Quips, Quotes and Quantum Leaps
Amazing Ourselves
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! In the chaos and confusion of these times, I invite you to be amazed!
One of our finest capacities as human beings is to wonder at ourselves and the world no matter what is going on. Evoking wonder or awe is a skillful means that can bring curiosity and vitality to our lives. Furthermore, when we can find wonder in what already exists, we don’t have to consume as much in a fruitless search for satisfaction.
Sometimes all it takes to arouse awe or wonder is a bit of simple reflection on the facts of life. I use an exercise I call “Be Here Wow!” which I consider a workout for your “awe muscle,” which is the muscle that makes your jaw drop open in amazement. If the exercise doesn’t work for you, that’s okay: sometimes you are just not in the mood to be amazed. But often a little reflection on, say, the simple facts of your beating heart—a muscle that automatically flexes a few billion times in an average human lifespan and pumps blood through a circulatory system that if laid end to end would stretch all the way around the Earth—can completely change your mood. Once Swami Muktananda said that he didn’t need to perform miracles; all he had to do was tell people to pay attention to the blood circulating through their body.
The Be Here Wow! exercise also includes an existential musing on the rarity of life itself. So far we know of nothing like it anywhere in the vastness of the universe, except for right here on the surface of our planet. The odds against life as we know it happening (remember, we are talking about you and me here) are literally and figuratively “astronomical.” Multiple conditions had to come together in just the right mix, with the forces of electromagnetism and gravity set at precisely the right strength, every elemental particle having a certain spin and mass, all the ingredients in exactly the right proportion to each other, and so on.
So, I encourage you to live your life in a state of awe and wonder for the sake of yourself and fellow critters and life forms. Read more about “Be Here Wow!” here: https://www.inquiringmind.com/article/2002_50_nisker_be-here-wow/
Love,
Wes
