Is Balance Overrated?
Dear friends,
People often talk about “balance” as in "work-life balance", or "work hard then play hard.” The idea of not going too far in any one direction without a counter-move back makes obvious sense, but I believe there may be a deeper issue involved that I wanted to share some thoughts on.
Balance implies extreme, as in, as stated above, too far in one direction then an equal length in the opposite direction to balance things out. In yoga postures after all, it is almost always appropriate to follow a stretch to one side with a stretch to the other. I’d like to suggest, however, that the idea of balance is perhaps not what we ought to be striving for.
Balance is required when we move off our own center. If we can maintain our center, even hard work is not deeply depleting. Yogananda had a lovely phrase: Center everywhere, circumference nowhere. The further we get from our center the more we wobble and find ourselves off balance. A spinning disk is stable as it rotates around its center. But if the weight is misdistributed towards an edge it begins to wobble and can even fly apart if the speed is too great.
Our tendency—when we feel off balance and attribute that feeling to the world’s pushes and pulls—is to reduce our speed or reduce the number of tasks we are dealing with. The alternative is to get more centered in the Divine Self where we are ever undisturbed. The ripples on the surface of the ocean have no effect on the calm ocean depths. There is nothing wrong with taking a break or doing something different from what one is used to, especially after a particularly intense period. But the value of learning how to more steadfastly center oneself at will is something that will stand us in good stead long after the positive glow of a recent vacation has passed.
May we anchor ourselves ever more deeply and fully in Spirit. Once so connected, the passing ups and downs of this world will, like waves on the sea, have little effect on that depth of connectedness.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West