If we're lucky, life will disturb us.
As I was getting ready for bed last night I looked out the window and noticed it was a full moon. The sky was crystal clear, the stars twinkling as if made of glitter and the shadows of the bare tree limbs being cast on the freshly fallen snow.
“They look like lungs” said my Love as I decided to step outside to connect with the moment in a deeper way.
My only companion, the frigid wind, greeted me as I sank into the moment.
I felt alive, but not so much as the last time. It wasn't the moment that was less spectacular, it was my experience of it. It was as if there was a film surrounding my consciousness; it's slightly gray coating was visible on every surface.
The lyrics to Pink Floyd's “One of my turns” came to mind:
“Day after day, love turns grey Like the skin of a dying man”
After a few moments I realized it wasn't a film but a bubble that I had allowed to form around my mind. The bubble of past experience. The ultimate fast forward button, we convince ourselves that there's nothing new here and skip to the next moment of interest.
It's the reason life seems to whip by faster and faster as we get older and older.
I realized the importance of cultivating a sense of wonder. We can do this by either continuously finding new activities to get involved with and looking forward to peak experiences, or by fully appreciating every moment; peaks, troughs and everything in between.
Recently I've been choosing the latter.
I've found a place in my mind, I call it the center. It's available to all of us and there's an infinite number of ways to get there.
It's not actually a place and you don't actually go anywhere but it helps me to think of it as the eye of a hurricane. To stay in the eye requires acceptance. You accept where you are. You allow the experience to unfold. You allow yourself to be in Love with everything.
To get pulled out of the eye and into the storm is the easiest thing in the world to do. You engage with the winds of needless and repetitive critical thoughts. You judge. You allow indifference and hate to setup shop in your heart and try to impose your will on others.
Deep down we all want to be in the eye, but we mistakenly think that we need to do something in order to deserve our birthright.
We stay out in the winds because we've been indoctrinated into the cult of doing. Unless we're doing something more we're not doing enough. We achieve, we expand, we acquire. We must do something about our past and plan for the future, despite the fact that the only thing more inaccurate than our predictions about the future are our beliefs about our past.
As we engage with the winds, we instinctively recoil from the pain of past experience or the horror of an unwelcome future and try to correct our course. Very rarely does this correction bring us closer to the center, it merely adds energy to the storm.
As the storm gathers intensity, sometimes we find that choosing the best course to take becomes the source of pain.
Like a pendulum we swing between what we believe we should want to do (our duty) and what we really want to do (our heart's desire).
As the winds of duty and desire build in rhythmic opposition, the pendulum shortens and its tempo increases. As it does, it starts to consume more and more of our attention, until it becomes the only thing we can focus on. The more intense this focus becomes, the more painful it will be.
To end the pain you must destroy the pendulum.
Destroying the pendulum requires you to remove one of the opposing forces; you either abandon your duty or your desire.
I've tried both approaches many times. I've abandoned my desires for the sake of duty and I've abandoned my duty for the sake of my desires.
What I'd like to tell you is that both lead to short term pain and suffering but only one leads to the center.
If you choose duty over desire, you will resent those who you believe you owe your allegiance to. They will grow to resent you as well. Although choosing duty will almost certainly cause less short term pain, the unfortunate fact is, this path doesn't destroy the pendulum, it merely breaks it into smaller ones. And the cycle continues.
If you choose your heart's desire over duty, you will find yourself in a green pasture that is filled with limitless possibilities. As you allow yourself to relax in this idyllic place, do so without without judgement or fear. As you do, you'll move out of the winds and your thoughts become clear.
You begin to become aware of the bubble; watch it. Allow yourself to find the calm at the center of your being and simply observe.
You may eventually come to see what you believed was your duty as the most precious thing in your life.
And choosing it again becomes an act of love, instead of a sacrifice.
Namaste!
