Leap – October 17 2020

Leap – October 17 2020

In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.

Jeanette Winterson, 

The World and Other Places: Stories

 

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.

Soren Kierkegaard

 

Leap. 

 

This is the Vedic directive: leap. 

 

In meditation, we are aligning ourselves with the movement of the laws of nature. 

 

Before we learn to meditate, we know ourselves only as our thoughts and our feelings. From this identity, our choices will be those which feed the ego, choices which will lead us solely toward individual comfort or away from individual discomfort. We will be guessing what is right, or deciding based on opinions and ideas–of ourselves, our family, our religion, our philosophy. Some choices we make will be right, of course, at least to some extent; but still they will be choices, and sometimes we will just have to guess. It’s a gamble. Sometimes we will win, but also, sometimes we will lose.

 

By ‘de-exciting’ through meditation, we drop out of ego-identity and into identity with the movement and the flow of nature. Ego, self, is still here, but we begin to know ourselves as something in addition to this ego identity. We begin to know ourselves as nature itself; and from this identification with nature, we find ourselves aligned with evolution; for there is only one thing nature is doing, ever, and that is evolving. The flow of nature moves only in the direction of evolution. When we are aligned with evolution, there is no more need to ‘figure it out.’ There is no more choice. There is an experience of choicelessness. There is simply the next right action to take. The next best thing to do. In each moment there is one step to take that is most in the direction of evolution, and nature shows us what that step is, moment by moment; and aligned with nature, we find ourselves naturally taking that one most evolutionary step. Even when we can’t see where we might end up.

 

We leap. We take care of the forward movement. We let nature take care of where we land.

 

And if we don’t like where we’ve landed, we simply leap again.

 

Today I will do at least one thing, however small, that feels like the right thing to do, even if it makes no sense. Perhaps especially if it makes no sense.

Bandaloop Dancers on the Side of a Building, San Francisco, CA