What does it mean to be original? In the world of the seemingly mundane, filled with routine, what is original?
We are taught to think of “original” in terms of comparison—not the same as everyone else, something different. Yet the process of comparison is itself a routine and unoriginal way of thought. The world teaches us to compare, to think “Is this one better than that one?” “Am I prettier, handsomer, smarter, less smart, more original, less original?”
What could be less original than this constant comparison, evaluating and judging? In the midst of the routine and ordinary, how can we find what is original in ourselves and in the world around us—and what does “original” really mean?
The word “original” comes from “origin”—the source, the starting point. And “origin” itself comes from the Latin “oriri”—to rise. To find the original, we must see what arises. What arises just as it is, without molding it or changing it or trying to ‘fix’ something.
Whatever arises within us, whatever thoughts and feelings come up in us, we need to give our attention to it with a tender regard, to look at it with a kindheartedness that allows whatever is to be just as it is. This kindhearted attention is necessary to allow ourselves to truly see without comparing or judging, without condemning or justifying. This tender regard lets thoughts of comparison or condemnation float away and be seen as just something else that shows up in the field of looking.
This kind of looking is a different way of being original. In this kind of looking, we are standing at the starting point, prior to ideas about how things should be. We are standing in the original place, not trying to fix anything, not pushing away thoughts we don’t want, not pulling in thoughts we think will make us feel better. Not trying to make our thoughts or feelings conform to how we think they should be.
Trying to make things conform to an image, an idea, is conformity, not originality. In originality we allow what arises, and we don’t know ahead of time what that will look like. In originality, we are interested in discovery, moment by moment. We look inside ourselves and we look around us as if we had never explored before, with no agenda. In originality, we relax and accept our whole self, and we can see things in a way we’ve never experienced before. In that willingness to be open to what is, that which is at the source can reveal itself to us more and more, and we see that it is vaster than we ever imagined.
© 2021 Shanti Natania Grace
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Photo by Babji Vundavilli https://vundavilli.com/images
