I'm going to take some time for quiet introspection so I can get some of this emotional baggage under control and be ready to enjoy India!
I'll be back in America by the 20th and I'm sure I'll have lots to say :)
I plan to keep a journal while I'm on my trip.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Perfection
I think the struggle I'm going through has a lot to do with fear and feeling loss of control.
I keep trying to control my life and control outcomes that I can't.
All I can do is good action, dharmic action, and the outcome is not up to me.
Life is never going to fit my vision of perfect, but it is perfect. It is fine as it is.
That is perfect, this is perfect
Perfect comes from perfect
Take perfect from perfect,
Perfect remains
My father told me once that one should never go in the direction of fear. If a choice is motivated by fear, it isn't the right one.
I remind myself to relinquish control and just enjoy.
I keep trying to control my life and control outcomes that I can't.
All I can do is good action, dharmic action, and the outcome is not up to me.
Life is never going to fit my vision of perfect, but it is perfect. It is fine as it is.
That is perfect, this is perfect
Perfect comes from perfect
Take perfect from perfect,
Perfect remains
My father told me once that one should never go in the direction of fear. If a choice is motivated by fear, it isn't the right one.
I remind myself to relinquish control and just enjoy.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul
Title Cite
I'm struggling right now with things that I'm not even sure how to put into words. I'm not looking for answers from you because I know this is something that I have to come to terms with in my own life. However, writing it out helps a lot and the experience of sharing my deep fears and concerns about life with friends is cathartic.
How much to focus on the world and how much to focus on the end goal?
I believe that we are here in this life to discover our true nature and to become one with the universe. Yet I am in this body and my body and mind have desires. There is built-in biology and I don't know if I should be fighting it or giving it what it wants.
On the one hand I want to see beyond the limited view. Life is more than just having fun and watching movies. What am I really here to do? Can I be happy just living life the way normal people do, having a family and a career? How can I balance that "householders" life with the spiritual drive? All that stuff doesn't seem to matter when I think of my friend who died without being a mother, without experiencing most of the human lifespan. She had only 28 years here and that was fine. She came into the world and she left. People are dying all the time, dying young and in strange ways. Leaving when we thought they would sort themselves out eventually and then they don't.
When I leave, what will I want to have done? I want to have no regrets, to throw open all the doors and examine every dark, dusty corner of my being and to share it with others who could benefit from my excavation.
I'm trying to learn how to balance. There is a natural measure to all things. Can I keep grounded in my faith while also fulfilling the natural human drives? Sometimes I have an urge to be an ascetic, but I am so young and I want to do the whole life thing first. But haven't I already done that? How much does it matter to experience the pleasures of the world? I feel called to something deeper.
Sometimes I think I can see a life that works fine, a job, a husband, children, living within one sphere, quietly practicing my beliefs and trying to bring whatever joy I can to those I encounter around me. I am happy in that vision.
But there is another part of me. One that needs to do big things, to make big change, afraid of wasting my life on trivial things.
Sometimes I am a crusader and sometimes I'm just a girl. I want the normal life, but I also want art. Sometimes I feel myself falling into a black hole of introspection and I am overcome with the desire to create and to explain and to build a poem, a song, an epic explaining the experience of life. All my life "desire" has been a dirty word. Desires should not control us, we should be the masters of our desires (the wild horses of the senses).
I have come to realize this is part of the experience of being an artist (and probably part of the experience of being human). There are things caught in me that force their way out. My mom asked me once why I can't just live my life, why I have to record it? Why I have to share it? Write about it? "Would you rather live life or write about it?" I picked writing about it. It has a much farther influence than my one small life that is like so many millions of others.
A big fear is that I might get that life that I envision, with the balance, and something happens to throw me into another mode and I become dissatisfied with what I have.
Why do I always feel like I have to choose? People have called me complicated and intense. I have a few different personalities, contradictory drives. Most of my life I have tried to suppress that and be one thing or another, not everything. But it doesn't work, the other sides break through and throw my life out of balance. My therapist thinks I need to express all my sides and not judge them and not pick one over the others. But how will I have a partner in life if I can never be pinned down?
I know, it's pathetic, it always comes back to me having a boyfriend. What can I say? I'm a girl. I know everyone would tell me to choose a future partner based on common interests and how we want to raise children and not based on hotness. But I'm in a hormonal mess, a woman with a biological clock and a strong libido. I don't want to ignore that need. I'm not ready to.
Should I wait it out, stay strong and single until the hormones subside years from now and do spiritual work? Am I a danger to the men who might get close to me? Am I a danger to the men who fall for me? Do I unintentionally manipulate their feelings?
