BLOG 180
“The goal is present moment awareness, without judgment.”
(Abby Paterson, Wellness Practitioner and friend)
“I don’t want to see it.” were the first words to come to mind when I pulled the contents off a shelf in our bedroom and saw stuff crammed at the back that I’ve yet to identify, having not the heart to start one more “home improvement” project. Even if it consists of just one shelf.
As often happens when a home has been unoccupied for several months, I returned to a daunting list of to-do items that I’ve been addressing for the past three weeks. As I knew would eventually happen, the moment came (seconds ago) when I said Enough! Basta! Finito! And apparently meant it. I flopped into a not particularly comfortable chair and reached for my kindle book. Sadly, a hitch in my right hip told me I had to relocate or at least change position to ease a screaming pain in my right glute. It’s not much better now, as I semi-lie down. I might have to come back to this blog, in hopes I can remember the ideas that inspired me to write it.
So it is that a few days have passed and the aforementioned shelf left undisturbed, begging the question: “How much is enough?” I’m always excited when I have the energy and motivation to tackle long-overdue projects, the kind of chores that languish at the bottom of any to-to list, as do some of the least compelling habits of mind that I’m either not motivated or aware enough of to address pro-actively. So it was a relief to encounter the following in the Broken Tusk article on Sannyasa, or the fourth stage of life according to Eastern philosophy:
“It’s easy to imagine the sannyasi as a serene, glowing presence—always calm, always wise, always at peace. But that’s not always how it plays out. Real sannyasa isn’t a performance of perfection. It’s the quiet, internal dropping of identification—even as the body and mind continue to move according to their conditioning.
“Vedanta teaches that even after the burning away of avidya (ignorance), the momentum of past karma—prarabdha—continues to express through the body-mind until death.
- The jnani may still experience illness, old age, or mood shifts.
- Certain speech patterns, habits, or preferences may remain.
- Emotions may still arise, though they are no longer binding.
“Just as the blades of a fan continue to turn even after being turned off, the body-mind of the sannyasi keeps turning until the last trace of prarabdha is spent.”
This tells me there’s no point in perpetuating an illusion about what must be accomplished before one is considered “liberated” from the pitch-tar of attachment and aversion. We cannot obsess about the potential “garbage” tucked in the most obscure corners of the mind. Swami Radha advises that instead we flood the mind with the light of awareness, without judging what it reveals. In that way, we won’t hesitate to own our flaws and weaknesses as inevitable aspects of the whole being.
Let’s think about it for a minute. If one myopically focuses on perfecting every thought, word or deed, would not one be caught up in one’s “costume of identity”? Caught trying to maintain an image according to some arbitrary concept of how one needs to be in order to be accepted by the tribe? And let us not underestimate the power of the tribe to influence or dictate our self-image.
I remember as a youth being in awe of Twiggy, a fashion model of extreme slimness, wearing minuscule skirts and sporting a spidery spray of penciled-on “eyelashes” that were hard to achieve in an ordinary bathroom mirror. Nowadays nobody would give that look a passing glance, except perhaps to label the wearer déclassée, an out-dated wannabe. Trying to keep up with any kind of social trend is a futile exercise, and one best dropped along with the desire to clean up all the cobwebs in my head. I suspect it never-ending.
So I slope off the bed with the awareness that my mind, like this blog, is far from perfect, but it’s the one I’m with, and knows when enough is enough!