19 December 2016
On the Spiritual Life
It sounds all so mawkish and
maudlin but what we see before us is a tipping point in history. We will be mocked for our desolation and
ridiculed for cynical despair. We will
tell ourselves stories to reject
cheerless defeatism and encourage each other with hopeful admonitions to
action. Well and good, I say, we will
need redress however we can find it. We
will need plans to thwart the plunder of decency and the exploitation of this
beautiful earth. But make no mistake
about it: humanity has taken a turn that portends changes we cannot reverse or
merely anul with good intentions or soporific spiritualities.
Today I am sure of this: the
forlorn cries you hear inside yourself are not mere crestfallen hopes, they are
the chorus of truth coming to terms with a vision, it is the end of the
republic as we have known it and the rise of an authoritarianism from which we
may never recover. Why so bleak, you say? Because there is more at stake than four
years of political reversals and rejections that mean to undo and refuse so
much hard-won progress. The facts of
climate change, the proliferation of statism and merciless war will bring
outcomes and recriminations that may be irreparable. Today is a day for grief equitable to these
losses and honest to the facts of that insipid reality.
Tomorrow we must take up again
the task to endure and procure what decency there is to a world bent upon its
dissolution. For some the path may be
reinvention, as we confront what is most important and try to find a way.
For my part, "yoga" has
always been of _this world_, with little concern for the weariful claims to
unconditional realities and blissful banalities. Yoga has always meant an affirmation of the
human condition for all of its foibles and inadequacies, not so that we might
offer some respite or balm, much less some prosaic claim to
"realization," but rather so that we might find the resilience to
persist in our shared humanity. We
discover in that common human condition all that is good and all that is
not. There is no parsing of one without
the other. There is no final mitigation
that provides unqualified solace. There
is only the time we take to care for each other.
I mean to contend with the inclusion
of all that is hidden in the shadow and revealed in the light without false
consolations or self-proclaimed solutions.
We will not "cure" our human condition because we were never
perfect and will never be. So, I will continue to tell the kinds of stories, as
best I can, that allow us to inhabit ourselves more fully as human beings born
into a world that is full of all of its wonder and includes all of our
failures. There are bright days ahead
because life itself confers the astonishment of living and, with the
blessing, the company too of great souls.
So long as our living is unfinished we will need more ways to tell our
stories. We mustn't fail to celebrate
when we can, all that we can. We are going to need each other more than
ever. Love your life, that was my
teacher's teaching. Find every way you
can to share that, however you can.
