I am back in Europe for a short time, and I see a busyness here, an energy of constant doing. Working, discussing, tidying up, running errands, fulfilling obligations, organizing, optimizing, presenting, questioning, exchanging. Something is always being done. To do something seems important; to do nothing seems unproductive and in need of justification. Yet not being productive has many important qualities. Sometimes non-action is a form of resistance, and a quiet turning inward can be understood as inner work — work that does not appear in the gross national product, but is no less powerful or moving for that.
And then there is the Enjoyer, as he is described in the Upanishads. Two birds on a tree: one eats the fruit, the other watches and enjoys. Certainly the fruit-eater also enjoys the fruit, but probably more as a sensual pleasure, as the satisfaction of desire, as a necessity. The Enjoyer who watches, by contrast, does nothing. He sits and looks, and yet this seeing, this enjoyment, is deep and sublime — a disinterested pleasure, as Kant says. It is an art without being l’art pour l’art. The enjoyment of beholding, of contemplation, of musing and deepening; the egolessness and absence of desire, the presence in the Now and the calm within motionlessness — in short: meditation — is that part of our existence which is fundamental to our being in the world. It has nothing to do with the role we take on, with our performance or productivity.
Meditation, however, is something that in many so-called modern — that is, performance-oriented — societies is seen negatively: laziness, refusal of work and consumption, esotericism, meaning an inability to connect with dominant discourses, or uncanniness, meaning foreignness and distance from home. These are common reactions to that state of meditation and contemplation which extends beyond the moment of sitting. In India, people who set out on this path are called yogis. It need not be the case at all that yogis withdraw from the world. They perceive the world as one form of reality in which we move. This reality makes demands on us: survival, a practice of living, and responsibility for ourselves and others. Yet material reality is embedded in a wider reality of our being: our consciousness, our Self, a connectedness with a deeper, spiritual reality. We carry the spark of life within us; it is connected and identical with the divine principle. We wander through the worlds of waking, dream, sleep, and insight.
“Two birds, intimately bound, companions, sit on the same tree.
One eats the sweet fruit; the other watches without eating.”
Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.1
