The Rich Vegetarian

SIMPLY BEING | SIMPLE BEING

This Time Tomorrow

I just read this book that was about time travel but then it was also a book about aging, caring for a dying parent who was young, vibrant, filled with joy, oozing creativity, and then this endless, repetitive effort to go back in time and tell that person, don’t smoke! Eat healthy! Don’t eat meat! Please go jogging… and so on, all in the hopes of averting a future in hospice, and yet the woman at the center of all this sees so clearly that Time Does Not Miss, and she took one winding path after another, going to sleep each night at the same spot, and waking up elsewhere each time, and yet all paths led to the hospital, hospice care—no smoking, be damned. And this makes me all wonder about time, and whoever said that it’s an arrow—do we need clarification—because an arrow has direction, right? And in this story, so you’d think, and yet I am reminded also of something someone said about directionless time, and yes, all this likely comes across as gibberish, or newbie fan gibberish, coming from someone who’s read about time travel for the first time, hehe… but make no mistake about it, for I Have Spent A Lot Of Time thinking about Time, and it’s probably funny… for, didn’t someone say that they contemplated the nature of reality only to realize that it didn’t exist? If all this science fiction-time-reality talk feels terribly weird as it emerges from the mind of this 44-year-old (really, now?), make no mistake, yet again… for this 44-year-old is herself stuck in the strangest of time warps, and ALL of it is her own creation, a web she spun herself, for the love and fun and joy of it all.

(Thank you for reading.)

Sticky Fear

Perhaps you have encountered this in Hatha Yoga practice, or martial arts practice, or any other kind of art/sport practice, maybe. There is a particular pose or sequence that doesn’t appear to favor you much, and you, in turn decide that you don’t care for it either. But there is no avoiding it, and if you encounter fear (or suffering) while doing said pose/sequence, it becomes a bit of a sticky affair… because that negative experience sticks to you, hard. Actually, it isn’t the one sticking to you—you are the one holding on to it because it has now become part of your story.

A skilled teacher may allow you to carry that story for a while but one day, they will come up to you and tell you, DROP THE DAMN THING. Now, you may get terribly peeved at them. They don’t understand you, obviously. They don’t know how awful that experience was, how real and concrete that sensation of fear. How you could feel your legs trembling, breath quivering… and there they are telling you to drop it. As if it were that easy… BAH.

It takes a brave teacher to come say this to their student because it takes only a millisecond for that person to go from a beloved instructor to one “who just doesn’t understand me.” Or, one who is “pushing me.”

Hmmm, I was (maybe) that student but I am now seeing the teacher in a new light.

DROP THE DAMN THING is a concession, really. One day you are able to see that there is no “thing” to be dropped, and in reality, there is “nothing” carried over from your earlier experience of Shoulder Stand to the present one. Such a relief, no?

a choice illusion

For the longest time I have been fascinated by the idea (illusion?) of choice. There have been more than a few “big events” in my life that came through very effortlessly. Meaning, no thinking required, no decision making skills exercised. Truth be told, I am kinda uncomfortable with having to “make a choice”—I am happier trusting in the larger flow of events.

This phenomenon (is it “choiceless awareness?”) has played out in my life experience so many times, and yet it so happens that ever so often I suffer from forgetfulness, and get into a tortuous bind, trying to “choose.” I forget that in truth, there are endless options, and my limited mind can comprehend only a few of them. And that there is not a real reason to “choose,” because the road is veering on its own, anyway… and one needs to turn the steering wheel very little, one way or another, for a smooth ride. One needs only to align with the larger curve, and there is minimal driving effort required.

For me this is about trusting, again and again. It’s about placing faith in the moment, allowing myself to be led. Perhaps it’s also about going in “blind,” refusing to give in to that little need “to know,” to be on top of things, to be in charge? Honestly, I am only too happy not to be in charge!

(There is a part of me that envisions all of this very differently. Perhaps all the mental gymnastics play out on a plane that exists wholly separate from the field of real action, so to speak. So, while we may spend endless hours deliberating on Choice#1 v/s Choice#2, the truth is that those considerations have zero bearing on what manifests.)

“Brahma”

If the wild bowler thinks he bowls,
Or if the batsman thinks he’s bowled,
They know not, poor misguided souls,
They too shall perish unconsoled.
I am the batsman and the bat,
I am the bowler and the ball,
The umpire, the pavilion cat,
The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.

— Andrew Lang

What If

What if we didn’t express?

What if we let the feelings swim around, flowing in rivulets, pooling at bottom of the heart?
Let the Sun through, bright and wordless,
Warm radiance is all one needs, and all evaporates,
Tears, sweat, regrets, unspoken and unexpressed.

What if we released them to the winds,
Dispersed, screaming into the void—
Until unrecognizable, tattered, ripped into shreds,
Merging into the air, microscopic and littler.