Peace seekers amidst chaos

Countless women have walked the inner paths of spiritual realisation despite the thorns placed in their way by patriarchy, discrimination and unequal opportunities. Their journeys have been characterised by courage, determination, ingenuity and creativity. What is amazing is the inventiveness women have displayed when they couldn’t get past their gender roles. In the Indian spirit of cobbling together a workable solution with whatever you have, they did jugaad and found ways to lead spiritually rich lives under the skin of their worldly selves.

This is a phenomenon I call “iceberg seeking”, and which is in contrast to the mainstream “male” model of simply checking out and taking off. The tradition of ascetic wandering is ancient, and was already well-established when Siddhartha Gautama walked out of his home some 2,500 years ago. The women who the men left behind might have heard an inner call, too. But there were babies to raise, fields to tend, animals to rear. And so, they practised spirituality through it all, deepening under the surface of their daily selves, like icebergs, their true attainment remained invisible, and therefore uncelebrated, unlike their male counterparts whose nirvanas were well-documented and whose teachings found numerous followers.
Sri Sarada Devi, wife of the 19th-century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, was a similar “iceberg seeker”. She practised, taught and shepherded her husband’s students, all from behind her veil. Modern urban women, with a million pressures on their time, could learn from her “spiritual time management”. The fabric of her day was woven with the thread of continuous awareness and sacred remembrance, which looped around all other activities that required her attention. Another example is Dipa Ma, who, too, brought her spiritual practices within the embrace of her life. A remarkable 20th-century teacher of vipassana meditation, she hauled herself out of the torpor she had sunk into after her husband’s death through a dedicated practice of vipassana. Realising she couldn’t leave her young daughter and go for long retreats, she carefully rationed free moments in her day to strengthen her practice of unbroken mindfulness. Later, when she began to teach, she tailored the rigorous vipassana regimen to busy women’s needs, asking them to pause and meditate at least for five minutes to begin with. Teachers like these are exceptional role models because they lived in their worlds and practised amidst the chaos that surrounded them.
They didn’t need the solitude of a cave to make it work and, perhaps, neither do we. Like them, we also try and measure our mind-moments through our “busy-ness” and focus on cultivating our inner potential for mindfulness, compassion, selflessness and self-inquiry. And do what we can to live enriched, fulfilled and truly empowered lives.

Swati Chopra writes on spirituality and mindful living. www.swatichopra.com

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