Do you ever feel like raising your arms over your head, clenching your fists and yelling -- SERENITY NOW! Just like Frank Costanza on Seinfeld? I do. I feel particularly compelled to imitate that wacky character when old habits or thought patterns creep into my daily life.
Someone with much more perception than myself recently said (paraphrasing)”you don’t even stop long enough to see what’s there. You may not need to hang on to your safety guards anymore but you will never know because you simply keep them going.”
This resonated deeply with me because I had been noticing this one habit which is hanging on for dear life and which I feel keeps me from living more fully. So…the experiment is on. Perhaps I don’t need this pesty habit hangin’ around anymore. I’m going to give it a funeral and lay it to rest…R.I.P!
Maybe I’m fooling myself and getting rid of an old habit is much more difficult than I make it out to be. But, why not try? Plus, as of late I’m not all caught up in self-improvement as I once was so I’ll have more fun with this
experiment. Thanks to Annadhi (three month silence program) and of course Sadhguru I don’t have the same desperate need to eradicate everything I don’t like about myself. At first this lack of desperation made me a bit confused but over time I’m beginning to take things more in stride. This may not sound like the right direction if one wants to move beyond limitations but according to Krishnamurthi, it’s dead on. In his book “As One Is” he says: “It is only when the sense of self- improvement completely ceases, but not by volition, that there is a possibility of something transcendental, something totally new coming into being”. Let’s see what happens…
I am so glad i stumbled across your post. It suddenly dawned on me while reading it that i have been experiencing something similar in terms of self-improvement. I seem more accepting of the way things are with me, bad as it may be! and it made me wonder why i was so - shall i say - apathetic? to that state of affairs. sometimes i was vaguely alarmed why i wasn't getting rattled any more about not being or trying to be this perfect person i want to be. But life has become so sweet after anaadhi - it's just a gentle canter on the back of a million headed Hydra, at any moment ready to bare her poison laden fangs at me, but as long as i hold on to the practice she lets me ride her.
ReplyDeletetake care, Soma.