A Time to Do and a Time to Be

by amrita mckinney



 This summer, I participated in an 84-day intensive retreat at Swami Rama Sadhaka Gram. During the retreat, Rabindra encouraged us to make a habit of sitting for 10 minutes and do nothing. It is difficult to do nothing. Our DNA seems to expect us to always be doing something, anything. How many times as a child had I heard my mom say, “go do something”—as if doing was the cure and boredom one of the deadly sins.

 How easily we choose distractions. Sometimes life seems to be one big distraction—so big we forget the purpose of life. My eldest sister is a doer, always on the go. On occasion, I have said, “sit, relax”, while I, myself was busy doing. I just wasn’t moving at warped speed. I was reading or writing and judged my busyness to be of higher worth. Yet, I was just as disconnected from my inner self. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, “The mind has a terror of boredom” and that terror keeps us ever doing.

 Swami Rama and Swami Veda teach us to address boredom as a spiritual practice. Boredom, they say, is not to be overcome by the distractions of doing, but rather by learning to become comfortable with ourselves through developing inner stillness and self-companionship.

 I recently had the opportunity to practice doing nothing during a thirteen-day Sufi desert retreat in Morocco, where for ten nights a group of women previously unknown to me, and I slept among the dunes under star laden skies. At times, the stars seemed to hang so low it felt as if I could reach up and touch them. The desert was magical; the sunsets and sunrises were extraordinary, and it was the first time I ever watched the setting of a full moon in the west as the sun was rising, in all its glory, in the east.

Four of these days we spent in silence. Each day, after an amazing breakfast and lunch (I never dreamed of eating so good in the desert) we were given Zikr and Wazifa recitation practices. We then walked our separate ways among the dunes seeking shelter from the sun under the shade of a palm or tamarack tree to do our practices and eventually to just be present. There was little else to do.

While it was possible to get internet service in the desert, I chose to fully disconnect from my phone - no photos, no email, no messages. No books, no journaling, I even let go of my 2800+ day Duolingo streak. I smile now, thinking how big a decision that felt at the time.

 A week after returning to India, I was sitting on a bench overlooking the Ganga. Eyes closed, I listened to distant chanting, monkeys screeching, and children laughing as thoughts of the desert flowed like a desert breeze, drawing me once again into its silence and wide-open vistas. Though no longer there, I was not quite back in Rishikesh. And that was okay. As a Sufi friend says, “The desert, when it has touched our heart, always remains within us.” Suddenly, a hot breath breathed in my right ear. I wondered who would do such a thing. Opening my eyes and turning right, I stared into the placid eyes of a stoic cow. I smiled. Twenty-four years ago, I came to India for the first time with my eleven-year-old daughter. We were walking along Ram Jhula when a cow approached from behind and lifted me into the air. Oh, how Dagney laughed. I, rather taken aback, took it as a not-so-subtle message to get doing what I had come to India to do. This time, Divine Mother’s message was a gentle reminder to take refuge in stillness and silence, to learn to be— wherever I am.