Someone said that the only constant is change…and yet those who practice deep meditation have the experience of finding an unchanging reality of peace and calm. On the surface the two statements seem to contradict each other. How can there be two realities existing simultaneously? A reality of constant change and a changeless reality.

any thoughts?

The famous writer Albert Camus said something most notable (recently relayed to me by a friend and fellow yogi:) “… people expend tremendous energy just trying to appear normal.”

How true that is. Society defines what is “normal” and then most of us set out to conform to those norms. I remember walking the halls in high school and the strong sense of self consciousness that I had. So much was about what other people thought about me and what I was doing, wearing etc: pier pressure. It was during that time that I learned an important antidote to this great concern for how we appear to others (which is the root of the fear of public speaking.) The secret for me was learning to laugh at myself.

One day I realized that I was taking myself way to seriously. I did something that was not “normal” and was slightly ridiculed for it. Out of nowhere I just started to laught at the situaltion and what I had done. That proved to be a turning point in my life.

If you can learn to laugh at yourself then you can learn to shake off “failures and defeats” and take them instead as great learning experiences. Don’t take yourself to seriously…it feel good!

If anyone wants a beautiful insight into the Indian (East that is) culture and view of life I recommend a movie called The Namesake. It is a story that spans two generations and shows the great cycle of life that is at the heart of Indian philosophy.

On a personal note: I usually give a movie twenty minutes to draw my attention. I figure if you can’t create an interesting character or plot in the first twenty minutes you don’t know how to tell a story, which I think is always at the heart of a good film.

Anyway, this one got me pretty quick….

One of the Buddha’s central teaching was the importance of seeing that all of life is transient.  Emerson, the 19th century luminary, offerred his words on the same topic: “The things we now esteem fixed shall, one by one, detach themselves like ripe fruit from our experience and fall. The wind shall blow them none knows wither.” (The Over-Soul)

We often look to the East for spiritual wisdom, yet in Emerson and Thoreau we have all the wisdom necessary to attain illumination. Thoreau’s yoga was walking. He spent four hours a day walking in nature. That was was his asana, done in the temple of Nature.