Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), as we begin today ‘let us remember this about ‘Attention’.
Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled ‘A Passive Instrument’ from ‘Silent Union’ by Francis Eaglesfield.
A Passive Instrument
A doctor writes of his life.
All I have got I have got from others. If I have grown a millimetre in stature it is none of my doing. All my ill – sustained efforts, all the long civil war dragging on within my ego, has done little for me. Whatever I have has been given by my friends, and my patients have contributed far more than I have. If you call this the grace of God, I will not deny it. But this grace came to me not through any majestic revelation. It came from on high but not directly. It was filtered through the hearts of my friends and patients; it came to me not as a voice thundering, or in visions or portents or in terms of light. It revealed itself along wordless channels, through simple people in banal surroundings, in an age dim with the gray fog of rationalism. This is one of the aspects of the grace of God.
When I search for one fragment I have contributed to my own enlightenment, I am at a loss to supply an answer. All I can find is that perhaps I have kept my mind open to what I might receive from others. Yet I have never been conscious of doing so and indeed, except with my patients, I have a deeply ingrained tendency to raise a barrier between myself and others. It has always been said of me that I resist affection. I do not know if this is true. I can only think that we are cared for in spite of ourselves and that some higher influence draws me like a magnet in spite of my resistance. Certainly so much has been given to me that I deplore the little use I have made of it. If in these pages I would seem to attribute to myself some influence not wholly bad that brings peace to others, I know it is not from myself. How could it be, seeing that in the moment it is being exercised I am for the most part unaware of its operation? If I have done any good it is only as a passive instrument. I say this with conviction because so often when I have tried to do so I have not only failed lamentably but sometimes wreaked havoc.
Excerpt from ‘Silent Union’ by Francis Eaglesfield
Concluding today’s post and podcast episode, I thank all who take time out and read (the blog post) and listen to the episodes each week. For those who listen and have not subscribed to the podcast I suggest you do and click on the bell icon so that you can be notified for all the new episodes that get uploaded every week.
Namaste.
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