Make Space for the Divine

I have never been able to slow down. I would even rush my walks by the sea.

The more people that said, “I enjoy this,” the faster I would go, because would I not miss the rest of life while enjoying this one thing?

I would climb the escalator in the metro rather than wait for it to carry me to the end, condemning those who didn’t. After all, why would healthy people not want to move?

While visiting a new city in the world, I would make at least 40,000 steps on the first day and then realize there was nothing left to see in the remaining two days.

There were people I would refuse to spend time with because I deemed that they moved too slowly. I felt like I was wasting my time when I had to be with them.

When I talked to someone, I would spend the time that I left for him or her to answer by formulating my preemptive judgmental answer before the answer even came from the other side. After all, how could people think and speak so slowly?

I always carried a book with me wherever I went. You know, awful things may happen in life, and I might not be able to come back home quickly, but at least I could read a book rather than waste my time!

And of course, I would get upset and angry when things did not go in the way that I had planned, making me waste my precious time. How could things like this happen to me while I am trying to operate to my highest potential?

And yes, disturbing things like this would always happen to me without exception.

When I was committed to something, I could work all day and night, sacrificing everything with steady discipline. This looks fancy when it comes to reaching great achievements, right? Indeed, I felt lucky to be such a person. However, I had to have physiotherapy for three weeks after lengthy examinations because of some injuries I had sustained. Meanwhile, far from being able to move fervently with minimal effort, I learned from the doctors that I would not be able to do some things ever again. For instance, there would be no climbing the escalator ever again, so now I stand on the right side of the metro escalator in a meditative state with no desire to rush. It now takes 15 minutes to get out of the metro station. Instead of taking 40,000 steps a day, I find it hard to stand up straight for 10 minutes. Those slow people whose friendship I refused are now my best fellows.

What I would like to share from my new slow-paced life is not just the fact that the more you slow down, the more you realize the beauty, gifts, wonders, and miracles of life. The implication is more about the expansion of time. For example, modern life flows up to three times quicker than it did before, and we are supposed to keep up with it in order to stay up to date and in tune. When we do this, though, we become permanently stuck in the same time zone, surrounded by the same conditions. Even when it seems difficult to keep up with this pace, we somehow create a comfortable space over the long term, our comfort zone. At this point, we no longer feel the experience of slowing down mindfully with a clear intention to just see what happens. Do we know what kind of resources, opportunities, and knowledge from the new dimensions will open up when we watch life pass us by at triple our pace? Have we ever thought about it as a creative system that works for us, feeds us, and magnifies us while we rest and enjoy?

I spent my years working passionately with love and believed my way was the only way. Yet I realized in the time expansion following my injury that even though I was unable to upload videos to my YouTube channel, my subscribers multiplied. All the necessary conditions were provided for me to start doing workshops in the company where I had worked for 10 years, and the opportunities I was following up started to unfold. My asana practice grew in lightness, softness, and moderate effort, and the support I had craved was delivered without me asking for it. I witnessed how the things that did not serve me couldn’t hold on to me anymore in my slowed-down pace. I quit watering the seeds that were clearly incapable of sprouting and realized that I had more time and energy for the things that are supposed be nourished in life with the resources that overflow in this stillness and expansion.

In short, would I have been able to achieve these results if I had always been at this slower pace? Or would I have found myself sitting idle and waiting for miracles to happen? Which resources can I awaken in order to find balance before it is too late? Up to which point should we allow the miraculous human mind to conquer our lives? At what point should the mind fade away and deliver authority to the divine mind, the higher consciousness and endless, creative source? If the divine, endless, creative source is here, now and everywhere, what kind of choices can I make to experience it from the very beginning with wholeness? I will hopefully answer these questions at the next milestone in my life.

I hope all of us can ease toward our milestones.