Kashmir's Shak

Action Is Eloquence

"For in such business
Action is eloquence"
CORIOLANUS
Act III, scene ii

Heraclitus wrote “We cannot step into the same river twice” 2500 years ago.

Did he mean that the water we stepped in is now gone, long since become the ocean? Or was it that the next time we step into the river we will be a different person?

Nature is in a constant state of flux. The only constant is our illusion of perfection and permanence.

We fix names on things and people to create an illusion of permanence. Constructs like 'river' allow us to possess or control reality on our own terms.

Whether it is cleaning dishes or altering the culture of society around us, our contribution to the world and people around us is the only true measure of our existence, the rest is all only so much talk that will vanish back into the same thin air from whence it came.

I am working with a small group of quiet revolutionaries. I call them the Omega’s because they are both the beginning and end of change that is underway in a major organization in America. When they buzz, the change flows, when they become mortal, the change evaporates into the sky.

Collectively, these six passionate, visionary individuals are the hub of a movement, a deep rooted change in an iconic organization, whose name I cannot share I am bound by client - consultant privilege.

The Omega’s power source is not in the formal delegation of authority by their collective boss, it does not come from their job titles or even the consultants that pursue their charge. Their power resides in their unified, fearless sense of the present moment and a shared sense of mission. Their power springs from the engagement of the hearts and minds of the people all around them.

The Omega's have created a trusted space to help hundreds of people to fashion a future in the new high tech, multi-media environment.

Like the rest of us, the Omega’s have their good and bad days, but when they set aside any vain pre-occupation with position power, titles and the temporal reputations that so often consume men, this is when they flow, this is when they reign supreme.

The Omega's disappeared for 7 weeks, melted away as mystically as they appeared. Suddenly, there they stood alone, six lonely, fragmented, powerless mortals consumed in their positions and roles. This was a temporary slide, thankfully they have found their voice once more in the past few weeks.

The Omega's power rises when they forget their individual power and forge a new reality through each other.

The Omega’s shift to a whole new level when they create a space to enable hundreds of people in their industry to find their own voice.

It is stirring to watch their individual intelligence flow through each other to create an ocean of energy and power. They grow as they wrestle and struggle through each others truths. I sense the pain as they they hit boulders and river banks of chaos, only to find a new reality rise out of the confusion. They become ordinary when they take themselves, their positions and titles seriously.

The focus on a new reality, the open engagement and genuine collective inquiry leading to rapid action through expeditions and initiatives has provided this small, conspicuous group the opportunity to do something that no individual genius or hero could dream of.

Victor Frankl reminds us in“Man’s Search For Meaning”

"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways, through our deeds, experience of a value and finally through suffering…. Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way. What matters most, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.

He goes on further to say:

“What man actually needs is not a tension-less state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

Every thought feeds an action. Every action create a new thought. This is the self-perpetuating water mill of life, the energy that flows from and through our nature, into and out of every precious moment that we are alive.

The Omega's are a temporary construct, they are imperfect and impermanent, but as they change, they change the world around them. That is what makes them the 'Omega'. As they grow, so does everything around them, including me.

The moment they combine their diverse experiences, strengths and styles through each other, they alter the path of the very river that they stand in. The Omega's embody the notion of moving from 'having', to 'being' to 'becoming'. Every time I step into them I am renewed.

“We, which now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise”
SONNET CVI (106)

Wheel of Fire

"Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead"

King Lear (Act IV, scene vi)

I was asked why I meditate everyday. There is a simple answer and a complicated one. The simple answer is it allows me to awaken.

The deeper answer is this... every day as we live and breath, grime builds up around our essence and being. It is the natural outcome of every day living. This grime blocks the pours of our spiritual, thinking, emotion and physical being.

At the end of every day our skin and our actions have had their day in the sun and beg to be washed away.

Sleep washes away the redundancy of the day that has is no more. Each morning we open our eyes to a brand new day, it is (or at least should be) a new brand experience of what it means to be me in this life.

If we drag the redundancy of the previous day or days (or even months and years), if we remain locked and pre-occupied with reliving conversations and actions of the past, there is no room left to experience today. Living in the past fills up the present, it is the most severe living, breathing death sentence we can pass freely upon ourselves.

This is the natural redundancy or by-product of living. It must be rinsed out and eliminated from our memories, bodies, houses and towns/villages. Processing this natural waste is vital to our health and well being. If we fail to eliminate it, we will feel its burden, we may get ill, but left unattended it will eventually choke us to a living death. We may become so consumed by the waste that we become the waste.

Cleaning a room, organizing our desk or workspace, taking a bath or shower cleanses our body, holding an honest conversation, all of this can be hard work, but it leaves us free, energized and breathing whole. The same is true for listening to a great song, watching a marvelous movie, preparing and/or enjoying a freshly cooked meal, going on vacation, even going on a shopping expedition, all these basic actions renew our focus on the present. These acts can be habitual or meditative. If they are on auto-pilot they are a living death, if they are concious, if they bring us back to today, they are a form of meditation.

How do we cleanse our spirit? We can't wash it with soap and water, we can't hoover it, put it in tidy little stacks and draws? The only way to reset the default on our soul is to withdraw, to draw a breath and then another and then another. Breathing is what it's all about. This stops, and everthing else ceases to matter. Returning to our breath reminds us what is really important, begins to put all other noise and clutter into perspective.

Meditation is a very deliberately way of not acting, allowing the dust of yesterday to settle. The dead skin of old actions and events needs to settle so we can see through it and move past it. What was once vital, is now rubbish. Once we are able to mark and discard the mental and emotional baggage, the noise or redundancy of our past, we are free to discover a new voice, in the new - present moment. This is a freedom that cannot be fought for or bought forth. It is there inside us all the time.

Our history is the rubbish of moments that have 'past' - we need to manage rubbish properly, extract it so that it does not contaminate the 'present'. We have to respect rubbish but not take it so seriously that we bathe our present or presence in it.

We can pull the resident energy from yesterday's rubbish if we apply a ego-free contemplation, refuse to justify or pass judgement. Making excuses for what we said or did yesterday is soiling our clean hands in a deathly smell.

Reflecting on the past and learning from our successes and mistakes is an act in the present, this also sets us free. It is not to be confused with blindly re-living old conversations and experiences. One is working the truth out of the past, the other is being consumed by it.

Learning from the past is hard work, but it is not the same as yearning for or becoming the past.

Our chief task is to create history, not to toil in it.

We wash out the noise of yesterday with the water of silence and contemplation. Prayer or meditation unlocks the hold that the past has on us. But it is more than faith, even the simple acts of cleaning tables, washing dishes, repairing cars are all a form of prayer. These act returns us to sanctity and allows sanity to prevail.

We create our sanctuary (home) by cleaning out the excess. Like a poet removing excess words or a composer extracting excess notes, we create space for ourselves by removing the redundancy (rubbish) around us, by tidying up, cleaning or renovating the space in which we live.

We cleanse our spirit through love. True friendship cleanses our emotional and spiritual grime,

For many years my mother has taught me the importance of "rehm-das" --- this is a deep level of empathy, a deep, authentic concern for the well being of others. This is not be confused with sympathy or charity. It is akin to the Golden Rule - of doing onto others as you will have them do unto you, except it is not about taking an action, it is a state of being that informs all our deeds.

I was asked why I meditate and my reply is this: "I meditate for the same reason I shower every morning and eat fresh fruit, it helps me enjoy a brand new day, experience a brand new way, allows me to be brand new - me". It all gets down to one simple word: FREEDOM.