Airplane Mode

Airplane mode, the modern svādhāya booster we all need

My phone has been on, lighting up with messages and calls, and sucking me in. Most of these rings and pings can wait 45 minutes most of the time, but some cannot. Knowing that everyone I care about was OK-for-the-moment on a welcomed Autumn day, determined to step out of the whirlpool of media and telecommunications distractions, I reinstated my airplane-mode-while-hiking ritual. Originally utilized to prevent phones' electromagnetic frequencies from interfering with the airplane's sensitive navigation system, we can use it to halt the interference in our own smooth flow of prana we cultivate through our practice.

I’m advocating for sense withdrawal practices as a means to calm an overstimulated mind. Each of the senses has its own food. We are visually and auditorially bombarded, and when we remain in our sense-activated mind, we function at the most external level of existence. Sex, food, shopping, devices, substances, gambling, people, exercise - they dominate our entire existence.

With the algorithm tracking every word and click and follow, we are constantly being stalked by appealing posts, emails and advertisements . While some of this content is truly educational, informative, interesting and/or funny, the majority falls into the category of sensory overload. 

How we practice pratyahara is through tapas, svādhyāya and īśvara pranidhana. We always have to start somewhere when we feel the urges flare, or we will co-flare along with them. Where we place our attention matters, and airplane mode supports tapas, doing a discipline to remove impurities, the kleśas, namely rāga, a coconspirator for suffering. Desire leads to attachment to the media as a means to achieve happiness, albeit fast, furious and fleeting.

What else can I do with my eyes, ears and hands other than fiddle with the phone? My eyes can focus on the path in front of me, the flora, the fauna, the sky. My ears, the sounds and the quietude, the crunching of leaves to the rhythm of each step. My hands, swinging along with each step. Feeding the senses a new diet nourishes rather than depletes us, balances rather than frazzles us, settles us into a calmer and clearer version of ourselves.

Airplane mode engaged, cut off from a world of burgeoning stimulation, we start to feel, to turn inward. Our inner voice amplifies. Conversations we have been putting off that we need to have with ourselves, about life, family, death, love, work and play loop into our experience. We may see the beauty around us. Face uncomfortable truths we need to sort out. Have creative moments, ideas. Come home to a self that needs our attention exponentially more than that Amazon sale, Instagram recipe, cryptocurrency flucutations, Facebook group comments or self help remedy. Life was full before those existed. As we take on the quality of what we spend time with, we can fill it with an abundance of what alters our internal environment for the better.