The Mystery of You. Adin Steinsaltz
minority of people who accept their lives as they are and feel an overall serenity, contentment, fulfilment and enlightenment. They are content with their material existence and do not experience material dissatisfaction. There is spirituality, hope and continuity in their lives and no sense of real finality. This spirituality is ageless and timeless. Therefore, they age peacefully and leave this world with serenity, having reconciled themselves with life and with themselves.
Traditional Judaism is the ultimate example of this approach to life and of living. Adjusting our everyday life routines according to the Jewish daily, weekly, monthly and yearly cycles gives us a wonderful opportunity to balance our material and spiritual existences and to progress and grow as human beings. Unfortunately, however, too many among us emphasise only the material aspects of life, while denying or suppressing the non-material. Too many people choose the short-sighted approach of remaining static. Selectively, they heavily dilute their Jewish spritual or non-material living by modifying their Judaism (beliefs) to comply with their current “feel-goods”; but rather than helping them maintain their overall situation, this tends to cause a decline.
One of the most basic phenomena of human existence, which very strongly influences human behaviour, relationships and self-esteem, is a rather hidden, subconscious element that “programs” our perceptions/misperceptions and responses. Let me illustrate through an example:
Person A grows up experiencing active responses and focused participation in dialogue. Person B grows up experiencing the opposite – namely, passive listening, with little active dialogue – unless something specific comes up, along with an ability to tune in and out of various activities simultaneously. Now put these two people together and try to visualise their interaction. Most likely Person B will naturally listen to Person A, observing and absorbing. Person A, however, will feel awkward: it’s not the kind of dialogue they are used to and Person A will soon feel that Person B is not participating or listening because of a lack of interest.
With time, empathy, care and awareness, both A and B can learn from each other and adapt to each other. But in most cases, the opposite is much more likely to occur, because of individual programming, experiences, expectations and reactions, comfort zones, familiarity, exposure to new situations and to different people.
That visit to Emmy Monash had a great impact on me. On my way back to my car, I was lost in thought and then was day-dreaming as I drove home. Something very profound flashed into my mind. Very shortly before having walked into the aged care home, I had been startled by the noise of a tram. Those happy young faces that had peered out at me then were peering into me now. My imagination was vivid: young people, busy and buzzing with so many things to do and people to see and places to go. The faces that looked out at me at Emmy, on the other hand, were old faces – though also filled with dreams, memories and expectations. There were two dramatically different time-frames operating simultaneously: the young and the old. For the old, time is much more limited; it takes them so much longer to do things that not so long ago had taken so much less time. For the young, time is much less of an issue.
Life is full of expectations. Our emotions are powerfully driven by our own perceptions of events. But, our perceptions can often be confused with the misperceptions of other people who are interacting with us – or are our misperceptions the perceptions of others? Life is full of these conflicting impressions. How often do our superficial views become the notions that drive our emotions?
I believe that maturing is very much about finding out about ourselves. It is a life-long process of resolving issues and conflicts, of handling insecurities and unknowns and searching for our own unique truths. Surely, a large chunk of our lives is spent providing for our basic needs – food, shelter, safety – by grappling with our perceived insecurities. But over and above these mundane, yet essential, drivers are our fundamental psychological and spiritual needs. Yet so many people get this wrong and try to fulfil their non-material needs through material pursuits.
This brings me back to the first two characters I met at Emmy. For me, they illustrated the ageing process. I have met so very few people who radiate serenity and have a quiet, saintly aura about them and so many more people who are cranky, dissatisfied, unhappy, or outright angry with life and with the people around them.
Life offers us ample opportunities to resolve our inner and outer conflicts. The saintly people take that opportunity while the others, the majority, carry with them a lot of “unfinished business” – namely, unresolved issues. Therefore, they are not likely to ever find peace of mind. Most unfinished business is blamed upon others, rather than being perceived as our own responsibility. But at the end of the day, each one of us is responsible for our own inner truths and has the ability to find our own, unique inner peace.
This capacity enables us to meet our real “self” and feel comfortable about who we are. Only after we do that can we feel comfortable with the people with whom we interact. Our memories can either help or hinder us. Much depends upon the balance between our inward and outward focus.
Another vivid memory surfaces: a gift I have recently received from a very close business partner. Terry is a self-made man with very strong ethical and moral principles: a truth-seeker, constantly looking for the inner meaning of life and living. He is a man on a journey to the beginning of creation, a journey into the universe and beyond it – and at the same time, a down-toearth family man looking to do good deeds in the here-and-now. Although Terry and I come from very different backgrounds and have travelled very different paths, we share similar thoughts about so many things.
Terry’s gift was a surprise. It was a small paperback book which he told me was out of print, written by a Catholic priest named Henri Nouwen, an academic reputed to be one of the greatest spiritual thinkers and writers of the twentieth century, who lived and worked within the Western secular culture. His major commitment in life was his work with the mentally handicapped in the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada.
This small paperback contains two very deep and moving pieces about living and dying. Nouwen attributes value and deep meaning to every life. His analysis about living is from a viewpoint of becoming aware of feeling beloved. He develops the principle of being the beloved into becoming, and living as, the beloved. For him, life’s greatest gift is our acceptance of life, as it is reflected in what we do with it – namely, our ability to care, share and experience – or, in other words, to rise above the superficial and the material. He speaks about the beauty, the meaning, the value and the memories of giving and of receiving and about the positive impact we leave upon others. The warmth and love he finds in mentally handicapped people and the immense values he attributes to every small, day-to-day thing, impact on the very essence of life itself. This is a strongly reciprocal and interactive relationship, in which every participant can both give and receive.
This is so relevant to the whole issue of ageing and what living is all about.
At least two miracles occur in every human being’s life:
Birth – from a humble beginning of two cells joining together there evolves a highly complex body and personality. The moment of birth is the point at which the tiny baby child emerges out of its mother’s womb into this world. Out it goes from a small, secure, fluid and dark place into a huge space full of light and noises. Almost instantaneously, the baby “switches on” and starts to operate independently. This is surely a miracle.
Death – the point at which a living human being ceases to live. Life departs, even though certain physical processes continue for a while. The body lies there, seemingly the same, but it has changed and will quickly continue to change without the life force. This too is a miracle.
Life is how we live between these two miracles. Every day, hour and minute of life shortens the amount of available time, until the end of this phase of existence. Most people do not know how much time they actually have; but the main difference between the baby and the old man is that for the child, time feels never-ending whereas for the old person it feels very limited.
We humans have a spiritual dimension, which is closely connected