Balance

The key to balance is finding the right meeting point between overabundance and vacancy.  This point of convergence is always shifting, always changing.  But it is through this tension from each polarity where we find contentment and movement.

There’s one lesson that I have learned over the years in regards to my yoga practice- at least one that is coming to mind- and that is: you never really settle into a pose.  You are constantly working, adjusting, and staying mindful of your position.   A harmony arises between the right amount of effort and non-effort.  You are always working the asana.  There is force, without being forceful.  There is ease, but you are never being lazy.  In a physical respect, I always like to ask myself whether or not I can smile.  If not, I need to back off.  But of course yoga is like peeling back an endless onion, and is not just a physical discipline.

            This type of mindset can also be applied to other aspects of your life, and does not hold solely for a yoga practice.  But just because we do not settle, does not mean that we feel unsettled- and this is an important distinction.  We can always be enthusiastic to move forward and improve while also being perfectly happy and content where we are before the move, right here right now.

            It is healthy to look forward, to plan, and to dream.  Whether we our working on our personalities, our mental habits, our aspirations, or our day-to-day, it is important to have a vision and act from that place.  But, the drive should not come from a desire to reach that place.  Much sadness arises when we live like this because we are acknowledging a disparity.  We must be able to look forward, but also bring ourselves back to the present and work in that space.

Taking the Side of Perfection

“…And only now can I say, after the experience I had on the side of the river where I was alone in the dead of night with the primordial sound of nature all around, contemplating, when I had a complete turnabout and revelation concerning how I had been living my life- I now wanted some way of putting that feeling of absolute peace and serenity and harmonious solitude into my own day-to-day.  It seems to me entirely reasonable to suspect- maybe meaning something or maybe not- that the swell of being comes to a head from time to time, without knowing or reason or a flash to suspect, that no reflection or vivid memory can recount that divine sense of living, of being alive, when the universe dissolves in the palm your hand and becomes you- we put our heads down and carry along just waiting for the next crazy adventure to consume us.”

-Extracted from One Subtle Tempest

There is one facet of experience that can never be taught, never be given to an individual- and that is the feeling one becomes acquainted with when the I of the self fades away, when the vacuous space between one soul and another becomes a current that runs through the body, and when the mindset instantly shifts from the perception of division to a sense of perfect unity and harmony.  It is at this juncture when we must decide for ourselves whether or not to live from this space and seek it out as our life’s work, or to let it fade away, perhaps taking what we need in the process.  But graveyards are full of middling swordsmen, and this sort of light and love only fills those who choose carry it with every step along their path.

We all have a dharma.  A tree has a dharma; a fish has a dharma, a deer, even the fly that buzzes in your house and the small plankton swimming in the sea.  We can only know what our nature is, and carry it out in the best way we know how.  For a very long period of time I used to be angry about the battle I have had with Lyme disease, and other chronic health concerns and their lasting aftereffects.  I wasn’t angry about anything I did in particular.  In fact, many things were perhaps completely out of my control.  But I was just angry- angry at my situation, the past, what could have been different.  But, my point is that if this sort of aimless rage goes untreated, it turns itself onto every other situation in your life, resembling resentment and discontent.  But just like we cannot blame the people in our lives that put us down, I cannot blame the tick for carrying out it’s dharma- that is, to survive and attach to a host.  It was doing what it knew how, carrying out it’s dharma.  You see, we all live together in this harmonious dance.  We all live from the same source, the same one fountain of divine love and perfection.  We must see everything- the traffic on our way to work, the rain that doesn’t cease for a week, the leaves falling from a tree- as perfect.  When we remove our thoughts and beliefs about our life, and try to think what that would mean in a year, two, a hundred, or even five-hundred thousand years- the small trivial worries begin to fade and a shift happens.  We become a fly on the wall.  We learn to live and enjoy living in this dance.  Because wherever we are, whatever has happened, is surely perfect.

So if you question this post, ask yourself a something.  If you have the choice to see you life as perfect or flawed- and could not be sure about the truth of either state- why not choose the side of your favor and decide for yourself that it is certain and live from that place?

I think what I envy the most about any other, seemingly forceful man, is his overwhelming sense of a clear vision.  Unhindered, luminous, commanding this vision drives a man forward and gives him something to live for, dynamically.  Drives his soul forward through the world, gives purpose and harmony to the mind, the body, the spirit.

I keep telling myself that when I stumble across these urges, that I will surrender to them- that is, relinquish any resistance, or force, imposed upon these insights, which may limit their full blossoming.  That I will find my commanding voice, my vision, my passion.

Well…I have had one of these insights tonight.  And I am writing it down.

I have engaged in quite a lot of self-harm throughout my 24 years.  Self-harm can come in many forms.  But for me mainly it pertains to violent thoughts about myself, thoughts that manifest into fear, obsessions, divisions and anxiety.  And I believe that I have found one integral step to help me reverse this disorder.  Stop eating meat.  And while I will not divulge into specifics- here are some reasons:

I keep hearing, and stumbling across, the phrase, “be the change you wish to see in the world.”  Well, what I wish to see is the cessation of all violence- that being, all outward expressions of savagery as well as the abolition of the onslaught of murderous thoughts that flood our brain throughout the days and nights.  Constantly we pick at our bodies and our habits emphasize our division between the people around us as well as the animals around us.  For this reason, I can not actively participate, and consume other flesh, in the knowing that I have taken another’s life- particularly when I have had no control over how that animal was raised, fed, and eventually killed.

I think we to often forget that the food we consume also carries with it a life force.  In biological terms, you could think about it as the live enzymes or micronutrients that exist in your food, and slowly decrease the longer the food has been removed from its source.  I think everyone could agree that there is no comparison to a carrot bought in the store and one that is still screaming after you plucked it out of the ground.  In addition, we no longer really pay attention to all of the things that we put in our bodies, what preservatives or chemicals are in particular products, what ingredients are in this or that.  Food has lost its meaning to us and no longer feeds our souls.  Yes, perhaps, food still has profound cultural meaning and in a social respect still has value.  But, we ignore that all conscious beings come from one source, one love, one divine energy- It may very well be possible, that by limiting the amount of meat I eat, I could limit the amount of fear, and sadness, and cruelty transferred to me by the animals who experienced these emotions during their days.

I want so very badly to have a strong vision and live by it, to transport myself to a place where the opinions of others have no hold on me.  I want to see an end to the cruelty man has imposed upon animals within the modern machine.  I want fear, and hate, and killing to be absent from my thoughts and actions.  These are the wishes I intend to be fulfilled.  That is all for now.