Even the Bones May Be Vicious – January 30 2019

Transcendence means that you rise above the thoughts; you don’t destroy them, you don’t remove them. They are all there waiting for you, you must be very careful. That is why it is said: “When should you praise the monk? When the monk dies, when the body is done to ashes, when you blow the ashes away, then you praise him.” Not until then. Even the bones may be vicious, I tell you.

Swami Sarvagatananda, 

Meditation as Spiritual Culmination

 

As humans we strive for perfection. We seek, in our own way, to reconcile our apparent imperfection with the perfect self we would like to be.

 

Most of the time, though, we try just to be better today than we were yesterday. We try to be a little more loving and a little less fearful. We try to forgive. We try to improve. We pay attention to what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong, and we try to move ourselves more in the direction of right.

 

However we may work at self-improvement, though — through therapy, twelve step programs, or our religion — there will be days we feel so far from perfection, and maybe even from goodness, that all we are able to see of ourselves is our own darkness and our shortcomings.

 

On a day like this, we may say, What the hell? Who am I trying to kid, anyway? Or our ego may defend its right to be separate and mean-spirited, because they did something to me and no wonder I’m like this. You’d be like this, too, if they blahblahblah.

 

As uncomfortable as this may be, a day like this is a gift. For if we can learn to love on a day like this, we’ve built a muscle that will serve us well further down the road. It’s easy to love our self and our fellows when all is right in the world and God is in his heaven. But on a day like this, when we feel only separation and judgment, this is the day we must look for the oneness. To find permission for our self to be free and full and alive on a day like this counts for something.

 

We do this simply remembering that it is not our job to judge. I am not the ego. When I find myself in the middle of a judgment – of myself or someone else, I can stop, take a breath and look around at my beautiful world.

 

It is natural to judge. The world teaches us from the beginning in oh so many ways. It is a mistake to take the voice of judgment as my own.

 

And this is how we humans learn: by making mistakes. Paying attention to how we feel when we let our judgment run, and noticing how we feel when we interrupt the litany of the ego and become present to something else. Teaching ourselves, one experience at a time, how to live a life of love and value.

 

Each of us is worthy of being alive. Even me at my worst, even you when you judge me for it. We are worthy of life, worthy of love, worthy to love. Today can be the day we cease ignoring this basic truth of life.

 

Today I will remember that God has plans for me. I will remember that I am alive because I am needed somewhere, that I have work to do and love to give. And if there is a voice in my head telling me differently, it is the voice of stress release and ego, and just for today I will listen to something other than this voice. Like maybe the wind in the trees or the dripping of rain after a storm or the birds outside my window or the cat purring against my leg. And I will find the way to continue putting one foot in front of the other, whether I feel like it or not. Today I will insist on enjoying life.

Megan Meditating, Studio City, CA