I have this tendency to be overly provocative, sometimes to a fault. I have managed to temper this but, as discussed last month, changing old patterns requires continued attention.
The title of this post is a perfect example. You see, I really wanted to call it “F*** Union with the Divine” but I decided to exercise my better judgement. Indulging in my taste for irreverence is immensely satisfying; however, incendiary language can easily put folks off and the intended sentiments are lost in my fancy for stirring the pot.
That I have matured only so far is evidenced by the fact that I still can’t resist finding a way to get it in here anyways. At least, I didn’t drop an f-bomb straightway in the title, asterisk-coated or not.
I have traced my relapse back to an email I recently received from Yoga Journal Magazine. The topic of the newsletter was Bhakti Yoga and the opening paragraph stated:
“It’s ultimate goal, like any other form of yoga, is self-realization and union with the Divine.”
My wife and daughter have been away for almost two weeks and I have reverted to the ways of my bachelorhood. This morning, I was forced to do dishes only because there were no more cereal bowls left. Even worse, I only washed one bowl so I could eat and then put it back on the stack when I was done.
All the dishes will be clean before they get back. I value my marriage too much to allow my wife to ever see our kitchen sink in such a state of disregard. This is a testament to the benefits of partnership. Pleasing my wife makes me a better person by mitigating my tendency towards sloth.
The dishes in the sink are really only a symptom of a deeper strain. This week also marks 22 years ago that my mother died. I have written about how reconciling her passing led me to Yoga and an appreciation of life’s inherent worth (see How I Came to Yoga) but the pang of grief and the uncertainty in life that death so starkly reveals can just as easily trigger a more foreboding outlook.
Let there be no doubt that life can be severely ironic. Two weeks after I sent out remarks on the sacrifices my wife was making for our family, she got laid off from that soul-sucking job that was providing us health insurance.
She worked at the same company for more than six years. They gave her three days notice. Corporate management sure is cruel in its inhumanity. The health insurance racket is even worse.
Fortunately, our situation is not dire. We’ve been biding our time and planning for her to leave that job eventually. Proactively changing a situation that is currently working feels foolhardy, even when the need is obvious. The forces that be must have felt we were dragging our feet a little too much and decided to intercede on our behalf. Funny how life does that sometimes.
Does life ever get easier? Short answer: no. I realize that doesn’t sound altogether yogic. Not to mention, it was only last month that I waxed poetic on living through the difficulty of winter as the fertile soil of new possibilities. While those ideas hold true and offer some useful perspective, I must admit, they are of little comfort when the rubber meets the road and the tires are running a bit flat.
Maybe its because taxes are looming or because I have been watching too much cable news but I can’t seem to shake this proverbial carrot from dangling out in front of me that says if only I made more money than everything would be so much easier. Despite the common moral stories to the contrary, it sure seems like more money would solve some issues.
This time of year I always recall a passage from an obscure little book called Light On the Path:
“Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm; not till then. It shall grow, it will shoot up, it will make branches and leaves and form buds, while the storm continues, while the battle lasts.
Then will come a calm such as comes in a tropical country after the heavy rain, when nature works so swiftly that one may see her action. Such a calm will come to the harassed spirit.
Many of you have been privy to the evolution of these posts over the last year. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking of it less as advertising and more an honest inquiry and exchange of thought. My inspiration has been largely fueled by your responses.
That anyone even reads this much less takes a moment to send me a note of appreciation feels like some small triumph of the soul, awash in this sea of zeros and ones we call the internet. In particular, two recent correspondences have spurred the sentiments I wish to finish this year with and carry into the new.
My daughter is the best yoga teacher ever. Observing her as she comes into the wonderment of her own body for the first time is the ultimate example. She has learned to bring herself to standing by holding on to the side of her crib and hoisting herself up. Now, whenever she is placed in her crib she must practice. We have difficulty getting her down to sleep because she is so enthralled with her new sense of facility.
She looks at me as if to say, “Isn’t this amazing?”And I say, “Yes. It is. Isn’t it?”
Since my previous note post about the adage: no steps need to be taken, I happened into some deep philosophical debate on this topic with several prominent yoga teachers of another bent than myself. The sticking point between us represents a fundamental difference of view.
The non-dual interpretation of Yoga that I espouse is often signified by the adage: no steps need to be taken. I have grappled with this adage. Mostly, I wrote it off as a cliche of sorts like “Carpe Diem” or “you could walk outside right now and get hit by a bus.” I am intellectually sympathetic to the idea that life is best lived in the present but have found this of little consolation when the strains of life begin to bear down.
On more then one occasion, I have been at a social gathering where, upon learning that I am a yoga teacher, someone says, “Oh, I do yoga. Have you ever heard of P90X?” An appropriate response always seems to elude me.
A couple weeks back, I ran into someone who attended my class regularly in the past but discontinued coming after moving to a new apartment. She told me how much she missed the practice we were doing, that she still goes to yoga classes but they are not the same. She felt compelled to admit to me that there is often injurious things happening in these classes and she has sometimes hurt herself inadvertently. She quickly added, “…..but I really like the challenge.” The statement struck me because it implied that a simple and more deliberate practice is somehow not a challenge. Actually, being consistently careful and attentive with my breath and body is no small task.
In 1998, I had the rare pleasure of spending some time in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. One of the days I was there, we took a day trek to Amayangri Stupa (Amayangri means “the top,”) an ancient site dedicated to contemplation and reflection, marked by a modest configuration of stones and tattered prayer flags. This was the highest elevation possible given that I was not a climber and to go any further requires equipment and training.
Those who frequent my class have probably never heard me mention energy or chakras. The reason being that these concepts have been so superficially disseminated into our pop culture as to render them almost entirely cliche. Catch phrases like “feel the energy” or “open your third eye” often make new-age fluff of subtle ancient truths.
