Many of you will know that I am a self confessed golf tragic. Thanks to my Grandfather (Papa) in India many of us got into golf. He was an excellent cricketer and took up golf much later at age 59 and got his handicap down to single digits. He lived for golf in the years that I knew and remember him. He had special tailored trousers with pockets for each different golf accessory- tees, markers, scorecard, pencil, spare golf balls! He played golf till well into his 80’s and it was very much his purpose for life. It’s a great game providing technical challenge, mental mastery, exercise, nature and mateship.

I was watching an interview recently with world number 1 golfer Scotty Scheffler and it was interesting watching him trying to articulate something that many of us feel from our less illustrious daily lives. (click on link to watch). It is clearly something he has grappled with and tried to come resolution with, but gets left at the point of “I don’t know”. He talks about all the effort he spends in his domain of professional sport and when finally he wins, which is an uncommon occurrence especially in golf, that the feeling is great for a few minutes. It’s fleeting and wondferful, and then life returns back to normal. It’s the “and then what” sensation that the title refers to.

We spend our lives filling time with so much. No matter what the goal maybe, and whether it is achieved or not, we will invariably encounter , “and then what…”. In our quietest moments, “and then what…” will surface.

Now here’s the thing.

“And then what…” can be ignored and denied. It can be pushed away and deflected. It can be told “that there’s nothing more”. It can be shunned and even berated. But it will be like a cork pushed underwater which continues to bobble back up. It’s the whisper from our deepest recesses that insists there’s something more. That moment is like a door that can be entered with curiosity (or not). It is life giving us the opportunity of learning something more that can not be provided by achievement of goals, fulfillment of basic desires, or ticking off the many facets of material existence. No amount of success, money, fame, or power will make that whisper go away.

There is an entire philosophy and science devoted to the feeling of “and then what”. Every culture and tradition actually has it’s method of approaching, entering and traversing the subtler realms that can broadly be called spirituality. It’s not woo-woo. Once experienced it is as real as anything that you may perceive with the sense organs of touch, vision or sound. It delivers a great lightness of being. True freedom.

The beautiful thing in life is that we are all given choices.

We can choose to explore what more there is or we can leave it as the unanswered question of “and then what…”.

Food for thought…

In Health and Wellness

Ranjit

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