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Another Encroachment on Individual Liberties (and Arjuna’s dilemma)

ByElizabeth

When I was waiting for the metro to go to Willow Street Yoga this Saturday morning to offer a free gentle/therapeutics class (new session starts for the class next Saturday, January 15th–all welcome), I heard a very disturbing announcement on Metro.  I only take Metro once or twice a week.  I am pretty certain I would have noticed it if I had heard it before; in rush hour, of course, it is hard to hear the announcements when the platforms are full.  What I heard was this:  “Metro police have advised that all passengers are subject to random searches of their carry ons.”  A reasonable person might want to know what is a “carry on” for these purposes.  My first question to myself was “don’t random searches of this type violate the Constitution?”  (Yes, the American Civil Liberties Union is actively engaged in the issue).

I find random searches just for boarding the metro with a carry on an unfortunately not particularly shocking example of how far we have allowed the “war on terror” to be waged against all of us.  Perhaps there are readers of this blog who are not shocked or perhaps believe that these searches are warranted; I am open to listening to why.  I know that it was not front page news, and my friends have not been talking about it.  This was just another one of those awful things we have started taking for granted, which is something that I hope is getting progressively harder to do.

My biggest question for myself was what I would do if the police asked to search my handbag.  The odds are slim to none that “random” would in practice include a reasonably well-dressed, clean, small, middle-aged, middle class, fairly evidently American-born, white woman.  But what if random was really random and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Would I refuse to let my bag be searched on principle?  Would I be willing to lose my job and possibly go to jail for my conviction that such a practice misses the mark completely for its intended purposes and tears at the very fabric of a free society and our individual liberties?  I find that I do not know the answer.  Partly it is attachment to my own security.  Partly it is that I do not know whether it would be better just to allow my bag to be searched and not engender conflict than to engage in conflict that will certainly harm me, severely limit my ability to give financial support for important fights and causes, and potentially could harm others around me, even if ultimately, with the help of many I am sure, I were to be a participant in reason prevailing and the practice ceasing.

In thinking about how unsure I was of my ability to act if I were to be put to the test, I was reminded of the situation at the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna is paralyzed by inability to act in the face of the hideous spector of violent death and destruction that would result from going to battle even to rectify an injustice.  Arjuna looks out on the battlefield where battle is enjoined because of the injustices that have been done (we’ll leave it for another day as to whether the violations of law in the Mahabharata are ones that a modern thinker might agree should give rise to the epic battle in the Bhagavad Gita.)  Krishna explains to Arjuna that it is his dharma to go to battle; he is a warrior and these wrongs must be rectified.  The general day to day principle that governs the life of a yogi — ahimsa or non-harming — is trumped by the greater need to rectify the societal injustice.  Arjuna must join in battle because leaving the injustice uncorrected will in result in greater harm to the order of society, even the cosmological order itself.  See Stephen Phillips, “Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth” (discussing the interrelationship between the individual practice of ahimsa and the need for cosmological order in Indian philosophy).

I am not likely to be put to the test here, but that is part of the evil of the practice.  What can I do?  What should I be doing in the face of a direction in society that gives rise to policies like these and the gunning in Arizona yesterday?  It takes great discrimination (viveka), more perhaps than I have, to know how and when to act.  I do know that it is not right for me as a citizen or a yogi to stand aside.  I offer this very public statement of my beliefs and I gave a generous donation to the ACLU yesterday.  I am sure that is not enough, but it is a start.  As our society moves in the direction it is moving, more and more of us must contemplate, evaluate, and begin to expand how we act and participate to see a world where ahimsa is not just personal, but all persons and beings have the possibility of being free from suffering.

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    It’s a Fine Line Between a Grimace and a Smile (and satcitananda murtaye)

    ByElizabeth

    The New York Times just published a blog entry on the perils of faking happiness.   The first problem with the article was that I could not get to the study to see if I agreed that the actual premise was that “faking a smile” was what led to a deterioration in mood or feeling unduly pressured by a need to do so regardless of what was going on inside was the problem.  The second is the definitional problem of what it means to “fake” a smile.  I think it not unlikely that contorting the face into a fake smile (i.e., grimacing) because one feels one has to do so does not improve mood when one is in physical or emotional pain.  According to the little cover blog, though, those that made an attempt to smile from the inside by thinking a positive though–even though it was a conscious effort– did experience an improvement in their mood.

    Any good method actor will tell you that to make an outer expression believable, one has to cultivate inner thoughts to go with it (though that is still “acting”).  Having been taught by my mother by age six in preparation for my first school play performance, that to act I should try to “be an apple” a la Stanislovski, I disagree that intentionally putting a smile on your face cannot help improve your mood. It’s all in how you fake it ’til you make it.  I have long advocated to my yoga students, based on my personal experience with the practice of smiling whether I think I mean it or not, to try smiling on the outside improve mood.  Even leaving aside the inner experience, just walk down the street with an open posture and a smile on your face and see how people respond, though I caution to do this at your peril in New York.  When you smile at people and be polite, they generally respond in kind.  You are then much more likely to feel good than if you are scowling and rude and people respond back in kind.

    What on earth (or in heaven’s name) does faking a smile until you feel one have to do with satcitananda, you may find yourself asking yourself at this point.  The second line of the Anusara invocation is “satcitananda murtaye.” Murtaye, from the same verbal root as murti or statue, here is usually translated as saying that Siva (from the first line) embodies the characteristics of satcitananda, being (what I like to call is-ness), absolute consciousness, and bliss.

    Another way of looking at this phrase, though, is that when we open to the possibility of discovering our siva nature, which is the reason we practice yoga, and when we use the principles of alignment to help do so, then we discover how to be, if even for a moment, simply present, fully conscious, and blissful with the consciousness of the ultimacy of being.  In a word, when we soften and look within, using the knowledge and experience of our teachers and our practices, a smile of recognition lights us up.  If we start out having a bad day, feeling stressed or anxious or in pain, or just plain grumpy from reading the news, we just have to practice with more depth and sincerity to find the smile and not beat ourselves up if we are struggling to find the smile despite our desire and the intensity of our practice.

    Is that faking a smile or being the smile?  Does trying to smile when we are feeling blue really make us more unhappy?  I think it is all in how we do it.

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    Outside the Federal Courthouse at Lunchtime

    ByElizabeth

    “Sometimes,” said the woman in red sitting outside the courthouse.

    “Sometimes you gotta,” she said to her co-workers, the red jersey

    Of her dress clinging to her ample curves while she kicked

    The granite ledge where she sat amidst a din of everyone talking

    At every one else, not listening, some smoking, but not eating, on a break

    Of some kind.  Maybe they were jurors not court staff or perhaps visitors.

    Funny that they didn’t have some kind of badge, all of them talking.

    All of them talking and looking like they did the same type of work or had something

    In common, talking all at once to a group that was familiar, but didn’t care to listen.

    Amidst the talking, too many at once, and the clacking of her heels, like a kid, against

    The granite ledge, “sometimes you just gotta be quiet,” she said to nobody listening.

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