Sanjaya Baru | As 2021 draws to a close, it's a time for reflection

It is that time of the year. A time when we reflect on the year gone by and on our hopes for the year that lies ahead. The media is full of visuals and vignettes that seek to reflect our memories and aspirations. Indians mark the beginning of a new year on different days of the international calendar, depending on one’s faith and region. However, the turn of the calendar page from December to January remains a shared moment the world over for reflection and renewal.

It is with such thoughts on my mind that I browsed through the unread books on my bookshelf and picked Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (2014) for year-end reading. “Going Nowhere” was an apt title for a year of Covid-19’s resurgence and the spread of Omicron. Iyer is no ordinary travel writer. Even so, I was intrigued by the title of this volume. Readers of Iyer have always had the good fortune of travelling with him, sharing his marvellous memories of the different worlds he has had the opportunity to inhabit and visit. Siddharth Raghavan “Pico” Iyer was born to a Tamil father and a Gujarati mother in Britain, grew up in California, married a Japanese woman and has travelled the world.

This book is not about a journey across space but over time. About a journey within. Journeys defined not by our restlessness to travel but by our need to reflect.

These Covid years have indeed been about travelling into our own lives, as we witnessed Murphy’s Law operating in full force on so many fronts. Things that could go wrong were indeed going wrong. So many loved ones departing. So much violence in society. So many livelihoods lost. The complete absence of any inspirational figure anywhere in the world, save a Dalai Lama or, indeed, a Pico Iyer.

The Art of Stillness was, therefore, the right book to read.

The idea behind “going nowhere”, “of choosing to sit still long enough to turn inward”, as Iyer puts it, is an ancient one. It has been known for ages as “meditation”.

Meditation and stillness imply silence. For centuries many have gone far in search of silence. To meditate, to reflect, to rejuvenate. A couple of years back Prime Minister Narendra Modi went into a cave in the Himalayas to meditate, taking a photographer with him to record his moments of silence, making much of a muchness.

Iyer reminds us that one need not travel in order to escape from the daily din of human existence. Meditation can be done here and now, as we close our eyes and travel into ourselves. From employees at Google Inc to members of the United States House of Representatives, notes Iyer, everyone is discovering the value of meditation, of “stillness”. Iyer reminds us of scientific studies that show that meditation can lower blood pressure, help boost our immune system, even change the architecture of our brain. The World Health Organisation has recognised meditation as a way of destressing noting that “stress will be the health epidemic of the twenty-first century”.

Google has a “chief evangelist” who, Iyer notes, is a “bright-eyed, visibly spirited young soul from India”; who, among other things, runs a programme called “Search Inside Yourself”. A useful reminder for all those googling to search the World Wide Web. The programme has demonstrated “the quantifiable, scientific evidence that meditation could lead not just to clearer thinking and better health but to emotional intelligence”.

As I closed the book and reflected on the here and now, I wondered if the Winter Session of India’s Parliament could have been a more productive one if all its 500-plus members had sat in silence for half our on each Monday morning during the session period, in meditation. Indeed, it would be a good idea for the respective speakers or presiding officers of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and the state legislatures to take the initiative and declare half an hour of mediation each week that their House is in session, with all members from across treasury and Opposition benches sitting in silence. This moment of self-reflection, quiet contemplation and mental rejuvenation would help improve not just their emotional intelligence and legislative performance but also make them better human beings.

These thoughts were reinforced by the horror of the news reports in the week leading up to Christmas Day of hate speeches in Haridwar and a Nazi-like gathering of saffron clad hate-mongers in New Delhi, raising their hand in a Hitlerite salute and vowing to kill members of another community. Will we have fewer bigots across all religions preaching hate if all of us journeyed into ourselves through silence, stillness and meditation, in search of our conscience and peace of mind?

Meditation in silence is, after all, an idea that has inspired the greatest of sages of all lofty religions, especially Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The Bhagvada Gita advocates Dhyana Yoga, the yoga of meditation, as a means of purifying one’s mind and elevating one’s spiritual consciousness. Imagine if all those gathered in that brightly lit hall in New Delhi or in Haridwar, who swore to kill for their religion sat down and meditated for half hour, in silence, in stillness, with eyes closed and their mind focused inward. Would they have behaved differently?

Iyer quotes artist Bill Viola to say that “it’s the man who steps away from the world whose sleeve is wet with tears for it”. Sitting still in meditative silence is not just good for the heart and the mind, but equally for our social well-being. It kills all hate within. This is a learning from our most ancient teachings that is most relevant to these troubled times when a virus is taking many forms, including social and political, seeking not just to debilitate individuals but entire nations.

As we enter 2022, there is much that we must all reflect on. The year that comes to an end has seen much suffering and the spewing of hate across the world. Can we hope for a more peaceful year ahead?