I just don't know whether to give in to biology and the desires of my body, which is a temple of God, or to redirect my energies (if that's even possible). There are sides of me that you have not seen or experienced here and I don't want to explain it, but I do feel a tearing of my life. Half of me pulling one way and half the other way.
I follow my instincts and do what seems right in the moment, but I'm consumed by the knowledge that my instincts change day by day and what feels right one day is not what I want the next, and then it goes back. How can I ride through that? How can I find an overriding peace?
A couple nights ago I wrote this poem (and how I long to not suck at poetry!)
I know this is just part of the process. There is struggle, there are questions, there are dark nights of the soul. The questions are good. It is right that we question and struggle, I think that's the only way to interact with life and make it worthwhile.
But right now I am in darkness. God is there in the edge of my mind, as He always has been, yet He is quiet right now.
Why can't I just laugh? Why do I take life so damn seriously? Isn't 42 all I have to know? At least I'm not the only one consumed by these questions.
I think my poor dog is feeling my anguish. She's been acting very mopey the last couple of weeks.
I'm struggling right now with things that I'm not even sure how to put into words. I'm not looking for answers from you because I know this is something that I have to come to terms with in my own life. However, writing it out helps a lot and the experience of sharing my deep fears and concerns about life with friends is cathartic.
How much to focus on the world and how much to focus on the end goal?
I believe that we are here in this life to discover our true nature and to become one with the universe. Yet I am in this body and my body and mind have desires. There is built-in biology and I don't know if I should be fighting it or giving it what it wants.
On the one hand I want to see beyond the limited view. Life is more than just having fun and watching movies. What am I really here to do? Can I be happy just living life the way normal people do, having a family and a career? How can I balance that "householders" life with the spiritual drive? All that stuff doesn't seem to matter when I think of my friend who died without being a mother, without experiencing most of the human lifespan. She had only 28 years here and that was fine. She came into the world and she left. People are dying all the time, dying young and in strange ways. Leaving when we thought they would sort themselves out eventually and then they don't.
When I leave, what will I want to have done? I want to have no regrets, to throw open all the doors and examine every dark, dusty corner of my being and to share it with others who could benefit from my excavation.
I'm trying to learn how to balance. There is a natural measure to all things. Can I keep grounded in my faith while also fulfilling the natural human drives? Sometimes I have an urge to be an ascetic, but I am so young and I want to do the whole life thing first. But haven't I already done that? How much does it matter to experience the pleasures of the world? I feel called to something deeper.
Sometimes I think I can see a life that works fine, a job, a husband, children, living within one sphere, quietly practicing my beliefs and trying to bring whatever joy I can to those I encounter around me. I am happy in that vision.
But there is another part of me. One that needs to do big things, to make big change, afraid of wasting my life on trivial things.
Sometimes I am a crusader and sometimes I'm just a girl. I want the normal life, but I also want art. Sometimes I feel myself falling into a black hole of introspection and I am overcome with the desire to create and to explain and to build a poem, a song, an epic explaining the experience of life. All my life "desire" has been a dirty word. Desires should not control us, we should be the masters of our desires (the wild horses of the senses).
I have come to realize this is part of the experience of being an artist (and probably part of the experience of being human). There are things caught in me that force their way out. My mom asked me once why I can't just live my life, why I have to record it? Why I have to share it? Write about it? "Would you rather live life or write about it?" I picked writing about it. It has a much farther influence than my one small life that is like so many millions of others.
A big fear is that I might get that life that I envision, with the balance, and something happens to throw me into another mode and I become dissatisfied with what I have.
Why do I always feel like I have to choose? People have called me complicated and intense. I have a few different personalities, contradictory drives. Most of my life I have tried to suppress that and be one thing or another, not everything. But it doesn't work, the other sides break through and throw my life out of balance. My therapist thinks I need to express all my sides and not judge them and not pick one over the others. But how will I have a partner in life if I can never be pinned down?
I know, it's pathetic, it always comes back to me having a boyfriend. What can I say? I'm a girl. I know everyone would tell me to choose a future partner based on common interests and how we want to raise children and not based on hotness. But I'm in a hormonal mess, a woman with a biological clock and a strong libido. I don't want to ignore that need. I'm not ready to.
Should I wait it out, stay strong and single until the hormones subside years from now and do spiritual work? Am I a danger to the men who might get close to me? Am I a danger to the men who fall for me? Do I unintentionally manipulate their feelings?
I just don't know whether to give in to biology and the desires of my body, which is a temple of God, or to redirect my energies (if that's even possible). There are sides of me that you have not seen or experienced here and I don't want to explain it, but I do feel a tearing of my life. Half of me pulling one way and half the other way.
