Like a lion in winter
I realized then that I who thought I had complete control
of my life, had control of only three things: my thought, my mind -
the images that these thoughts created - and the action that derived
from it. So here I was wallowing in a vortex of emotions and depression
and what have you, with the enormity of the situation, wanting to go to
a place of healing, health and happiness. I wanted to go from where I was
to where I wanted to be, for which I needed something. I needed something
that would pull me out of all this. So I dried my tears, and I declared to
the world at large... I said, "X is only one page in my life, and I will not
allow this page to impact the rest of my life."
I also declared to the world at large that I would ride it out, and
I would not allow X to ride me. But to go from where I was to where I
wanted to be, I needed something. I needed an anchor, an image, a peg
to peg this process on, so that I could go from there. And I found that
in my dance, my dance, my strength, my energy, my passion, my very life breath.
-Ananda Shankar Jayant, TED video
- Feet? Check. Hands? Check. Brain? Check.
Will the real me please stand up? Oh, there you are...
I think. But I feel the Big Cat Blues.
Imagine a lion walking around affirming - I’m king of the jungle,
I’m king of the jungle. And yet this is exactly what people are doing
with positive affirmations most of the time. The lion’s very nature is
that it is a lion. Being king of the jungle is mostly an idea.
Fortunately lions are not as confused as human beings. Lions mostly
walk around being lions without suffering from being disconnected from
themselves and having a bunch of ideas about who or what they should be.
The most affirming experience we humans can have is to land in
our true nature. A moment of perceiving the real is more powerful
than a lifetime of words. Well intentioned, but misguided efforts
at positive affirmations would be better spent in learning how to
settle down and allow what is truly real in us arise into consciousness.
The world is abundant. Life is on our side. We are awesome and wonderful.
It’s the true state of affairs. If we can’t see it, then the more productive
course of action is to explore - why not. Trying to convince ourselves that
the sky is blue when, in fact, the sky is blue - is crazy behavior.
As the saying goes - the only way out is through. Explore the deficiencies,
the hidden beliefs. Open them up to the light of awareness. The truth will
set us free. The false dissolves. Only the real remains.
John, in Open Secrets
- Do you ride the lion, or does it ride you?
I need more words, more music, more dance, my voice.
I want to go to the end of my world -- my jungle.
I would like to walk around being a lion, and
not worrying about being king or not.
I intend to stretch.