“Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”
— Henry David Thoreau
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The story goes that Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb and a thousand other things, went fishing by himself almost every day – but never once caught a fish.
His assistant noticed that Edison never brought bait along on his daily trips – and when asked, Edison explained:
“When you fish alone, no one disturbs you, and when you have an empty hook, the fish don’t disturb you either.”
I love that.
You see,
Working towards something is important.
But equally important is not working … walking away and giving time and space for energy and inspiration and creativity and wisdom to come to the surface.
We don’t do this.
Or rarely, right? Generally we feel that “doing nothing” is lazy and unproductive.
Yet I think we, like Edison (and Einstein and Gandhi, and countless other people who have realised the power of walking away), want to see regular time “switched off” as necessary; crucial to a life well-lived.
Again – it’s not “just” about recovery.
It’s about clarity of direction, it’s being able to see what you’re needlessly worried or anxious about, what you can control and what you must surrender.
It’s about creativity and intuition and perspective.
It’s about letting something bigger than our tiny little minds work on our problems – and there is indeed a bigger source of wisdom than our linear and emotionally aligned brains.
It just takes patience for it to come through – and if there’s anything that our little minds don’t have, it’s patience.
Yet like Archimedes of old running out of his bath; so much more can be realised when you let go – when you stop grinding and thinking so much about everything.
Have you ever had that?
For instance:
You’ve lost your keys – you wrack your brain as you turn the house upside down and retrace your steps; all the time getting more and more frustrated. You quit … and THEN comes the Eureka; the lightbulb moment and the location of the missing item.
Right?
Pushing and struggle just means agitation and less wisdom
Letting go is peace – and patience. And an elegant solution.
That’s one of the reasons why you don’t practice meditation to get good at meditation – you do it to get good at life.
Fishing is a grand thing. So is walking or any exercise. So is deep sleep. But learning to sit, quietly, by yourself is everything.
It's never fish you are after.
Learning to patiently observe without attachment, without seeking … to wait and see.
To be present without grabbing and grasping and grinding.
To let the mind and the future go and sink into the field of wise and intuitive awareness beyond the mind.
To be content and at peace with unresolved challenges and questions and uncertainty …
This is what you seek.
And they're all powerful life skills.
Meditation is not just useless spiritual navel gazing – it actually helps you find your keys.
On that:
Don’t just do something; sit there!
Go well,
Arjuna