I follow my instincts and do what seems right in the moment, but I'm consumed by the knowledge that my instincts change day by day and what feels right one day is not what I want the next, and then it goes back. How can I ride through that? How can I find an overriding peace?
A couple nights ago I wrote this poem (and how I long to not suck at poetry!)
Despair is planted in the belly.
It sits low and squat in the stomach,
dark and green and sharp.
Its roots wrap the organs,
its vines wrap the heart and squeeze.
It presses up against every cavity
so entwined it cannot be extracted.
Pointy leaves that all the air passes through.
Sickly blooms behind the eyes,
letting in no light.
Trapped by the growth within,
shrinking from the world.
Calling us in, deeper and deeper.
I know this is just part of the process. There is struggle, there are questions, there are dark nights of the soul. The questions are good. It is right that we question and struggle, I think that's the only way to interact with life and make it worthwhile.
But right now I am in darkness. God is there in the edge of my mind, as He always has been, yet He is quiet right now.
Why can't I just laugh? Why do I take life so damn seriously? Isn't 42 all I have to know? At least I'm not the only one consumed by these questions.
I think my poor dog is feeling my anguish. She's been acting very mopey the last couple of weeks.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Temple Dedication
Here is the event that my parents and I are going to India for:
Kumbhabhisheka of Sri Adi Shankaracharya Temple
Kumbhabhisheka of Sri Adi Shankaracharya Temple
Saturday, January 22, 2011
I Sympathize With Duryodhana
I think a lot of people like Karna and see him as a good man caught on the wrong side.
Duryodhana, on the other hand, is very much the bad guy of the story. Yet I don't think he was evil. I feel sorry for him because he had so much and was not able to be happy.
I think he is very human. I think I am more like him than like the Pandavas. The Pandavas were born from Gods, Duryodhana from a somewhat-weak man (We can have a discussion about Dhritarashtra another time!)
Duryodhana was lost, confused, discontented without knowing why. He felt things deeply and was hurt easily. He was very, very human.
While many of the other characters are better than us, showing us what to look up to and how to be, I think Duryodhana is our baser instincts.
I've read a number of versions of The Mahabharata, all of them abridged in some way. In fact the only unabridged version I read for a college class, only had the first three books translated at the time. But anyway, the version of the story that always clings to me is the Peter Brook's movie. There's a scene in that movie that makes me cry every time I watch it.
Duryodhana is arguing with his mother. She says something along the lines of, "Why can't you be happy and content with everything that you have?"
He shouts at her, "I want to be discontented...."
Of course I think he is wrong, that he should realize the greater truth that the kingdom is not his and it was never meant to be. But my heart aches for him because I know how hard it is to remove one's own desires and see the world as it is without the bias.
I think God had some sympathy for him too, as he did find contentment after death.
Duryodhana, on the other hand, is very much the bad guy of the story. Yet I don't think he was evil. I feel sorry for him because he had so much and was not able to be happy.
I think he is very human. I think I am more like him than like the Pandavas. The Pandavas were born from Gods, Duryodhana from a somewhat-weak man (We can have a discussion about Dhritarashtra another time!)
Duryodhana was lost, confused, discontented without knowing why. He felt things deeply and was hurt easily. He was very, very human.
While many of the other characters are better than us, showing us what to look up to and how to be, I think Duryodhana is our baser instincts.
I've read a number of versions of The Mahabharata, all of them abridged in some way. In fact the only unabridged version I read for a college class, only had the first three books translated at the time. But anyway, the version of the story that always clings to me is the Peter Brook's movie. There's a scene in that movie that makes me cry every time I watch it.
Duryodhana is arguing with his mother. She says something along the lines of, "Why can't you be happy and content with everything that you have?"
He shouts at her, "I want to be discontented...."
A man says: I have enough to eat and wear. I need nothing more! Shame! He says: I don't know anger! Shame! I am like a dried up stream, like a wooden elephant. All because my father was born blind, because one does not give a throne to a blind man...A man's body grows from birth and everyone is delighted in the same way his desire grows, his desire for power.
Of course I think he is wrong, that he should realize the greater truth that the kingdom is not his and it was never meant to be. But my heart aches for him because I know how hard it is to remove one's own desires and see the world as it is without the bias.
I think God had some sympathy for him too, as he did find contentment after death.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Was Karna a Noble Man?
Okay, away from real life for a bit and into philosophy...
(For those who don't know the story of Karna, I'll put as brief a summary as I can at the end of the post)
At study group last week we were reading about fate. We think of fate as something done to us, something we have no control over, but Advaita says that fate is the results of our own choices. We cannot effect the past, it is done, but when the past was the present the things we did created our fate. In the present we always have the choice of what to do and we can change our fate for the future. The message is, make good choices now for a happy future. It isn't quite that simple, but that's the basic idea.
