You are what your deep, driving desire is

  It's been a great weekend, already passed by now. Lots of stuff to fill my life with, and all things I want; it doesn't get much better. It sometimes gets frenetic, at least in my mind but we embraced a method of streamlining our thoughts, ideas and aspirations. Sometimes a person can just do too much, and spread themselves and their creative energies too thin; after all, there is only so much time in a day and I would imagine this affects a lot of people similarly.
  There's always more we want to do, could do or at least think we could do; the reality is often different. You have to wake up early, drive here and do this, spend so much time in point A then take the time to drive back to point B, then do what you set out to at home and every other thing you need to do in a day's time, and by then you're tired and need a nap and the day drags on and you don't stop because you have so much more to get done and if you don't you feel unfulfilled or unaccomplished or whatever. But that's bullshit, unless your life or livelihood somehow depended on it. Otherwise, it's just typical of that rambunctious little mind of yours being naughty and playing tricks.

  My girlfriend and I watched this documentary, Enlighten Up!, which is in my appreciation of it a road trip journey of a skeptic through the world of yoga. It didn't get entirely favorable reviews but everyone's a critic. If you have ANY inkling of interest in practicing yoga, do practice but want to learn more or do practice and still are not so sure why you practice, like myself, then please give it a watch; it's interesting and inspiring and I feel we all benefit from Nick's (the "subject") journey, even if you don't practice yoga. It won't bring you any closer to understanding just what IT is, as it is a lifetime learning process but it does contain a lot of great insight as to what it's all about.
 
  It is not what we have come to know it as. This may or may not be of any importance, as it's not so much about what you do but why you do it. That pretty much sums it up. Seems simple enough, right? until you start to think about that. Yeah, it's heavy stuff and I love it. I feel like having watched that, and I will many more times you can be sure, has brought me a little closer to myself as to why I practice, and what it is I'm trying to get out of it.
  It's ok if you just like practicing yoga for the exercise: Health of the body is important as well as that of the mind or that of the spirit. But eventually it will come to a point, violently or non-violently, that you will come to realize that something is missing in your life; that nagging void you continue to sedate and fill in with temporary distractions and proximity infatuations, all of which only leave you alone in a crowded room again and again.
  It's a vicious cycle but the wheel does not stop turning just because you've undertaken a "spiritual" path, oh no: In fact, it may get worse before it gets better. There comes a time for us all where we need to face up to ourselves and when the veil drops and we can no longer stifle, hide or run away from what we fear most, whatever that is. The answer can only come from you.

  It all sounds cliche and a little outrageous, and you'd be right to think that. I still do, and I practice hatha yoga. But just why I do still puzzles me. I see the cult of yoga and feel my cynicism take over; I get frustrated how so many associate yoga as being breath and body but at the same time, that's all I practice myself. I really don't understand the rest of it and without a guru, I feel lost in a vast sea of deep spirituality.
  Most times my pride gives me over to think that I know quite a bit about the subject when in reality, I know next to nothing, as about 98% of practicing yogis do I'm sure. Even with all the classic texts I read and have read, it's only words on a page; they mean nothing without full understanding of what it is they're saying. Think of it as a secret code that the initiated are adept at deciphering, while the others merely gaze over it for its beauty.

  I want something real. I feel like I'm getting closer every day. I practice for me and no one else and I do it at home, because for me it is a very personal journey. It's also selfish, in some ways. To a certain degree, I believe it has to be, because no one else can do it for you. But, once you're on the path already, you can always incorporate others into it and spread that joy you feel in your heart to others. A selfish means for an unselfish end, if you will.

  This is as far as my thoughts will take me for one night but this recent stirring within me will stay with me for some time. In many ways, I feel as though I have participated in the filmmaker's experiment, without the jet lag and devastation to my bank account.

  Interestingly enough, the day leading up to watching this, I was unconsciously stricken to pick up my copy of The Upanishads from my bookshelf and read a few passages. I will leave you with one such passage:

   "You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny."


9.15.13
S.B.