I wanted to share, because I found it so moving and because I have such profound respect for his teaching, the recent reflections from Todd Norian about the healing process.
I was at a business meeting yesterday that started with people introducing themselves around the table. The participants were all either members or staff of a prominent lobbying group or government officials. One of the men said that he was now a consultant. “I used to be general counsel of [lobbying group], and now that I am consulting,” he said, “I have my life back.” The introductions continued around the table. The new general counsel, when he introduced himself, claimed, “it’s my life he has taken to get his back.”
I found this all interesting in light of my blog yesterday. These men are very successful. They both are married with families. They seem to be pleasant and smart. Their definition of “not having a life” was not having failed to be fully engaged in doing what society expects them to do — they have clearly done very well indeed — but not having time to play golf or hang out in addition to being “successful.”
Is the difference between being male and female? Or were the two different contexts of the same social, linguistic tic just exemplifying a the view point of a superabundant and privileged class that we are not living fully unless we do and have everything the collective society admires and we simultaneously feel like we have lots of leisure time to enjoy as we see fit? It’s a hopelessly unrealistic standard.
Every moment we breathe and our heart beats, we are living. One of the keys to tantric yoga is to come to a place where we are living fully and abundantly whatever we are doing, whether it is working or playing, being challenged or relaxing. When we can do that, we realize we “have a life” and one worth living, no matter where we are in our journey.
Part of the reason “around town” is within several blocks of my house since the pandemic began is the limits on being able to find a safe bathroom. I prefer that to dehydrating prior to going out. I’m lucky to have the choice.
One sign reads: “Our lives begin to end the day we are silent about the things that matter.” The other sign reads: “Biden/ Harris/ text “UNITED to 30330”
Tattoo circa the Kavanaugh hearings. I have strategically placed reminders to keep me engaged.
Thunder clouds pelt rain
Strewing winds reveal beauty’s
Soft ephemera.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I have been told more than once that one cannot technically be a true practitioner/believer in the tenets of Kashmir Shaivism without believing in some form of Godhead. As a nontheist who still finds the teachings and practices informative and useful for how best to live, I ask consistently whether that is really true.
I’m sure a purist (religious or academic) would say there’s no anything to the philosophy without being a full believer. But what I think one gets from practices designed to heighten awareness of a divinely connecting universality in the wild diversity of life without a belief that what is universal a priori points to “God” is a recognition that with all that is troubling and difficult and hurtful and evil in this world, the very complexity and outrageousness of being is yet wonderful and inspiring in itself.
In a word, when all else fails, laugh (and create and live) with an ecstatic fatalism.
Painting by Sandra Dooley. Cuba 2014