There is a Sanskrit saying:
So, with that in mind, how much choice was there in The Mahabharata? It is a great piece to look at for examining fate because it is all about how can you tell what needs to be done. Every action that happens has an element of fate from the past, but also a choice, and a fate, and a choice, and it keeps going back and back and back so you can't tell which came first.
When Karna finds out that he is the son of Kunti, he has the choice to join the Pandavas or to stay loyal to Duryodhana. He stays where he is and as a result of that choice, he is killed.
Do you think he should have made a different choice? Do you think that he could have? Did he know what he was sacrificing? Was it noble to be loyal to a friend, even when that friend was wrong?
The story:
I will make this as brief as I can, so forgive me if I leave out some details. The heroes of The Mahabharata are five brothers called the Pandava because their earthly father was Pandu, but in fact each was fathered by a different God and born to Kunti (and Madri, but I'm going to leave her out). Before Kunti married Pandu, she had used her "gift" to have a child with the sun God and his name was Karna. She was ashamed and abandoned him, he was raised by a chariot driver (a much lower class than what he should have been, as Kunti was a princess and later a queen).
Years later the Pandava brothers are in conflict with their cousins for the kingdom. It rightfully belongs to the Pandavas, although it's a little bit murky. On the side of the cousins, the Kaurava, is Duryodhana. He is selfish and power hungry and unable to see the greater good.
Karna arrives and challenges one of the Pandava brothers, Arjuna, to fight. Karna is rejected because he is a lower class and doesn't know who his real parents are. Duryodhana sweeps in and gives him a small kingdom in order to make him worthy to fight Arjuna. Karna and Duryhodhana become good friends and Karna swears loyalty to him, not knowing that Arjuna is actually his brother.
A war begins over the succession conflict. In the middle of it, Karna is told that he is the eldest Pandava and he could go and join their side and they would welcome him, but Duryodhana is the only one who has been kind to him, so he stays where he is.
He is killed in battle by Arjuna. (His death has some complicated issues also, which I might get into later).
(For those who don't know the story of Karna, I'll put as brief a summary as I can at the end of the post)
At study group last week we were reading about fate. We think of fate as something done to us, something we have no control over, but Advaita says that fate is the results of our own choices. We cannot effect the past, it is done, but when the past was the present the things we did created our fate. In the present we always have the choice of what to do and we can change our fate for the future. The message is, make good choices now for a happy future. It isn't quite that simple, but that's the basic idea.
There is a Sanskrit saying:
...For yesterday is but a memory
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived
makes every yesterday a memory
of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day....
So, with that in mind, how much choice was there in The Mahabharata? It is a great piece to look at for examining fate because it is all about how can you tell what needs to be done. Every action that happens has an element of fate from the past, but also a choice, and a fate, and a choice, and it keeps going back and back and back so you can't tell which came first.
When Karna finds out that he is the son of Kunti, he has the choice to join the Pandavas or to stay loyal to Duryodhana. He stays where he is and as a result of that choice, he is killed.
Do you think he should have made a different choice? Do you think that he could have? Did he know what he was sacrificing? Was it noble to be loyal to a friend, even when that friend was wrong?
The story:
I will make this as brief as I can, so forgive me if I leave out some details. The heroes of The Mahabharata are five brothers called the Pandava because their earthly father was Pandu, but in fact each was fathered by a different God and born to Kunti (and Madri, but I'm going to leave her out). Before Kunti married Pandu, she had used her "gift" to have a child with the sun God and his name was Karna. She was ashamed and abandoned him, he was raised by a chariot driver (a much lower class than what he should have been, as Kunti was a princess and later a queen).
Years later the Pandava brothers are in conflict with their cousins for the kingdom. It rightfully belongs to the Pandavas, although it's a little bit murky. On the side of the cousins, the Kaurava, is Duryodhana. He is selfish and power hungry and unable to see the greater good.
Karna arrives and challenges one of the Pandava brothers, Arjuna, to fight. Karna is rejected because he is a lower class and doesn't know who his real parents are. Duryodhana sweeps in and gives him a small kingdom in order to make him worthy to fight Arjuna. Karna and Duryhodhana become good friends and Karna swears loyalty to him, not knowing that Arjuna is actually his brother.
A war begins over the succession conflict. In the middle of it, Karna is told that he is the eldest Pandava and he could go and join their side and they would welcome him, but Duryodhana is the only one who has been kind to him, so he stays where he is.
He is killed in battle by Arjuna. (His death has some complicated issues also, which I might get into later).
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