This is a guest post from Raj Shah who as a chronic pain patient, has dealt with isolation long before it was the norm. Mr. Shah is the retired chairman of CTIS, a health informatics company focused on serving patients for NIH in the areas of cancer, heart, lungs, kidney and infectious diseases. CTIS provides data that helps get drugs to market faster and provides data to make patients’ lives better. He himself developed heart, lung, diabetes and kidney disease — which led to another 20 plus diseases. He received a new heart eight years ago and has been a chronic disease patient for over 20 years now. At age 70, he lives a very happy and functional life.
Following is a conversation with a friend over a period of three days.
April 8
This morning, I wrote to a friend who inquired about how my retirement and isolation are going.
I said, “I think it’s wonderful. I really feel this has opened more opportunities to live life fully. I am busier now more than ever.“
“How?” He asked.
I said “I feel, I have left the day-to-day grind of business — even though it’s been the center of my life, integral to my personal identification, and the source of meaningfulness. It was a bit scary, but I have moved on to a completely new mode of being — spiritual being. My painting, my meditation, my breathing, my music, my being, has enlightened me to achieve a transcendent sense of self and has revealed my ultimate place in creation. For me, retirement and isolation are a misnomer. I’m not whiling away time or pursuing mere hobbies but going deeper. I hope to find myself.
Please don’t misunderstand. Life’s challenges, health issues, and aging pains are all a part of life. It’s generating stress and discomfort all the time but now… my now… ‘mode of my spiritual being’ allows me to come back to center much more quickly.
As if God has paused an eternal moment to pry open the tightly closed clam of my life to discover the pearl that was embedded within. Truly, a glowing light in my heart. I am just learning.
My friend asked how I feel spiritually. I said, “I have always known spirituality. We are all born perfect. There’s so much we go through in life, unnecessary pain and suffering in the day to day world because people are not aware of their unique spiritual gifts. Or worse, they dim or completely shut off their light because they are frustrated, sad and stressed. To them, they feel isolated. Isolation means darkness because they don’t understand it.
For me, I know shutting off our light is like shutting off our spiritual system and our intuition. That’s a huge reason why a lot of people get lost or stuck in life. They’re running around in circles but not really living their full potential. Not experiencing the full abundance and fulfillment that life has to offer.
We weren’t born imperfect and helpless, quite the opposite. We were born perfect. Now we can go back to that in solitude and isolation, we can remove all the layers built over the years and find our own spiritual being.
My friend who is a spiritual being too and a prolific writer said “This, I think, describes the journey of the spiritual warrior, who through ripe reflection and many labors, takes leave of the inevitable separation inherent in daily exertions, to join his ‘avocation’ with his ‘vocation’ as his two eyes make one in sight. Only when love and need are one and the work is play for mortal stakes, is the work ever really done for heaven and future’s sake. A contemplative life that resembles a flowering, morning glory as it were, that’s how I see you. The possessor of a life both enriched and enriching by the delights and rigors of solitude. Life piled upon life were all too little.
And I agree as if God has paused an eternal moment to pry open the tightly closed clam of my life to discover the pearl that was embedded within. Truly, “ glowing light in my heart”. I am just beginning.
April 10
My friend wrote back and asked — how I feel about the impact of the Corona virus.
I said “I know the impact of isolation versus solitude. One deprives, the other enriches. So, I find subjectivity in the chaos. It is an ever-burning light of creativity and discovery that permeates my entire body, keeping me awake and very busy long into the night.”
In our life, there are many chapters in our journey. I find no loneliness in isolation, for I find solitude to meditate, to enhance my art and paint without distraction. To interact and enjoy the nuances and celestial vibrations of the love of my family. I can embrace the silence as it embraces me. I find books and the time to digest them voraciously. My curiosity about retirement never presented itself to me as a vocation or goal. I now know why. As we age, one realizes, the next chapters have less imagination but more sincerity.
Viruses have forever plagued us and swept over the earth — changing, redefining, advancing and re-positioning the human race in many ways. We have often discussed the emergence of a devastating virus, lethal and novel, percolating out of sight, mutating dangerously that would rise from its host to invade the sanctity of our human form. It was never a question of if, but when. The US knew through the writings of several prominent authors that a super plaque would be unleashed unknown to the human immune system that would dominate unless the US and the world were prepared. Still, the suddenness and extent have surprised me. How fragile we are and how comprehensively intrusive are these invisible agents that invade and deeply disrupt normalcy we blithely expected and accepted as our due.
The other challenge we have in dealing with this virus is that our economy is in an induced coma. Being a heart transplant patient, I know what it feels like to be in a coma and how tough it is to recover. Our economy needs to be brought back carefully. We cannot handle lots of ups and downs. Our economy will be chronic and behave like a chronic disease patient. It will get better in a few seasons and worse in others. This will change the economic landscape. In this situation, there is no room for politics. I’m afraid that in the name of helping the country — the politicians, leaders and big business will drive more profitability to them, leaving much less for the undeserved and poor. Once again, a case of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The suddenness of such a contagion would, if unprepared — dismantle, upset, reconfigure and alter the economic global system redefining the new order in a sense that would not reclassify the US position but the future growth of all sectors of the global production masses.
Such a scenario played out, would set us back enough that recovery will not replace the momentum of years of organized productivity. The players will be fewer, the demands narrow and higher, the position of authority reconfigured including the perspective on family, the government and the world. More questions will be asked but fewer answers provided. We may go from a production paradigm to a global, one rule guided law system, that produces the new paradigm… the 100-year reorganized paradigm.
Being a spiritual being, I wrote to my wife my understanding that the divine creator has built this celestial world where nothing in creation is permanent. Why?? Because he felt it should be self-sustaining — keeping it complex in terms of structure. While fixing and creating the process he kept it simple. This way, no one gets bored as nothing is the same over time. He fixes things when broken and breaks things that remain rigid.
Everything is always in flux. Every once in a while, the creator introduces a change agent when things get way out of control. The COVID-19 pandemic is just that. It’s up to us to see this as an opportunity or a curse.
In Buddhist mandala ceremonies, monks make mandalas with clear devotion, patience, and commitment. Once done, they enjoy it for a few moments, then destroy it. No different than building a sandcastle all day and destroying it at sunset.
Why do they destroy it? Because the underlying message of the mandala ceremony is that nothing is permanent. Nothing. All things are in flux. Beautiful but ephemeral, moving but temporary, a plateau but not a summit. All things are called to balance and enlightenment with the fulfillment of the divine image in them but in flux. Always in flux.
Ultimately, it is the creator’s world that will balance itself. We cannot predict what the new world will be like. One thing I know. We will survive and thrive in our own small world of family, friends, and community. If we maintain, then it doesn’t matter how much the winds will be howling around us. Community by community we will survive. Storms destroy but they also bring new beginnings.
