Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Luxury Yoga
Only in places like Boulder do you see this signage. You want to learn how to be happy, fulfilled, deepened or whatever you read about yoga, but you don't want any suffering, this is for you. You will be pampered in your transformation. This has an appeal for many, but it is neither yoga or transformation. All paths have the cross whether it refers to cross or not. The Buddha says all life is suffering as part of the four noble truths. You do not escape suffering in a spiritual path. Nirvana is not about being free of suffering. The spiritual path is recognizing what brings the suffering, finding a way not to let its energy control you, and then become a deeply loving person. Example: You are unfulfilled, unhappy. It is the world's fault. Escape, buy more stuff, exercise more, drink/drugs, move or whatever. These solutions bring no diminishment of misery. You get on a spiritual path. You discover you are selfish and self-centered, full of fear. Then you begin, in the spiritual process to learn to let go of this energy so it does not control your response to the world. You now become more loving. This is a suffering, but transformed. Suffering in selfless love, not co-dependence, is quite transforming. This is the cross. A yogi knows this. Just because you "do" yoga, does not make you a yogi, any more than becoming baptized makes you a transformed Christian, or Bar-Mitzvah makes you a transformed Jew. It is hard daily work. But it is not a luxury. It is a necessity if you want happiness, or as we say in my religion, "eternal life."
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As I age it is important for me to do mind body and soul every day. That is both my daily luxury and suffering. When I worked I could not keep that focus.
ReplyDeleteThe suffering is in the discipline. The luxury is in the results.
ReplyDeleteWell put; so true.
DeleteThere is something about that statement "when I worked I could not keep that focus."
ReplyDeleteMost of us have to work. We also find that same struggle to be in and about the work a day world and keep focus. Fr. Terry how do we meet the challenge?
If you have the interest or need, the challenge will meet you eventually. When I was a younger worker, My priorities overcame the small emptiness inside. As I got older, the emptiness grew enough to begin to squeeze out the desire or guilt about achieving, getting stuff done, proving myself, saying yes to lots of requests. I began to make time for meditation to face that hole in my heart.
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