It's Not What Happens To Us; It's What We Become
Dear friends,
It is perfectly natural to think about what happens to us. Things can bother us or even hurt us deeply. We also can find great happiness and even exultation in certain situations. While such swings are not necessarily the best for us, they are natural. However, there is something deeper going on that warrants our attention. (You knew that was coming, right? :-) )
We all are searching for the deepest kind of joy, whether we know it consciously or not. The bliss that comes from a deep sense of interconnectedness with all there is. You can think of it as a dropping of our boundaries, self-protection, desires; and that stripping-away process enables us to just feel the joy and beauty that surrounds us.
Another image that may help to clarify this point is to imagine an athlete who is "in the zone." He doesn't hear the crowd, know the score, worry about failing, etc. He is just connected to his task in the deepest way, and almost feels like a superman. I will share a little story on this score.
A possibly interesting thing in my background was that I was on my college pocket billiards/pool team. I thus spent a lot of time in our pool room practicing. One day as I was playing my perception of the size of the pockets suddenly changed. They looked as large as watermelons! I wondered how I ever missed a shot, just trying to hit a ball into a huge opening.
I ran a bunch in a row and suddenly thought, "Wow! I'm great at this!" At that moment the pockets returned to their normal small size and I missed the next shot. Ego wins again!
Our life experiences come to us for a reason. Our goal is to live life always “in the zone.” But our desires, fears, self-definitions, and self-created boxes keep us bound. When we view every life experience as an opportunity to break free of old habits and patterns, and as an opportunity to rise above peaks and valleys of life, we become what we were meant to become and are no longer buffeted by whatever comes to us.
A passage from a favorite song of mine:
Men hunger for freedom
But don't see the dungeon
Is only the thought that they’re bound
Desires are their shackles
The hope that tomorrow
The doorway to joy will be found
May we more and more see everything that comes to us as a gift designed to purify us, for that is what will make us what we wish to become. We can start with the small tests and expand infinitely so, as Yogananda said, we are able to "stand calm and peaceful amidst the break of crashing worlds.”
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West