I am obsessed with progress and growth. I want to do and to achieve all the time. One of my worst fears is getting stuck, of being trapped. It should come as no surprise then I’m claustrophobic and freak out in large crowds when I can’t move as freely as I’d like. It’s not only an external fear, but an internal one.
The thing about my health is I feel stuck. There are many things I cannot do right now. As I’ve written about previously, my dreams are on hold and that suuuuuucks.
I called a friend this week to share my fears with him, and instead of dissuading me from my current perspective, he told me he’s been meditating on the tarot card the hanged man. Some would view the image of a hanged man as violent, something to fear and avoid. My friend however said he views the hanged man as being suspended instead of hanged. Of being still, in a pause, held. And perhaps the same applies to my life right now. That I don’t have to do anything, and instead of fighting the stuckness, I can enjoy the sense of ease that can arise because it’s a moment in time when the divine is holding the rope and keeping me in place. Instead of stuck, I’m held in suspension.
Been meditating on the hanged man. Perhaps he’s only suspended.
I like thinking of it in that way and also I’m reminded there’s more here. It’s important for me to relax while I’m suspended, to embrace the inactive part of me.
In my spiritual philosophy, there are three binding forces in the world called gunas. The forces are sattvic, or sentient, rajasic, or mutative, and tamasic, or static. All beings have a mixture of these forces within them to varying degrees. I can say without a doubt I’ve been denying the static force within me. I’ve been pretending that part of me doesn’t exist, and furthermore, not giving it expression in any way. Even when I’m at home, relaxing, there is an internal struggle within me that says I should be doing something else. Something productive. And even though I haven’t paid attention to that voice, even though I stay where I am and keep reading my book, the voice still lives within me.
This week something shifted and I’m yielding to inertia, to laziness. You would think it’s easy because, “Woohoo! Green light to sit around and watch Netflix all day!” but actually, it’s been excruciating. This week I’ve been crawling out of my skin with how uncomfortable I am. And in fact, instead of embracing laziness, on Friday night I cleaned my bathroom. So. You know. Still learning over here.
Again, as I think of my spiritual philosophy though, it’s one of wholeness and integration. One where we view everything as an expression of an infinite loving consciousness, and that means the static side too. That means the lazy, do-nothing part of me is also divine and I’m not doing myself any favors by pretending it’s not. There is a time and a place for everything, and right now, it’s time for me to be lazy without guilt.
I dream of a world where we embrace all the forces within us. A world where we view all periods of our life as sacred. A world where even if we feel stuck, instead we start thinking of it as being held while in suspension.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
One of the things that’s been bugging me is the disposable nature of the goods our society makes. Appliances aren’t built to last anymore, they’re built to break, because if something breaks then we’ll buy another one.
A few years ago I had to return a cable box or internet router, something like that, to AT&T. The UPS store THREW AWAY perfectly good power chargers and cables because AT&T doesn’t take them back. That means working, functional cords and cables end up in a landfill. I’m angry just thinking about it. Where is the reverence for life? Why aren’t we holding inanimate objects as sacred? Should inanimate even be sacred? Is something only sacred if it has a soul? Do inanimate objects have a soul?
When I stare into the eyes of something living and breathing, like a cat, it’s easy to say, “Yes, this creature has a soul.” But what about something like a rock? Or something man-made like concrete?
Right now I’m trying to hold everything as sacred.
In my quest for the answer, I turned to the work of my spiritual teacher, who seems to have written about everything. He said there are two components to everything in the world: consciousness and Prakriti. Prakrti is a Sanskrit word that has no English equivalent but is similar to nature, or creation. Prakrti has to use consciousness to create anything; it’s the basic building block for all of life. It’s like a sculptor using clay to mold different shapes: The clay becomes a pot, a vase, a cow, but its origination is still clay.
Obviously there’s a difference between a cat and a calla lily (many differences, actually) and part of that difference according to my spiritual teacher, is the exertion of Prakrti. When the force of Prakrti is strong, the creation becomes more dense or crude. When the force of Prakrti is weaker, the creation becomes more light or subtle. If I’m maintaining my clay analogy here, Prakrti can be likened to soil and consciousness to water. The more Prakrti, the more soil, the thicker the clay. The more consciousness, the more water, the thinner the clay. A rock is very crude and dense so it has more Prakrti than consciousness, but it still has consciousness.
If a rock has consciousness, what does that mean for us? For me, yesterday as I walked down the street, my feet pounding the pavement, it meant the world took on a different hue. It meant I starting thinking about how concrete has a consciousness. How everything around me is sacred and an expression of consciousness/source/the divine. No longer is a piece of cardboard a meaningless bit of disposable packaging, but instead something more precious that it pains me to toss away so easily. Everything suddenly becomes more valuable and something I want to express my reverence for.
I’m not sure I can articulate what I mean, but there’s something about knowing that the keys upon which I type have consciousness that makes the experience more transcendent and special. It brings out the caretaker in me who wants to make sure every object is used to its fullest capacity. It changes my mindset from, “I can throw this away and always get another one,” to, “I want to cherish and reuse this for as long as I can.”
I dream of a world where we all have a reverence for everything. A world where we treat ourselves and everything around us as sacred. A world where we cherish each and every thing in the known universe because we recognize it, too, has consciousness.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.