EXISTENTIALISM 411

“However confused and disorganized life may seem to those who believe themselves to be adrift on a sea of contradictions and chaos, it is always possible to find clarity and order for those who believe life to be basically meaningful. The existential position is neither that of belief in chaos nor that of belief in order. It is that of belief in people’s ability to create meaning and order, in spite of seeming chaos and absurdity.” (From Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy in Practice by Emmy Van Deurzen)

From my vantage point overlooking the British Columbia Parliament buildings, I can hear the muffled music (a thudding drumbeat that’s making me mildly anxious) and the crowd noises emanating from Ryder Hesjedal’s 10th annual Tour de Victoria. Competing with the voice of the announcer’s loudspeakers, a soap-box orator is ranting about Canada being a free country, versus Nazi Germany, and being variously cheered and jeered by some of the countless bikers and onlookers gathered on the closed-off Government Street, dotted with the white and red tents that pinpoint the start and finish of the event. All very exciting. I am beyond relieved to be a few hundred feet away from the fray, blogging as calmly as one can while hearing the frenetic strains of some heavy metal rock band or sound track. 

Egads! I’m showing my age!  

At first glance, the scene unfolding before me strongly resembles the “sea of contradiction and chaos” of which Van Duerzen is writing. But for those participating (or orating), this event could well be the culmination of months of planning, discipline and training. Not to mention the outstanding conviction of officials, volunteers, police and others who made Hesjedal’s charity event a roaring success. Which is why I gravitate to what Van Duerzen has to say about existentialism: so long as I find meaning and purpose in doing what I do, I can let others be and do whatever they choose, (within reason, of course, and within the letter of the law). Though I have only the most superficial knowledge of existentialism, what I do know rings very close to what I know of Sakti Yoga philosophy, especially as it has been distilled through the teachings of Swami Sivananda Radha. In her introduction to Kundalini Yoga for the West, Swami Radha writes: 

“The complexity of life has become such that one becomes either panicky or lethargic. In the latter case, the attitude of “It doesn’t matter anyway” may act as a key sentence in the mind and, through its unaware repetition, may achieve an almost hypnotic effect. Once settled in the mind, it is kept alive by emotions that can be both desperate and depressive.”

She follows this with the antidote to the feeling of being caught in Van Deurzen’s world of “seeming chaos and absurdity”:

“The sense of the inner self, of that knowing from within, is the only secure foundation on which to build one’s life.” 

I agree. How much better to consult one’s inner guru, one’s moral compass, as it were, than to be ruled by the faceless masses? I suspect that the man currently offering his political views at full volume believes that his cause has meaning and value. The hundreds of road-bikers who trained, travelled to and rode in the Tour, and all those who supported them no doubt assigned value to their efforts, whether consciously or otherwise. As well they should. The man or woman on the street, going about their daily rounds, have chosen, to the best of their ability, the route and reason for what they’re aiming to do. 

Yoga — and Existentail Therapy, I am learning — seek to increase an individual’s awareness of his or her options and choices, and encourage one to take a degree of responsibility for their actions and circumstances. To assign meaning to their own unique lives, and act according to the integrity of their beliefs. Swami Radha would call this “cooperating with the evolution of consciousness.” Such has been, if not my rallying cry (I’ll leave that to the loudspeakers), then a means of justifying my own existence as I bob around in that seemingly chaotic sea. 

Thomas Merton chimes in on this topic when he writes: “The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible.” (New Seeds of Contemplation). Again, his antidote is simple: communion, in the sense of meaningful dialogue “is absolutely necessary if one is to remain human.” I would add that meaningful dialogue with oneself is equally essential. Using myself as my own laboratory, doing “experiments with truth” as Gandhi would say, is the best way to assess whether my thoughts and feelings congrue with my words and deeds. 

It has to be acknowledged here that I am among the privileged few who has time, as some would say, to stare at my navel. I include you among the privileged few who have the leisure (and I hope, inclination) to read the blog that comes of it. The point is, those of us who have access to the opportunities that fate, birth, happenstance (or our own best efforts) have opened up for us, still have a need to discern which among these have individual heart and meaning. Which agree with our temperaments and predilections. Our morals and ethics. Existential therapist and author Eric Maisel exhorts one to “make explicit the relationship you want to have with life”. At the start of the day I have to decide, from among the myriad options around me, what I will pursue. What I will see through to completion. So that, at the end of the day, I can say — with Swami Radha — that “living is a particular art, and I have made the best of it.”

Which at this point means making the best of the chocolate peanut butter cup with which I intend to reward my efforts with existentialism. Or maybe some potato chips? Pistachios? Choices. Choices. Choices…