Mindful Living in a Time of Covid

 

Many of us wake up today to the new normal: churches, mosques, synagogues and temples closed; restaurants, bars and theatres closed. Even parks and home visits off limits. In response to my blog last week some people have asked that I say a little more about the ‘mindful living’ I mentioned earlier. I am happy to do this if it will help us to come through this extraordinary and unprecedented situation.

Accordingly I take as my ‘text’ a verse from the 2,500 year old Sanskrit ‘Svestasvatara Upanisad’, chapter 4, sloka 6:

dvā suparṇā sayujā sakhāyā samānaṃ vṛkṣaṃ pariṣasvajāte / tayor anyaḥ pippalaṃ svādv atty anaśnann anyo abhicākaśīti

[personhood] is like two birds of golden plumage, inseparable companions, perched on the branch of the same tree.

One of them tastes the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree; the other, tasting neither, calmly looks on.

I mentioned in the last blog our ‘animal’ reaction to the covid crisis: fear, anxiety, the need to get enough food, protect loved ones etc. This is the bird that ‘eats the sweet and bitter fruit’. Edith Stein, the 20^th Century German philosopher calls it the ‘me-self’. Sigmund Freud and his followers call it the ‘ego’. And it is important. In fact many branches of depth psychology are called ‘ego psychology’ as they help us to develop and strengthen the ego. Many spiritual practitioners today talk of ‘getting rid of the ego’. Which is a) not possible and b) probably not desirable anyway... There are two birds on the branch - we cannot kill two birds with one stone! Rather the ego must continue to eat its bitter and sweet fruits – rushing around trying to get enough protective kit, cans of soup and avoiding all contact with everyone else. This is a survival strategy that is part of our make-up. Note that this bird has ‘golden plumage’ too – it is just as important as the other bird...

          But all the time the other silent bird looks on – this is what Edith Stein and others call ‘the soul’. It is the eternal part of us that can observe silently what happens in the ego. Now, this is the part of the self that is normally hidden in our day-to-day lives. In fact for most of us it often only a crisis – a bereavement, unemployment, sickness – that can enable it to emerge. Well we have a big crisis now – in fact all three rolled into one. Now is the time to listen to the song of the silent bird (as St John of the Cross said). As we sit at home or out on our solitary walks let us devote 10 – 15 minutes each day to listening to this song. Why not dedicate the traditional time of sunrise and sunset to this practice? From this perspective we can begin to redress the balance in our personalities – away from the ‘me-self’ to the soul.

          One last thing. I mentioned in the previous blog the Sanskrit notion of the ‘tirtha’ or ‘crossing place’ and suggested we are at such a crossing place now. As well as a physical crossing place – a pilgrimage – the Sanskrit texts talk of ‘tirthas of the heart’. There are six of these ‘crossing places of the heart’: truth, charity, patience, self-control, love and wisdom. As we stay at home with our loved ones and family, as we interact with each other in the coming weeks and months, let us aim to nurture these six qualities in our social interactions as we move into the mystery we are all being invited to enter.

          Yesterday I was able to work in the garden, planting vegetables for the new season and sowing the first seeds of the season on a bright spring day. As I watched the inevitable renewal of the earth I remembered some of the last words of the Viennese composer Gustav Mahler in his ‘Song of the Earth’, written as he was dying of heart disease in 1909. I shall finish with these, thinking and praying for us all:

The well-loved earth everywhere and always

Blossoms again in spring and grows green anew!

Everywhere and always the horizon glimmers blue...

Forever... Forever... Forever...Forever...