The art of simply 'being'

To counter the madness of our day-to-day frenzied lifestyle, Charles Shahar shows us how to 'pause' and be one with pure existence

- Charles Shahar

What do we mean by creating more space in our lives? We can look at this question from two perspectives: in terms of what we do and in terms of how we think. The former has to do with our nonstop lifestyle and how we have forgotten how to simply ‘be.' The issue of creating more space in one's mind is less obvious, so I will deal with it later.

Let's begin by considering ‘more space as a pause in one's life. By ‘pause,' I am talking more about a quiet interlude: a time in our lives when we stop striving or struggling and experience a state of calmness. As I will point out, this is different from sleeping because such interludes involve not only a state of calmness but awareness as well.

People are so used to being active that they usually have little time in their lives to experience tranquillity. In fact, they are so used to filling their time, that any gap of quietude might make them feel like they are missing out on life or that their time is not being spent productively, or they may simply find it boring. There are three reasons as to why such interludes make us uncomfortable.

1. The first has to do with the pace of modern living. How many of us have become impatient when the driver in front of us has taken more than a couple of seconds to react to a green light, when a website has not downloaded quickly enough, or when a cashier at the local supermarket starts to chat with the customers in front of us? These types of pauses can make us feel agitated, nervous, or frustrated. They may lead us to behave in uncharacteristic ways. We may give a person a dirty look, make a snide remark, or even lose our temper. Even the gentlest people can get frustrated and have bad thoughts about the slow driver ahead of them.