Space
I want to talk about Space today. Space is referred to as "Locus" in latin, "Raum" in German and "Aakasha" in Sanskrit.
What is Space ?
Is it the space around us.
Is it the space within us.
Medically we say that up to 60% of the Human body is water.
If we were to ask the question
"How much of the Human body is Space"
We will receive the below answer..
99.9999999% of your body is empty space.
So now, having set the tone for the remainder of this post, I will talk about the importance
of space in our lives.
There are two spaces that we encounter in our daily lives- One is the very palpable and
easily visible - Outer space, the other is the more subtle, more nuanced and hardly
noticeable - Inner space. Most of us are hardly aware of the Inner space.
Let me elaborate on this Inner space a little more. An energy permeates this inner space,
which in the Eastern Philosophy is called "chit" or consciousness. This consciousness,
is what creates awareness in a Living being. All thoughts, emotions, feelings come out of
this consciousness permeating our inner space.
If we are in tune with our Inner space, it is possible to grasp before hand events and occurrences that will happen in the Outer space.
Every event that occurs outside us, has as its causation an event that has taken place before hand in the inner space. If the mind can be reasonably quietened, then it is possible to make this correlation.
A noisy mind, a mind which is anxious, restless would not be able to do this.
In the field of psychology, C.G Jung has referred to this as Synchronicity.
Synchronicity. - A phenomenon where an event in the outside world coincides meaningfully
with a psychological state of mind.
Jung elaborates this further,
The coincidence of a psychic state in the observer with a simultaneous, objective, external event that corresponds to the psychic state or content, where there is no evidence of a causal connection between the psychic state and the external event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space and time, such a connection is not even conceivable.
Let me elaborate a few examples in my own life and I am pretty sure a lot of us will be able to relate to it.
Example 1. I am looking to buy a pretty expensive Book but I don't have the money for it.
I let it go and do not dwell too much on it, though the aspiration is very much there.
It so happens that a friend of mine visits me the same evening, one whom I have not seen in years, and gives me the Book saying he doesn't have too much use for the same..
Example 2. When we are children, and badly want something but our parents put us off saying that they cant afford it for us, we become crestfallen. However, it would happen that a visitor to your house comes by on the same day with the gift we badly want. There is no causal link between them. Hence Jung calls it the "acausal ( Not causal) operating principle".
Example 3: You are trying in vain to find a solution to a Scientific problem. You can't and so drop it. You go out to relax in the cool sun. There right in front of you on a House which you never saw before - lies the piece of the missing puzzle in the form of a geometrical shape - which gives you the solution to the problem.
These occurrences are not merely coincidences. They have a certain logic, though the logic goes far beyond the logic - as we know it. It cannot be termed logic in the traditional sense. Hence, Jung gave the term Synchronicity.
We can by learning to quite the mind - dig into this inner resource that each one of us have.
Quietening the mind can be done in many ways - Meditation, running , swimming , Yoga, Tai chi etc.
In this quietened state of mind, there exists an heightened awareness, a vibrant consciousness, that can perceive events and the connections between them which ordinarily the Human mind cannot perceive.
This Inner space and the silence that gets associated with it then becomes sacred - sacred to the person in possession of them.
But as the Zen masters have said it - It is better for the person who has it to be as if he never had it...