I did yoga this morning with the snow coming down softly outside, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw the snow falling inside.
I started running in October because I was actually becoming discouraged with yoga, and was seeking an alternative form of exercise to boost my energy level. But as time went on, I learned that running has actually helped my yoga immeasurably. I had attended a few of the yoga classes at the Y again, now that I have my nights somewhat free. But, it felt like we were all just going through the motions. So, some in the class can achieve a full crow pose? For what purpose, other than some contortional pi$$ing contest, either with oneself or with others? The classes were a series of poses, with a meditation at the end. The interlocking spiritual and mental benefits one should get from yoga were not present, there. So I stopped doing yoga for several months, and concentrated on running. Physically, it was satisfying, but again, I wasn't feeling holistic benefits, beyond the increase in energy and self-image I was gaining.
I came back to doing kundalini yoga on my own this past week--ie, mantras, spinal series, 5 Tibetan rites, meditation, and prayer. Kundalini yoga is very different from other forms of yoga, and it is kundalini that I prefer over all others. The problem is that it is hard to find kundalini studios and teachers, and group classes at the Y certainly do not offer this type of yoga. I found that running had not only increased my strength and endurance for the kundalini exercises, but had increased my lung capacity and rib cage flexibility for the spinal series and breathing methods.
Practicing yoga has a purpose for me beyond striking challenging poses, getting a workout, or joining a class. It breaks me out of thought patterns that can become entrenched in my mind. It re-centers my mind, body, creativity, and energy. It gets me in touch with myself, as well as with God and others, as we use the energy we gain to project healing prayers for others, and peace into the world. It reminds me that spirituality involves being interconnected to all creation, not just to our "communities" or other people in our own religion. It reminds me that the mind and body are actually, strongly connected, and this is humbling knowledge as well as practical. There is meant to be a higher purpose to yoga than perfecting one's downward dog.
Last week, a friend mentioned that they were feeling nihilistic. It made me think about how I never ask people what they believe the meaning of life is anymore. Is it a trite question? Sophomoric? Are we all too busy these days to think about it? Or do we just not want to think about it?
Of course, there comes a time in each of our lives when we wonder what the purpose of our lives might be, and what value all we do might amount to. Over the years, I've heard a variety of responses to what the meaning of life might be. "To love and be loved," is a typical answer, and not such a bad one. "To make a difference," or "to do good," is one I've heard a lot. "To better oneself as much as possible." A few very optimistic ones have said, "to perpetuate more life."
Yet none of these answers are failproof. If the meaning of life were to love and be loved, or to do good, we should be wired to do so as much as possible. But we are not. We are filled with selfish ambitions and desires. We are wired to sleep much of our lives away, and spend many of our waking hours in pursuit of basic survival--the means to procure food, shelter, etc. Oftentimes love between people seems hard to grasp, let alone attain. Ultimately, life is filled with the mundane, with distractions and hardships, illnesses, disasters, and the needs of the body. And that's not even getting to the "higher needs--" the needs of the mind, of the intellect--the needs to create, learn, pursue, pray, explore, and think.
Whatever way we look at it, any worldly definition of meaning--whether it's love, doing "good," bettering oneself, or creating more life-- meets with almost crushing obstacles. The harvest fails. The body gets injured. The car breaks down. War breaks out. The field or the home floods. Our lifestyles cannot sustain our bodies, or our bodies cannot sustain our lifestyles. Things need attention. Things fall apart and need to be repaired, including ourselves. We need to eat well, and exercise, and bathe, and get enough rest. Oh, and mow the lawn. We may find ourselves spending the tiniest portion of our life on the "meaningful" bits.
Even if we have got our lives in relatively good balance and smooth sailing, "making a difference" and "doing good" are concepts in flux. One only needs to look at human history and the misguided intentions of the past. Also, it can be an arrogant way to live--"doing good" often involves power structure and institutional or societal hierarchy. History sings the praises of great leaders, but not of the parents who raised those leaders, or the farmers who fed them, or the teachers who taught them, or the janitors who kept their hallways clean, or the construction workers who built the roads they traveled on. We cannot all be Gandhis and Einsteins--life is just not set up that way. Someone needs to grow the food. Someone needs to slaughter the animals while others are busy trying to "make a positive difference."
Just as exercise has a higher purpose, so everything does, if we are in the service of sat-nam, ie, the True One. God creates us and gives us all a place in the world, and I believe the meaning of life is to live in the service of our God-given purpose. Every living thing--all of Creation--has a God given place in the ecosystem, if not in society. If we move our view of "meaningful life" from a human-centric one to a Creation-centric one, we see that every living thing has a purpose in the world. But first, we have to overcome our selfish notions of self-importance, of success, of significance.
There is a whole, wide world out there, and we should not believe ourselves above any part of the human experience. As parents, we create our children for love and for meaning--and while it pleases us when they are obedient, or when they're working hard to achieve, we do not want to see them so busy with school or homework (I hope) that they never notice the world around them. We did not create them for obedience, or doing the "right" things all the time. We created them to be infused with love and light, to live in this world and find their place, and from this, meaning and joy.
If we limit meaning to human-centric notions, what does it say about our respect, tolerance, care, and gratitude for non-human life? Nature has always been all around us, but it seems ever-increasingly pushed away from our daily concerns. If we ignore the rest of Creation, we are cutting ourselves off from wonder and the fact that it's not just all about us. It's not just all about us as humans, nor is it just about human society. Again, there is a whole world out there, filled with God-created sentient beings, beings who have a purpose in an interdependent web--ie, a relationship. I reject explanations about the meaning of life that narrow a meaningful life to a particular
sort of life. What do we do to ourselves when we, either deliberately or through complacency, come to see the natural world as nothing more than backdrop to human drama, and other creatures as nothing more than tools to be used for human purposes? We lose compassion for other beings, as well as opportunities for wonder, for exploration, for inquisitiveness, for scientific knowledge, for understanding the nature of God, for quiet, for meditation, for solitude, for comfort.
I realized this today as I read my son a book about nature. "Nature is more beautiful than gold or jewels so rare. Each day's a precious gift for everyone to share." I talked to my son about what dew is. About what irises and pebbles and poppies are. About what it means "to bloom." About milk thistle and how blackberries grow. And about foxglove, which provides digoxin, one of my son's life-saving heart medications. He soaked up all this information with excitement and pleasure. Why? Why did we talk about it? Because I want him to grow up and be a famous biologist? Because he longs to know about this world around him, and because I want him to know it is all interconnected, and we all have meaning, from he and I to the foxglove to the dew.
We cannot deny all of our existence except the one element we most approve of--whether that be our ability to love others, or to make a difference, or to create more life, or to better ourselves. First, we need to be in the service of God, and from Him (or Her, if you prefer--it's as arbitrary as Him), the true sense of purpose, humility, love, and action will come. God created us to live a wide range of experience, and through Him (or Her, if you prefer), there is meaning in everything, from eating and washing, from repairing the car and taking breaths, from being in love and making a family, to making a difference and exercising and sleeping. Do not live in one dimension, but find meaning always in service to God, in knowing that your purpose is interconnected to everyone else's, and in acting as part of such interconnection.
