Making Space

A curious term, “making space”. In physical terms the amount of space we have appears to be finite, but in a psychological/mental  sense it can be boundless. I am starting to understand and appreciate the need for making space for myself and giving the opportunity for others to have theirs. This journey to India has been a huge undertaking for me in terms of one, understanding that I needed to do this for myself.  And two, undertaking all of the preparations and seeing the sacrifices of others it has taken for me to get here. There are times when Susan feels that I hold some resentment towards her when she does things to create space for herself. I do have to admit that has sometimes been the case, and I understand the importance of it now.

Here I have had the opportunity to explore “making space” in new ways. One is in my mediation practice. I use a number of techniques while mediating. I count breathes (prana), which is probably what I use most of the time as I start my meditation, I use mantra on those days when I can’t seem to get my mind to settle down, and one that I just started to use recently which is referred to as “infinite space” in the list of 40 canonical objects of meditation. I tend to think of it as  “expanding space”. In our cosmology we have the theory of the big-bang  where our universe starts as a single point and then explodes into the every-expanding universe our astronomers see today. In my mediation I like to envision being at that point of singularity and looking out as the universe is rapidly expanding after the explosion. I see the outer boundary of the universe moving away as space is “created” all around me. When I can stick with it, I find this to be deeply relaxing.

There are two Raju Clinics in India. The one here in Hyderabad headed by Dr. Krishna Raju and another in Delhi run by his older brother. The brother has been in town to help celebrate the 1st birthday of Dr. Raju’s daughter and he gave a talk the other day that I found to be very interesting. He spoke some about the Vedic culture and it’s cosmology, how disease was first propagated, etc. But the topic I found most interesting was his discussion on the differences in life expectancy in different cultures. He talked about how the collective consciousness of the culture and the emotional well-being of the individual play extremely important roles in overall life expectancy. Those topics were a good trigger for me as I realized how I had let my health challenges over the past year limit my expectations and take up too much space in my consciousness. How after reading all of the literature, statistics, and stories about melanoma that I found on the web, that I had let myself set my own expectations far too low. I think I have found another good use for “making space”. That is, to push out those restricting beliefs and expectations and make room for this present moment and all of the present moments and opportunities that continue to unfold.