge mindset.

-Learn from the lotus. This one from symbols and general wisdom. Our lives materials are different, varied, a lot of chance - as to where we are born, how we grow up, what circumstances find us. And we could have been anyone. As in, what we happen to be, so much of it is not us, but chance. By being like the lotus and its leaf in the random material of this world, the humane, or the being inside all of us is perhaps made of the same material. By being like the lotus, one lets the externalities slide off, glide off gently without getting too much bothered, entangled or attached to them. 

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All seem so simple, but guess the need for practice. Like perhaps a workout plan on paper versus actually going to the gym and lifting those weights. 

Here's to keep practising :)