Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

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Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Written by Steve Kowarsky

Thursday, 13 January 2011 07:47

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been spending a lot of time with a close family member who is going through a very difficult time. She’s an active, independent woman of 88 who fell and broke both of her arms six weeks ago.

Recovery is painfully slow and just plain painful. But even more challenging, for her, is the utterly bewildering experience of not being able to do anything — not even the simplest, most basic things — without help.

When I’m with her, I see clearly how a person’s mind can be like an engine racing with the clutch pushed in. It spins and spins, looking for something to engage with. Finding nothing, it races out of control.

For a person used to being fully engaged with the world, this is a real problem. You are like a little bird, fluttering madly, with no place to perch. Where can you go, what can you do, to calm yourself?

How do you help a person in that situation? Engage them in conversation; give them something to listen to.

If I’m calm, my words can be like a carrier wave that conveys the calm feeling behind them. Laughter is essential. We stock up on joke books. There are wonderful moments when we laugh together at our own foibles and the humor inherent in so much of life.

But as I try to offer her something to stop the racing of her mind, something to calm her, I reflect that she is like all of us. We are all looking for something to engage with; to calm ourselves, to find “a little peace and quiet”.

Yet how will we do that when all the things we depend on — things we can lose at any moment — are lost?

I’ve been asking this question, because what’s happening to my relative now will happen in one way or another to every one of us.

And her condition has made me all too aware that, as a society, we don’t really know what to do with the old. We put them somewhere, out of the way, where we don’t have to see them. We sedate them and park them in front of a television set.

Do we do this because they remind us of something we don’t want to remember: that we ourselves aren’t finding that “little peace and quiet”; and if we can’t find it now, how are we going to find it then? I’m grateful and relieved to know that Maharaji has given me something to focus on: so that my ability to calm myself doesn’t depend on fragile things I can so easily lose.

Calm is a very underrated thing, I’ve found. There is a lot more to it than we think. Calm is simple, but there’s nothing easy about it. It takes a lot of practice.

Being with my older relative makes me glad that I’m able to focus within. It reminds me that there will be a time when I have nowhere else to turn. But more than that, it reminds me that, even now, there is nowhere more worth turning to. I’m not practicing Knowledge now for some future time when I’m going to be the person lying in that bed, though that’s true enough. I’m practicing because — when I calm down a little — I begin to see that being calm is not only gorgeous: it’s the key that allows me to enjoy every step of the journey.

Illustration by Sara Shaffer.

43 Comments

Monica Olmos makes this comment

Agradecido por tener algo en qué centrarme

Sunday, 20 February 2011

Precioso Steve, precioso, a mi tambien me gusta escribir. Un abrazo.
Shanti Joshi makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Tuesday, 01 February 2011

My mom is 92 years old. She received Knowledge about 43 years ago. She is very contented. She has so much for Knowledge and Maharaji! Every now and again she would ask me, "Where is Maharaji, when will we have an event in USA?" I can see that this Knowledge has helped her so much in her life! Tahnk You, Maharaji from the bottom of my heart! Shanti.
Mitch Ditkoff makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Monday, 31 January 2011

Wonderful! Reminds me of a conversation I had with my Dad some years ago. I asked him what his biggest fear was and he said "being in traction" in a hospital because he wouldn't be able to DO anything -- and his whole life was about doing. At the end, for him, I wished he had more of an experience of BEING to offset his skill at DOING.
PETER makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Monday, 24 January 2011

Thank you for the beautifull article. As an old wise man said; in India the whole village is coming toghether to help and give support and love when somebody is in trouble. That is very helpfull too.
Myriam makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Saturday, 22 January 2011

I am 69, and with a life experience of insecurities, drama, and great difficulties; yet, every minute of it is worthy because it brought me to find something real. this experience of knowing that despite of all the suffering, there is something that allows me to open up to being in the present, discovering that love within myself and be able to focus and rest. I don't know how it is going to be when I am not able to take care for myself; but something will be there for me all the time. That love that it is just ready to give, and I am there to receive. I am so grateful, i cannot even describe it in words.
Tom Gannon makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Thursday, 20 January 2011

Thank You Steve for sharing this story
Vera makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Thursday, 20 January 2011

My mother is 86, and I can easily relate to your story, thanks for sharing, and the stories of other people who have a similar situation. Love and care we are giving them, are so powerful, these are the best and strongest medicine, in my opinion, and I found very inspiring M's recent talk in Barcelona on the topic that touched the heart of so many.
Lynn makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Thursday, 20 January 2011

I've seen this a lot in recent years, especially with my own parents. We all move through life convinced that we will always have control. And while we do, we devise all kinds of ways to entertain our minds. But inevitably we lose control over our circumstances, one way or another, and that's when over and over I see people cry in frustration," Why me?!" Maharaji has spoken so eloquently about "how we get good at what we practice". We are so fortunate to have knowledge especially before we get old and fall apart! We have the opportunity get really good at "hanging out inside". When the time comes that we no longer are able to lead our lives as we have been it will just be a change in details, not a complete disaster!
peggy howell makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

This is so true, Steve, and you frame the situation so nicely with the need we all have for a place where we can simply "rest".
andrew graty makes this comment

Being Grateful for Something to Focus On

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Really excellent point well made! I remember a similar example when my elderly Father had come into the room and started rustling through the newspaper. I had just finished enjoying an hour of being with my inner self and witnessing this act of scouring a newspaper became such an obvious case of trying to keep the attention focused on something- anything!- rather than simply being content with the experience of living. No criticism intended here- it was just a case of observing the human dilemma at work- and made me grateful again for the gift of Knowledge.