Parinama

  Sometimes I wonder, “what has my life amounted to?” and fear that I come up short with all that I have left undone, abandoned, unable to accomplish.     I think of the 35 years of working that didn’t turn out the way I had hoped with so much more change, uncertainty, struggle, and failure.   I had such high hopes after graduate school. I thought the advanced degree would lead to a life of purpose and ease, financial security, respect, achievement.   I tried hard to move things forward in the direction of my vision, but the progress was so slow and often thwarted.   What, I wonder, has it all amounted to?   Perhaps you also think about these kinds of things if not about work, then family, friends, travel, athletic pursuits or even spirituality.   What have I accomplished in this life?   What have I don’t that I can feel good about? One sets out with high hopes only to encounter the difficulties we could not have unders...

Recollecting myself at summer’s end.   I feel a tenderness that in the past I might have called sadness but what I now feel is an open-hearted softness threaded with joy. At the lake where I swim almost every evening in summer it is now getting colder.   The sun is setting earlier. I swam under mauve blue skies this evening.   The water is smoother, darker, and colder in September.   I saw the red full moon rising on my shivering ride back to my cabin.    I am not yet ready for the cold or the dark.   I want another month of evening swims at the lake.   I will miss seeing the small band of other water pilgrims who find their way to the lake each evening for their own ablutions.   Some have become friends.   We love this lake in the high hills of Western Mass. As fall approaches, I am flooded with recollections of this lake.   The times I camped and swam naked at night and then again as the sun was rising. ...

  Practice and detachment are the means to still the movements of consciousness… The two balance each other like day and night, inhalation, and exhalation. Practice is the path of evolution, detachment and renunciation the path of involution. Light on the Yoga Sutras, BKS Iyengar   The yoga sutras tell us that freedom comes from a balance of action (abhyasa) and surrender (vairagya).   Action with devotion and awareness is how we manifest our being in the world.   Surrender is letting go of what we cannot control in this process and realizing the larger currents of energy that shape our destiny beyond what we can obtain through self-will alone.   This is a hard balance to find.   Surrender can feel like a loss of control, a freefall into unknown while overaction to maintain control can lead to depletion, discontent, and aridity.       How do we find the right amount of action and letting go?   In my experience, the bala...