-- By Tom Phillips
Last year I took up whirling as a physical and spiritual exercise. After a while I drifted away and forgot about it, until something jogged my memory this year and I began again. It's different this time.
Last year I turned clockwise, recommended for beginners. Clockwise whirling can give you a groove, a feeling of centeredness and calm. But counter-clockwise is the real deal. It takes you out of your "comfort zone." This is my new practice.
The 13th-century Islamic poet Rumi wrote: "Do you know what whirling is? It is escaping one's existence continuously tasting the everlasting experience." If that sounds like nonsense, remember what the Talking Heads advise -- "Stop making sense."
To whirl counter-clockwise is to stop making sense, to step out of the patterns your mind has made for your life. We humans have a primitive area of the brain that if left unchecked will make sense of life by killing it -- that is, reducing it to routine tasks rewarded with mindless pleasures. Anyone can fall into this. Housewives are encouraged to do it, as are civil servants. But professors can do it almost as easily. This is why Rumi says we have to escape our existence.
Turning left instead of right, against the ordinary drift of life, I feel my outstretched hand is wiping dust off the table, knocking objects off the shelf. This dust and these objects are the detritus of habit and routine. What is beyond them? A whirling cosmos, spinning too fast for the mind to do its job of categorizing and judging, picking and choosing. In this state the mind has no choice but to move toward what Rumi calls the everlasting existence, i.e. the present moment.
I say "move toward" rather than "enter into" because I'm still a beginner, doing it wrong. I know there's an ecstatic spiritual continuum out there, but it will take practice, refinement, and guidance to whirl my way to it. These days I can turn for five or six minutes at moderate speed, and the effect is energizing, refreshing to body and mind and spirit. Taste and see...
To be continued.
-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips
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| Whirling Dervishes in Turkey |
Last year I took up whirling as a physical and spiritual exercise. After a while I drifted away and forgot about it, until something jogged my memory this year and I began again. It's different this time.
Last year I turned clockwise, recommended for beginners. Clockwise whirling can give you a groove, a feeling of centeredness and calm. But counter-clockwise is the real deal. It takes you out of your "comfort zone." This is my new practice.
The 13th-century Islamic poet Rumi wrote: "Do you know what whirling is? It is escaping one's existence continuously tasting the everlasting experience." If that sounds like nonsense, remember what the Talking Heads advise -- "Stop making sense."
To whirl counter-clockwise is to stop making sense, to step out of the patterns your mind has made for your life. We humans have a primitive area of the brain that if left unchecked will make sense of life by killing it -- that is, reducing it to routine tasks rewarded with mindless pleasures. Anyone can fall into this. Housewives are encouraged to do it, as are civil servants. But professors can do it almost as easily. This is why Rumi says we have to escape our existence.
Turning left instead of right, against the ordinary drift of life, I feel my outstretched hand is wiping dust off the table, knocking objects off the shelf. This dust and these objects are the detritus of habit and routine. What is beyond them? A whirling cosmos, spinning too fast for the mind to do its job of categorizing and judging, picking and choosing. In this state the mind has no choice but to move toward what Rumi calls the everlasting existence, i.e. the present moment.
I say "move toward" rather than "enter into" because I'm still a beginner, doing it wrong. I know there's an ecstatic spiritual continuum out there, but it will take practice, refinement, and guidance to whirl my way to it. These days I can turn for five or six minutes at moderate speed, and the effect is energizing, refreshing to body and mind and spirit. Taste and see...
To be continued.
-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips
