I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the meaning of life. More specifically, the meaning of my life. Even more specifically, I’ve been thinking about what my purpose is and feeling that I need to be doing something that “makes a difference.” I have yet to figure out what that means but I am getting closer. I keep thinking that I should be doing something meaningful that will help someone in some way. Again, whatever that means.
It’s been a pretty persistently reoccurring thought the past few weeks. Should I be working with some organization to benefit some group of people? Should I instead set aside some amount of my income to donate to some organization on a monthly basis? And if one of these is the path I feel I should be taking, what are the details? How do I choose what organization to work with or which one to donate to? If I give my time or money to one, am I not essentially taking away from another? And if I choose either of those options, aren’t I taking away from my family by not giving that time or money to them now or for the future?
I am completely torn. So I finally yesterday expressed to Marcia what I was feeling. I boiled it all down to the simplest view of it which is “I want to do something meaningful. I want to feel, on my deathbed (assuming I have the opportunity to ponder this), that my life was meaningful and that I did something meaningful not just with my life but for some undefined other life (or lives).”
Her response to me really brought it all into perspective. This is one of the many reasons I love that woman so much. She said that I am living a meaningful life because I am raising two beautiful, wonderful little girls. YES! Of course I am. Eureka! And don’t mistake that I don’t feel that it is meaningful to raise two children in this life. It’s just that I was feeling I needed to do something that would have a positive impact on other peoples lives. But who’s to say that by raising these little people that I am not doing that?
It made me realize how relative it all is. Relativity does not just apply to quantum physics. It’s all about perspective. How you view everything truly impacts and shapes your life. Beyond that, how you define things can truly impact your life and clearly for me, my life direction.
Should I feel guilty for not going down a path of “service” (whatever that means)? Should I feel sinful (whatever that means)? I think no is the answer to both of those questions as well as many more like them. What is wrong with a life dedicated to happiness - both my own, in the form of time and satisfaction from raising beautiful people, to the happiness of those two little ones that I am raising? Who’s to say that isn’t my purpose in life and a large part of their purpose in life? If I choose this path I can NOT be wrong and no one can tell me it is wrong. Each of us must make choices based on the experiences and stimuli that we are presented with in life. Some of us may choose “service” (whatever that means) and some of us may choose “love” (whatever that means). Neither is wrong. Each is right for each that chooses. It’s just a matter of perspective.
Oh yeah, and a little compassion. We can NOT judge or ridicule because someone else has chosen a path that we have not chosen. We are all doing the best we can possibly do given the conditions that we’ve individually been given. Some of us call it random and drift, others don’t call it anything because of “unconsciousness,” while others see a purpose and seek a path. Is the latter “right” any more than the former? None of us have proof that ANYTHING is truly real beyond the physical that we can perceive so why call anything “wrong?”
Anyway, I am getting off topic. For me this is about my Path. It always has been. What is my Path and am I making sure I am still on my Path? The answer to that is a resounding YES! I find that when I am feeling uncertain about something in life or when I am feeling “needy” in life, I am about to have some personal revelation. This simple process of seeking meaning and finding meaning right in front of my eyes was just one of these episodes.
The amazing thing to me about these episodes is the coincidences I often experience. I had one last night only several hours after having had this conversation about “meaning” with my wonderful friend and wife. Friday night is movie and Subway night at our house. Via a friend we recently discovered “Redbox” DVD rental which is a movie vending machine in the Harris Teeter grocery stores. Last night, Marcia got the movie “Martian Child” with John and Joan Cusack. I had never heard of this movie and Marcia got it because it seemed like a good family friendly movie for us to watch while being one we would all enjoy.
Cusack portrays science fiction writer David Gordon, a thirtysomething widower. Seeking to do something “meaningful” with his life, David considers adopting a child. While wrestling with the decision, he is drawn to a six-year-old boy named Dennis (Bobby Coleman) who just happens to think he is from Mars. Dennis spends his days secluded in a large cardboard box (he’s fearful of the sun), wearing a weighted belt to keep him floating away and the victim of the cruel teasing of other children.
Did you catch the coincidence in that? In the movie, Cusack is telling a friend that he wants to do something meaningful and that something happens to be adopting and raising this beautiful little boy.
I don’t know about you but I view that is pretty coincidental and pretty amazing support for the revelation of meaning about my own life that I had just a few hours earlier.
Most of us go through life a little afraid, a little nervous, a little excited. We are like children playing hide and seek, wanting to be found, yet hoping we won’t be, biting our nails with anticipation. We worry when opportunity approaches a little too closely, and hide deeper in the shadows when fear overcomes us. This is no way to go through life. People who understand the true nature of reality, those whom some traditions call enlightened, lose all sense of fear or concern. All worry disappears. Once you understand the way life really works—the flow of energy, information, and intelligence that directs every moment—then you begin to see the amazing potential in that moment. Mundane things just don’t bother you anymore. You become lighthearted and full of joy. You also begin to encounter more and more coincidences in your life.
When you live your life with an appreciation of coincidences and their meanings, you connect with the underlying field of infinite possibilities. This is when the magic begins. This is a state I call synchrodestiny, in which it becomes possible to achieve the spontaneous fulfillment of our every desire. Synchrodestiny requires gaining access to a place deep within yourself, while at the same time awakening to the intricate dance of coincidences out in the physical world.
~ From “The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire” by Deepak Chopra
I have said it before and will likely say it many more times. I love yoga. Yoga is more than physical exercise for the body IF you allow it to be more than that for you. Yoga is an art form that allows each of us to be creative with our bodies and if we allow it, with our minds. It allows us to express and release our emotional selves with movement and breath. It allows us to learn about ourselves and find out things we might not have realized we need to express.
Beyond the aspects of the self that it allows us to learn, it also clearly teaches us. It teaches patience. It teaches us to be present and conscious of the now. It teaches us to breath through much more than just a pose or just when on our mats.
Yoga for me personally has done much more than that. It has exposed a Path that I don’t know I would have found without yoga. But what’s more is that it has allowed me to realize that any path can exist and any path can be exposed if we are just willing to blaze the trail.
The emotional expression of yoga has also allowed me to face a lot of demons from my past and release them. Or at least befriend them. That process has also led me down a parallel path of expression that I did not know I had in me.
These are just a few of the things that I have found that the art of yoga has brought to my life. I hope that you have found unique and important paths through your practice.
The following passage is what prompted my topic today. I don’t always feel inspired to write from my heart. but beautiful words always inspire me. I hope these inspire you in some way as well.
The basis of an aesthetic art is the pure idea. But the pure idea is, of necessity, an aesthetic act. Here then is the epistemological paradox that is the artist’s problem. Not space cutting nor space building, not construction nor fauvist destruction; not the pure line, straight and narrow, nor the tortured line, distorted and humiliating; not the accurate eye, all fingers, nor the wild eye of dream, winking; but the idea-complex that makes contact with mystery - of life, of men, of nature, of the hard, black chaos that is death, or the grayer, softer chaos that is tragedy. For it is only the pure idea that has meaning. Everything else has everything else.
~ From “Reading abstract expressionism: context and critique” by Ellen G. Landau
Although I do give my works names, I don’t like to because it sets a tone and I don’t think that is what it should be about.
I posted this previously on a retired blog but I love it. It is the kind of writing that makes me want to write here. The more I discover this type of writing, the more I want to write and the more I want to be a better writer. This is what makes me love the beauty that words can create.
“It is, I now understand, a story that has no clear beginning or end, but, like the blood itself, keeps coming back around, full circle.
In each heart, at one time, two motions, the spent blood returning even as the renewed rushes out.
At one time, in each heart - yours, mine, at this very instant - two leanings, two dispositions, two emotions: the urge to go to the very edges of our existence followed by that dire sensation of having gone too far, of being way out on a limb and needing, at all costs, to get back home.
In each heart, at one time, both thrust and thrust’s acceptance, an ongoing, self-contained act of inner coition that at once mimes and moves the outward one to its perfectly mindless redundancy. More and more now I know the outer world to be a recapitulation of our own inner biology.
Outside, the city slumbers along with my brain. I’ve just doubled back on it, followed my heart’s footsteps back around to what I’d taken such pains to escape, found myself standing before some late-night, domino-lit office tower, dead migratory birds strewn at its base.
Where, then, to begin? At what point in the heart’s motion to intercede without disrupting that ongoing simultaneity? It has a mind of its own, the heart, for which our minds have yet to find the words.”
~ From “A Man After His Own Heart” by Charles Siebert
Some devil is stuck inside of me, I cannot set it free.
~ Dave Matthews Band, “Some Devil”
No matter how hard I try, I cannot set some devil’s free. They simply are the type that have latched on to me and seem to now be permanently attached. It’s quite frustrating. No matter how hard I try, I cannot consistently live in the moment and remember that NOW is the only thing that exists. Not the past, not the future, only NOW. I am constantly catching myself thinking about the past and wondering “what if” - what if I had done things differently, what if I had made this decision or that choice rather than the ones I did, what if, what if, what if. I am constantly worrying about the future and wondering if everything is going to be “OK,” whatever that means.
Right NOW is all that matters and right NOW I am alive and healthy and in love and I have everything I could possibly need. But no matter how many times I say to myself that IF this or that happens, I will just make changes and go with the flow, I cannot find comfort in the moment, in the NOW.
Even knowing that faith has a tendency to show you the way as long as you are willing to blaze the trail, I cannot find comfort.
I have decided that comparison and intellect is the source of my suffering. If I were not comparing myself or details of my life with others or different possible scenarios, I would be fine. If I did not have the intellect to explore all these “what if” situations, I would be fine. I would simply live. I would be comfortable in the now.
And I’d give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t want to go home right nowAnd all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it’s over
I just don’t want to miss you tonightAnd I don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I amAnd you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your aliveAnd I don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I amI don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I amI just want you to know who I am
~ Goo Goo Dolls, Iris
Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Lao Tzu, the three Taoist masters, talk only about the way. Tao means the way - they don’t talk about the goal at all. They say: The goal will take care of itself; you need not worry about the goal. If you know the way you know the goal, because the goal is not at the very end of the way, the goal is all over the way - each moment and each step it is there. It is not that when the way ends you arrive at the goal; each moment, wherever you are, you are at the goal if you are on the way. To be on the way is to be at the goal. Hence they on’t talk about the goal, they on’t talk about God, they don’t talk about moksha, nirvana, enlightenment - no, not at all. Very simple is their message: You have to find the way.
From “Tao: The Pathless Path” by Osho
I’ve been practicing yoga now consistently for over three years. Relatively speaking that is really not much time at all. I am definitely still a baby when it comes to my yogic growth, maybe a toddler. As I grow with my practice, I am noticing subtle changes not only in my body and my physique but also in how I approach my practice, what I enjoy and how each pose is evolving as these changes take place and as I gain a deeper understanding of them and of myself. Most importantly, but least importantly for this context, I’ve clearly had some positive growth in my mental and emotional practices as a result of my yoga.
One of the most important aspects of this growth that I have been noticing lately is how alignment and focus can have a very significant impact on how I feel about my practice and how my practice makes me feel. I am finding my edges more often and more consistently than I ever have. The main reason for this is that I am one to almost always use blocks. I have no ego when it comes to where I am in my practice or what my body can do physically or how I might look. I simply do what I can do which sometimes is more than other times depending on the day and how much I’ve practiced recently. If that means I need a block to do Side Angle, then so be it.
The interesting and important aspect of this for me has been that I’ve learned to use blocks to maximize each pose for me no matter how I am feeling. This in turn has, I believe, allowed me to progress in ways that I might not if I were not using these props or thinking in this way. For example, I have always used blocks in Triangle. I simply don’t always have the flexibility in my sides or legs that allows me to go all the way to the floor. I sometimes wish I did but then always remind myself that if it were that easy, it would be boring and I would not feel the reward of progress.
