“Neti, Neti or Not This, Not This”
Blog #15
If I am a yogi, then I must practice yoga. If a vegetarian, I cannot eat meat. If I tout Christianity, what good am I when I judge and gossip? If I say to you that I am spiritual, what will you think of my spirituality when I become angry? If I drink a glass of champagne, am I somehow unhealthy? And, when I dislike something, does this mean I am too intolerant?
Hmm… I do not like these adjectives that bind and constrict. They too often lend themselves to condemnation and critical judgement.
I am stripping myself of all labels. So, do not call me a yogi or a spiritual person. Do not attempt to put me in the box of being a Christian or a lover of champagne or meat. Do not affix to me the qualifier of healthy or unhealthy.
When you see me and I you, let us just meet without the wrapping and ribbons and name tags.
Let us just keep it simple, and then I can be me and you can be you and we do not have to pretend to be anything at all.
can i still label you daughter? please still call me momma.
very good message. happy 2010.
Hmmm… okay.
Not to worry!
Every time I think I understand you, you say something or do something to blow that away, and allow me to accept you — the You you. And that’s what makes you so fun to be around.
Well… okey dokey… I think.
I had another thought/feeling.
Back when I was a runner (until stress fractures stopped that) there was a sense that unless you ran 10-15 miles/day, you were just a dilettante. It struck me that Puritanism runs deep in our society — judging others by a really high standard of performance.
I don’t think that tendency is a stranger to Yoga circles, church circles, or whatever circles, either. Yes, it is important to have a practice. It is important to counteract ‘tamas’. It is also true it takes a while for practice to percolate into our sinews. So it occasionally happens that I feel like I’m the belly-button lint in the navel of the worm under the rock (there’s a joke that comes from). I also surprise myself by being gracious and loving, even when I don’t feel like it.
Erich Schiffmann is married to Lauren Bacall’s daughter. One time he asked Lauren how she could act so well on stage when it was the hundredth time she said the lines and she may not have felt well. Her response: That’s the job!
So, practice is the job. There is only one thing more difficult than following the path, and that is to leave it. And I delude myself it I think I have any idea where that path is going. I know where I want it to go. I know where others say it should be going. But neither I nor others are calling the shots. There’s Something bigger out there!
Joseph Campbell once said, Life is pain, life is horror, life is suffering, but by God, I’m alive and it’s fantastic!
So enjoy it!
Well put.
Love the blog…people are missing out not using stress relief methods more