Action and Reflection

 

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 balance unfolds at the meeting place of action with surrender and surrender with action.  Each action we take in the world to manifest a deeper longing is alchemized once it hits the air with reality which imposes its own will on the outcome. In the surrender, we can pause to assess what has happened as the result of our actions, how it has been shaped and transformed by coming into existence – not just remaining a thought, a plan, a fantasy.  We can through reflection and stepping back discern the next wise step forward with action.  The action and surrender that is called for in this sutra is meant to bring us into a deeper spiritual knowing.  So even when things on the surface feel as if they are falling apart or taking us far from the destiny we had hoped for, if we attend to our actions in the world with reflection and allowing, we can come to see the bigger context for the way our life is unfolding.

 

It is not unlike working with a piece of clay.  A potter has in their mind the shape they want the clay to take and brings the effort of the hands onto the clay to make that shape.  Then with the exquisite sensitivity of the artist, the potter feels how the clay has responded to the pressure and warmth of the hands and in this sensing or allowing knows what is needed next.  The shape will unfold at the meeting place of action and reflection as the artist devotedly pours what is inside of themselves into the clay and receives back from the clay what is needed for form to take shape.  This is nature of creativity.  The creating cannot be completely controlled by self-will but will emerge at the intersection of our will and the will of the universe.  

 

Pushing through a situation by relying solely on self-will cut’s us off to sensing, feeling, knowing from a deeper source the effects of our actions in the world and the bigger weather patterns shaping an event.  I become both more and less of myself in this creative process of unfolding. Deeper parts have a chance to be manifested and engaged with the world even as more of the world touches me. I feel the emptiness that comes from letting go but also a fullness of the greater life force flowing through me.