“One day these childish dreams must end, to become a man and grow up to dream again”
--Bruce Springsteen, Two Hearts
“If nothing is everything then I will have it all”
--Pearl Jam, Gone
I've been thinking a lot lately about the paradoxes in life. These song lyrics above, along with the one I mentioned below from Tom Petty, are all examples of these. Springsteen and Petty are getting at something that I'm finding to be more and more true. As I grow older and learn more about life, the world, and myself, I find that I am more youthful, playful, and carefree than when I was a kid.
The wise sage Eddie Veddar expresses an age-old conundrum. In a book I'm reading now called The Four Hour Work Week the author talks about addition through elimination. This coincides with something I'm going through in my own life, admittedly out of necessity, because I want to vanquish my credit card debt back to the fiery pits of hell once and for all. But as I watch every single penny I'm finding that I'm not spending money on worthless crap, and I'm also not thinking about what I'm going to spend my next free dollar on, but instead I am “abiding in my own nature”, which is the message of the 3rd Yoga Sutra. I am eliminating the unneeded clutter from my life and my mind so that I can be who I truly am.
In my yoga training I am learning and growing so much. We had a workshop a few weeks ago where the teacher explained how everyone in the class is a student, but if we are teaching yoga in a health club we'll be lucky if 10% of the class are students. The majority of them will be customers. She made sure to point out that “customer” isn't meant as a derogatory term, only a necessary term to make the distinction. Her statement really stuck with me and it's occurring to me that what I'm really learning is not how to become a teacher, but how to become a student. And I'm finding that it's necessary to take that first step toward becoming a student, and humbling yourself to the wisdom and the tradition, before you can even consider becoming a teacher.
Thinking about paradoxes makes me calm and puts me in an enlightened state, which is a paradox in itself. I think a lot of people could drive themselves crazy thinking about these things. But for me it's fun seeing how one thing could be true in a sense, and then seeing how the opposite of that thing could also be true at the same time. It gives me a glimpse at the true nature of reality, the yin and yang that is ever present in the universe.
No comments:
Post a Comment