… at the speed of a snail, or so it is said. That was the Mahatma’s opinion, and in my opinion I think he was about right. Concerning the manifestation of Goodness in the world, the pace is always slow.
But not imperceptible, hence the need for the discernment word, there is always some movement going on, which we are able to detect if we stay still and simply keep watching for long enough.
About slowness the Mahatma was also referring to the processes of achieving social and political change in India, being an activist, who was intimately involved in shaping the decisive political events of his lifetime.
Although I dare say the great man himself was in a rush sometimes, and equally overtaken by the speed and unexpectedness of events; ordinary, just like the rest of us, no saint.
He had also hardened the culture of discernment as he experienced it around that particular drama of history which was the liberation movement which was destined to lead to the end of British colonial rule in India.
Walkingtalkingwriting discernment lacks the grand narrative approach such as an India and a liberation movement might provide. Ours is made up of lighter and more “smoky” substances, and the goodness in it is not hardened or stuck down to a particular question of redemption.
No totalizing betterment! There is a blackbird tracking across the sky, and Wallace the poet has been asking us to follow its progress with our eyes.
A glink in the conversation as it were, across the deep interstices of consciousness anthropologically speaking, a wilderness not commonly crossed where spatial stories are able to be told.
And we sometimes feel better for the telling, a feeling of Goodness similar in many respects to a form of life we knew when we were in our twenties, quite free and unencumbered, except of course these days the energy of youth is missing.