Musings

As we enter the third stage of Covid-19 pandemic phase in India, and currently in a 21 day lock down mode, I began to examine the very three natural states of the human condition: to Think, Feel and Act.


Suddenly, we are assaulted with an overload of ‘information’ – some factual, most hype and some fake. What do we think now? Earlier, we just relied on the news to update, inject us with what we needed to think. We took endorsements as ‘given’ – we unquestionably swallowed their tinted lens of the truth out there, or believed in the celebrity guru to inform us for what we must strive for, be obsessed with, yearn for. It was ok to suspend our thinking, allow someone else to take charge, but that has changed this fortnight.


What do I feel? Just a fortnight back I could hold my experience in some static binary – happy or sad, excited or bored. But the past few days, I have been confused, with co-holding a simultaneity of feelings, at polar ends – the best way to describe this is calling it mixed. I feel happy for being at this moment secure, but a sense of disquiet to see more than half of India stranded and vulnerable. I experience the need to protect the ones I call apna, yet I cannot fathom who is the ‘paraya’. Suddenly, everything is interconnected. As we experience personal confinement, nature on the other hand breathes deeply, self-cleansing and badly repairing and restoring herself, from destruction we have heaped on her. I am reluctant to heap ‘blame’ at an unknown virus, for I recognise that she is a by-product (inorganic) of our own human action. And like a fever, she comes upon us as a warning to rectify, mend our ways. Covid-19, is a wake up, a clarion call, for self-examination, for us as individuals, for us as society. She reaches indifferent to borders, of race, class or caste or religion – the rich and poor are treated alike. At this moment, I am bewildered, and confused of what I feel.


And then on Act. That has always been easy in the past. A trophy, a conquest, a goal always lay ahead. The warrior crusader or warload in me sprung to action – my dynamic masculine that would spring automatically forward – a clarion call for action. Then suddenly, everything I called a Goal has become suspicious, and a vigilance around what really matters. The action modality in me gives in to a purposelessness. A static feminine identity emerges, more accepting to what is happening, inviting me to embrace, what will be, will be.


The crusted ancient wisdom long encapsulated in intellect, and held merely as espoused, breaks its hard kernel as it gives way to a spiritual intelligence. Suddenly, relationships really matter over the polite networks of who knows me and who I know – my network. My technology devices used for ‘task’ now suddenly offers opportunity for connect, with folks I had held previously in an outer ring. At this point, I really do want to know – How are you? Are you safe? And I am touched with similar enquiries directed to me. More significantly, the questions I am asking myself is what interests me the most – what do I really value most, who matters for me. How do I hold the cathexis?


Time neither hangs nor races – it just holds the NOW HERE. I feel myself letting go of questions. What’s the point? Another one crops up to replace the one gone by. I find my questions loaded as if I wish for a ‘right’ answer, that is already pre-conceived even while asking the question. The mind will forever doubt, it wasn’t built for trust, I reckon. I take refuge in prayer, the evening ‘rosary’ calming and a ritual to express gratitude to the divinity.


So what’s my take on Think, Feel and Act?


If we think and act only devoid of feeling, it would amplify the dynamic masculine aspect of self, invoking ambition and outcomes and goals to be pursued, almost mechanistically. This is my recognition. If we think and feel, without action, one would continue to oscillate like a pendulum - there is a double bind and one experiences immobility. Just feeling and acting without thinking, would lead to emotional compulsivity and being caught in a see-saw.


Thus, there needs to be an alignment amongst the three – thought, feeling and action. Not all of us can triage the middle path between Intellect, Emotion and Action. Yet the more successful ones do. Our ancient tradition assures us that within we are already satchitananda. Time to move away from the circumference and journey to our core.