Spiritual Exercise

[gromit]

Actually I have been reading about interval training. You know, where you exercise for a brief period then rest. And I discovered there are now many studies on the effectiveness of interval training and they all show it is effective across a wide range of fitness needs.

And it just happens that my spiritual exercise is physically like interval training but with a spiritual intent.

So I am encouraged to continue with my spiritual exercise, knowing though that it does have a very big effect on me. So I really need to learn to integrate it into my daily life.

I like interval training. Can you describe your physical exercises?

 

[Mole]

I like interval training. Can you describe your physical exercises?

Sure. It's called 5X5X5 because I dance for five minutes, I sit for five minutes, and I do this five times, and it takes fifty minutes.

As I dance my euphoria rises, and as I sit my relaxation response automatically kicks in and I enter a meditative state.

And as I dance my metabolism rises, and as I sit my metabolism falls, so over the fifty minutes of the exercise I am creating a metabolic wave in my body.

And at the same time the wave is taking my psyche from euphoria to the deep relaxation of meditation, five times.

 

[gromit]

What kind of dance? Do you have music?

 

[Mole]

What kind of dance? Do you have music?

I think the music and the dance are a matter of personal taste. I rather like jazz and free form dancing.

 

[Mole]

Last night I resumed my spiritual exercise and it has the same powerful effect. But....I am aware I am learning a new habit and the old habits are fighting back. So it is not smooth sailing for me - I am entering choppy waters.

I am told it takes three weeks to form a new habit and then it becomes second nature and there is no further need to think about it. So for the next three weeks of so I must marshal my energies and consciously form a new habit.

New monks I am told are given a new habit to wear, but I am trying to form a new habit within myself, and the old habits are raging against the dying of the light.

 

[Mole]

I did my exercise this morning and I noticed a small change - I am developing an appetite for this exercise.

The old habits are still hanging around, but with an appetite I can keep on eating, and become fat with exercise.

It's amazing - I am slowly changing my appetite.

 

[Mole]

I completed the whole exercise this morning and it left me with my skin tingling.

The aim of course is to change the way I see the world. The exercise will change me from a black and white, linear, sequential view, to a view involving all the senses. In fact I will no longer have a view, I will have a soundscape, a tactilescape, a proprioceptivescape and an olfactoryscape, as well as a visualscape in colour.

I dance to jazz, the music of the spoken culture of black America.

The literate culture privileges the eye, while the spoken culture involves all the senses equally.

And fortunately the electronic culture we are sharing here is quite like the spoken culture. So like a cultural athlete, I am fitting myself for our electronic culture by reaching back to our original spoken culture as expressed in jazz.

 

[Mole]

I've noticed even at this early stage of my spiritual exercises changes are taking place.

My voice, for instance, is starting to deepen. And my way of walking is changing - I am walking taller and more relaxed.

So I say to myself that I am starting to discover my real self.