Taking Time Out
Taking a break from a stressful work schedule, or from the
demands of caring for a new born child, Is a familiar need for most people. Small
breaks are opportunities to refocus one’s energies. There may be a call during
intense negotiations to take ‘Take five’, a term based on the time taken to
smoke a cigarette.
Slightly longer breaks are recommended for personal
conflicts that reach an impasse, such as a quarrel that is in danger of
escalating, or a problem whose solution evades one. People are asked to sleep
on it, look at it again with fresh eyes. People in high-powered jobs look
forward to their annual vacation, often marketed as escapes, or getaways.
There is a whole other world of stepping back from the
all-enveloping pressures of everyday life. Retreats for artists unlock creative
energy. Nuns and monks go on retreats to focus on devotion. Ashrams are
spiritual retreats for people of all faiths or those searching for something to
believe in. Hermits or anchorites are extreme cases of living in complete
isolation, often in the wilderness, on islands, in forests or isolated mountain
tops.
Some retreats take the form of Chillas, or forty-day periods
of complete withdrawal from the world. Chilla-nashini is practiced by Sufis to
remove all unnecessary worldly thoughts and needs, to allow a higher Truth to
reveal itself to them. One of the most famed Chilla- nashini was that of the
Persian poet Hafiz Shirazi, undertaken at the age of 60. He sat for 40 days and
40 nights inside a circle he had drawn, finally attaining ‘Cosmic
Consciousness’. Gautama Buddha reached enlightenment after sitting under the
bodhi tree for 49 days. In Hindustani
classical music, Chilla Katna is a training ritual where the student isolates
himself from the world to focus exclusively on his music. Abdul Karim Khan, the
19th Century singer and founder of the Kirana Gharana, described
chilla as "lighting a fire under your life. You either cook or you burn.
If you cook, everyone can enjoy your flavour – otherwise, you'll be a mass of
cinders, a heap of ash."
40 seems to be a magical number to attain spiritual
knowledge across cultures and religions. The Prophet Moses spent 40 days and
nights on Mount Sinai where he received the Ten Commandments. He then spent 40
years wandering in the desert with his people. The Prophet Abraham is said to
have been cast into fire for 40 days, but Allah removed its heat. Noah and his people, safe in the Ark, endured
40 days and nights of rain. The Prophet Jonah or Yunus spent 40 days in the
belly of a whale. The giant Goliath taunted the Israelites for 40 days after
which the young Prophet David defeated him in battle. The Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) received revelation at the age of 40.
Sometimes isolation is enforced by pandemics, or by
imprisonment. It is estimated that 3.9
billion people were in forced lockdown across the world at the height of the
Covid 19 pandemic. At present 11.5 million people are in prisons, an
institution that is only 200 years old and that many question the reformative
value of. For most people lock down and prison time is a traumatizing
experience for them as well as their families.
For a very few exceptional people, prison time can become an
opportunity for spiritual or creative renewal. Famous books were written in
prison – ‘Don Quixote’ by Cervantes; Sir Walter Raleigh’s ‘History of the
World’; John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’; Marco Polo’s travelogue. Allama Fazl-i-Haq Khairabadi wrote a history
of the 1857 war of freedom from prison on Andaman Island. Maulana Muhammad Ali
Jauhar wrote his autobiography ‘My Life a Fragment.’ Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Habib
Jalib and many others wrote some of their best poems while in prison. Political prisoners often become stronger leaders
such as Nelson Mandela, the Ali Brothers and Martin Luther King Jr, who was
arrested 30 times in 13 years and whose 1963 ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’
still inspires those seeking social justice.
But for the majority of prisoners, is imprisonment a ‘time
out’ or being taken out of time itself?
Durriya Kazi
Karachi. September 22, 2023
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