Last three month GMF Journey is roller coaster ride, mix of comforts, discomforts, convenience and inconvenience , confusions and questions to the self , to the other of the self of mine. I have many invisibles that I am aware of , that I am not mindful of. Not only learning and doing took place, but also unlearning and undoing took place and that provided the space to relearn and re do.
One of the most powerful learning that happened to me and helped me to look at the things in a very different way is by asking question regularly to the self , by inquiring about my belief, thoughts, assumption ,how they influence me and where do they come from to me , about my action and behaviors how I manifest and demonstrate them what guided and influenced them.
I began to realize that I am surviving to die and also at the same time dying to survive, living with so many contradiction within me , creating contradiction as such directly and indirectly. with layers of masks, by recycling many stories without understanding whose stories and where the stories of stories came from, taking my own body and thoughts granted, taking my friends, families , community and society for granted, that inspired me for construction is possible after de-construction and reconstruction of the self. One thing that became very touch-ful and I am beginning to be mindful of about Do I have really a courage to own the suffering of the people whom I haven’t met personally, or I just have seen them either in the television or while passing by on the way to college. Who is this other? Can I own their pain and suffering? Whom I consider the stranger? How often I am aware of it? So many heart wrenching tragedies happening, brutality and cruelty happening and people are suffering. How can it be so? Watching such things in the television or across the street, and feeling something and then I end up going to restaurant and eat and criticize without actually becoming critic , what Kind of person I became , with so much hollowness and shallowness but with multiple layers of masks. How do I make sense of it? Do I even make sense of it? How well Compassionate Can I become? How strong my compassion can become? Is it about becoming more compassionate being or compassion doing?
I learned to select foods , learn to select myself, curate them, learn to chew them; learning to chew questions and concerns, I began to learn to breathe from stomach , learning to inhale and exhale the stories, narratives and re-interpret and re-langaue and re-narrate them with my own . I began to talk to plants and flowers, able to listen to the birds chirping, make sense of breeze in the forest and the realize the essence of flowing water despite the stresses. I began to smell the fragrance of soil, the touch of soil with my hands and feet, and its texture when soil, water and compost manure gets mixed that unleashed many dirt from me, that I have inside. Walking at the forest , looking at the tress enabled me to immerse to understand the power of cooperation & interconnection, to be always becoming wise and better , to be giving , sharing and shedding the old what doesn’t work but helps to grow and useful for our surrounding. Being with the trees, I realize I have produced so many toxins, that has polluted my surrounding and associates, while whatever trees sheds or produces is always useful and nutrition for others. I also started unlearning and undoing many toxic things such as checking phones every half an hour unnecessarily and being in the screen , which if we undo this, I realize we have enough time , which will also sharpened my focus , and in relation to development that I am studying it is highly relevant in the domain of development practices across the community and the nation. That we should undo many thing if we actually want to make things and make difference.
I understood the power of connection with the Framing exercises to uncover the unchecked and unexamined realities that exist in the society. I owe the foods that I don’t eat and throw; to the person who are going to bed hungry, I owe the clothes that I have unused for a year to the person who are not privileged to get warm clothes during winter across many nation. I owe to all the persons , to all the years and years whose invention and innovation has made my life much easier and get things done being in small places in Nepal and make things work, each of the encounter has played role and I owed them, I realize most of the times I am not grateful for that. How can I not be, for many comforts and convenience I am utilizing now , and exercising now or even consuming now. I owe not only to the people, but also to the nature, to the mother earth for this human life , and I am in a conflict that not able to recognize them , but with GMF journey , it is unfolding, unleashing and uncovering and transforming myself, by questioning& requestioning my faith, belief and action and my beingness.
I realized I wanted not to become human , but plant and tree like human to shed not the toxin but the treasure that everyone will value, and I can add values, like trees , by becoming not affected with comforts, discomforts or dirts and drains, but observing them, absorbing them and converting them in to the roots of love, compassion, virtues, integrity , to be the farmer of life to produce seeds of love, compassion , virtues, Morales to germinate them into wiser Tree human doings& human beings. I wanted to become child like human with so much acceptances, innocence & wonders to make this surrounding livable with love and affection.
I begin to understand I am not only me, it’s a mix of every encounter, every experience, and every people I met in my life and every context that blends me over the time . I have masks, I have internal intervention, I am living with the stories, creating contradiction , and most of the times I am not able to reflect and re-interpret them with shaking courage to be compassionate enough even in the most difficult times. I am my own farmer of my life, to grow the good quality seeds of love, compassion, values and virtues and germinate them into compassionate fruits to love all and serve all.
nirmal
pragatipath1 