Anyway, all of this brings me to the focus that I mentioned previously. The blocks have been important for these reasons but in addition they’ve forced me in a roundabout way to focus on my alignment and on how I move my body into all the poses and find those edges that make all the difference in my progress. Going back to my Triangle example, one of the reasons I use the block is to make sure I maximize that stretch at my hip. I personally tend to move into the pose from the side (and please NOTE here that I am NOT a teacher and therefore do not recommend that you necessarily do anything I say the way I say it but it does work for me). I kind of rotate my hip up to the sky as I stretch my upper body forward and down to the block. This has consistently (especially recently) resulted in not only a great, focused stretch at my hip but also a bit of soreness the next day that I just love.
In the same way, when I am doing side angle, I find that bringing the floor up to my hand just a bit allows me to get a full extension along my side from my shoulder all the way down to the outside edge of my trailing foot. Or when I do a revolved … well, anything, I use a block to make sure that I am getting the most of the stretch wherever I may be feeling the stretch. I often don’t even lift my back leg in revolved Half Moon because I find that I get all the stretch I need by using a block and focusing how I am aligning my body and how I am rotating and where, etc.
I think ultimately a lot of people new to yoga get lost in the way the poses are “supposed” to look. I know that I sometimes still do this. When I extend in Triangle or hear a teacher say to square my hips in Airplane, I often go there in my mind and find myself wondering if I look like I am doing it right rather then remembering that it is not about how it looks but how it feels.
I think this is one of the more important lessons that yoga can teac. It’s one that can be used on and off of the mat. In this culture of materialism and who knows who, it’s important to remember that it’s not about what I look like or how I am doing something. What is important is how I feel about what I am doing. Do I feel good? Do I feel like I am getting the most from what I am spending my time and money on? Or am I just trying to keep up with the Jones?
I can’t help but feel lost right now. Not because something specific has happened to me or even to anyone I know necessarily. I simply have this lost feeling about where we stand right now in this world and where we are in our sociocultural evolution. I also am feeling like things are a bit unfair right now for a lot of us. I don’t know of a better word to use than “unfair.” It all just seems slightly off in some fundamental way that I don’t have the power to fully comprehend.
On one hand we have this war that I am so sick of hearing about but at the same time so saddened by and in the same breath embarrassed by almost. This handful of a mess that we are in is not good in any respect. But then I feel bad for feeling this way because I know that there are people dying and I feel almost guilty because these are good people. Some of them are dying simply because it’s their job. Others are doing it because they believe in it. Either way, they didn’t start this nor are they the ones promoting and progressing this war. They are simply paying the ultimate physical price.
On the other hand we have the constant stream of what seems to be bad news in the media about the economy. Every day it seems to be getting worse even though when I go outside and live my life, it all seems the same as before all this started. But I do know there are people whose live are being dramatically impacted by whatever it is that is going on. These are also good people. They just maybe made some bad decisions or were taken advantage of and now their lives are changed because of excesses by the larger sociocultural evolution that has happened.
And then, if I had another hand, it would be that this journey, this path, this life just has its moments. Moments that make you feel like there is no God. Moments where you want to just give up and crawl into a corner and start doing depressing things that make you forget about all the injustice. And that’s exactly what it is, injustice. Injustices of inequality in wealth, mistreatment of children, hunger and starvation, sudden death, violence, and on and on and on. It’s the stuff you see on the TV every night.
All of this makes me want to do something. Something that will make a difference. Something that will make me feel better about all this. But what can one person possibly do with limited resources and limited time. If I have $50 or even $1000 and want to give it to some cause then I am essentially taking away from some other cause by not giving to it. And even if I give that $50 or $1000, how do I choose what cause to give it to in the first place and how do I know it’s really going to make a difference?
Anyway, I feel lost. I don’t often feel lost on this Path. I’ve learned to keep my head up and my eyes forward so that I can plan my footsteps before I take them. This never fails for me. But what to do now? I feel like I am looking down at my feet realizing I need to get a new pair of shoes and feeling bad for that because my shoes are so much better than so many others shoes.
These are the times when I have to be steadfast in my faith that the Universe is benevolent. I have to remind myself that all of this is meaningful even if I don’t know what the meaning of it all is. I must not forget that there is a lesson in every moment and that all that counts is how I choose to view these lessons. I must also remember, or at least choose to believe, that often the Universe chooses to test us and test our faith so that we can grow and experience more of what it has to offer.
