All who wander are not lost.
It is a line rather well known among
Travellers, it is from a poem (once again watch the title), and all that is
gold does not glitter by JRR Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings.
If you are a traveller or a wanderer in
addition to being an Anthropologist, the world opens up its secret bakery to
you, to savour its various secrets, pleasures and mysteries.
Add on top of that, wiling teachers from
various tribes of American Indians.
I have just come from visiting Indians in
Nebraska, friends in various endeavours in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap to be
awarded with culinary delights of Bangkok, followed up with visits to friends
in Bogor, Indonesia, Singapour and Beijing. Such a diverse group of minds,
emotions, mental pictures and spiritualties exposed in a dizzying array of
colours over a short period of time, certainly has a euphoric effect on your
mind.
When asked in conversation what I do, my
answer usually is that I am an Anthropologist working with Native Peoples,
invariably the next question would be, and can you tell us about Spirituality.
This is not a light topic for cocktail
conversations but with due respect one has to answer and for a short answer, it
is better to say what it is not: Being Religious and Being spiritual are not necessarily
the same. Most of the spiritual people I know are agnostic and to me, church
and religion (as defined in the western mind) has only a small part to play in
the universal concept of Spirituality.
Fortified with thoughts about meeting two
remarkable beings in this past week, Mr L in Bangkok and Mr J in Bogor, neither
of whom are religious but can truly be considered spiritual, in their every day
lives, I wanted to write down some thoughts when I began reading this saying by
a Lakota professional man, whom I had a chance to meet a few years ago:
By listening to the Inner self and
following one’s instincts and intuitions, a person may be guided to safety,
wrote he.
Remember, this is not a cook book approach
to spirituality, the results are “may be”
So, one has to begin to live a way, long
before one achieves a sense of spiritual life, an emotionally stable life. The
steps towards spirituality occurs over decades through a process of controlling
ones emotions, mastering the mental picture those emotions paint, not allowing
the body to suffer the effects of the exaggeration of emotions while taking
good care of the body (eating, resting, exercising).
Only by making your mind still can we
approach the realm of spirituality. One does not have to declare it, but others
would recognize that quality in you.
In our hectic world, we want to quick fix
answers. That is why we have weekend spirituality courses, Stress reduction
seminars, but without attending to the fountain of these problems, one achieves
the dirt under the carpet trick, feel good for the moment and soon the dirt
would make itself apparent.
I have had a good teacher (a Chinese
accountant from KL) who introduced me to the Yogic Philosophy and never ceases
to amaze me the similarity among the ancient philosophies. She recently sent me
a quote from that well-known Hindu Philosopher, Jiddu
Krishnamurthy: We do not want to face
ourselves as we are.
I have been thinking about that sentence
and using all the philosophical and anthropological tools and my recent
experiences with my Asian friends, I could understand it.
My KL teacher also told me: every time
there is a negative thought (about a place, a person, an object) try to think
of a positive one as well.
I have to warn all of you who wish to try
this, this kind of thinking will unravel facts about your thinking which you
have been hiding and the shame would flow out as easily as your tears.
I conclude this what I consider to be
spirituality in Cuba, which I learned during my years in my little village of
Baracoa. I will let Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan writer and a friend of Cuba
explain:
I don't believe in charity, I believe in
solidarity. Charity is so vertical; it goes from the top to the bottom.
Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn
from other people
