session 6 - change

Change is constant, physically, emotionally, in relationships, and in the world. Accepting change is vital. Time is not linear; staying present is challenging but essential. Meditation helps control the mind. Change can be scary but leads to growth. Radical life events prompt significant change. Courage to end relationships has been transformative. Sitting with uncomfortable feelings is powerful. Learning from spiritual masters can guide us. Seeking guidance and being open to new ideas is important. Restlessness and growth are interconnected. Change. The first thing that comes to mind is the old saying, the only constant is change. Everything is changing all the time. Physically, our bodies are changing. Emotionally, we're always moving from one place to another, from one thought to another, one emotion to another. Relationships are changing. Dynamics are changing. The world is changing around us, within us. Change is the only constant is a very profound phrase because it's true. It might not always feel like that in our own experience. Sometimes you feel like nothing is changing. You wake up in the morning and it's the same thing every day. But that's like watching yourself grow in a mirror. You can't see the growth, but it's happening. Change. Evolution and devolution come to mind. Evolution is maybe the positive. In my mind, it's a positive growth pattern and devolution might be a negative growth pattern. I myself am sometimes reticent about change, especially if I'm pleased with the way things are. Then you don't want things to change, but inevitably they do. So accepting the fact that change is inevitable, from my world view, time is not linear. As Eckhart Tolle might say, psychological time might seem and be linear because we think about the past and we think about the future. We have anxiety with regard to the future, regret and reflection in the past. We can bring the past into the present, project the present into the future, project the past into the future. All sorts of messes we can make. So staying present, staying aware of the present moment. That almost sounds like a cliché at this point. And sometimes it is a cliché because it doesn't feel real to stay in the present moment. It's a hard thing to do. The mind is an unruly beast at times. So even accepting that, that the mind is an unruly beast and it's going to have to rise around in order to exhaust itself. Sometimes I think about the idea of a wild horse and the horse just has to buck and buck and go nuts until it's tired. So just letting it roam free for a while and watching it until it exhausts itself. Same can be said of the mind. The yogis talk about meditation as the cessation of the modifications of the mind. That sounds like a fancy thing to say but it's really just saying quieting the thoughts. Modifications of the mind. What the yogis mean by that, that was Patanjali who put that into one of his yoga aphorisms. The cessation of the modifications of the mind. All the thoughts and emotions that are coming up all the time through the process of concentration. I mean the eight limbs of yoga are one of many modalities that one can use to get one's mind under control. The eight limbs of yoga are very beautiful. We can go into those another time. Perhaps I would be prompted to do so when we get into more specifics around the Eastern philosophy and so forth. But to sit down and close your eyes and meditate isn't really, at least from the yogi's perspective, it's not meditation. That's concentration which eventually leads to meditation. So the ability to concentrate on one thing in order that we can harness and then focus our mental energy onto one thing, that eventually becomes meditation. And that process helps with the modifications of the mind. And in that state, now this is something I can't quite get my hands around but I can point at it from my own experience. You can kind of stop the progress of time when you get into certain mind spaces. Eckhart Tolle talked a lot about this too. In the present moment, there is no time because the present moment always was and always will be and always is. Past and future are helpful because we're human beings and we live in a world of relation to objects and matter and people and so forth. So we need those. But again, they need to be our servants, not our master. But the present moment is life, is reality. It's never not right now. And so change, what do we mean by change? There is no such thing as change from one perspective, from the perspective of reality with a capital R. The things within reality, our life, circumstances, our relationships, matter, those things are subject to change. So just thinking through the relationship between change with a capital C, no, let me say that better, the relationship between what actually changes and what doesn't actually change. Krishna in the Gita tells us you are never born and you will never die. That's a pretty gnarly thing to hear until you understand the idea that there is no difference between your true nature, your essence and reality and God. All the same, not different. This is Advaita Vedanta. I mean, these are big, big, big concepts that I don't have the language to really delve deep into. I feel the force of the truth of these things when I hear them. I would refer you to go and listen to Swami Sarva Priyananda from the Vedanta Society of New York's YouTube talks on all sorts of things related to Vedanta, which is one of the branches of Indian philosophy and Hinduism, which we can get into another time. Ah, change. Things are always changing. Since things are always changing, accepting change as a reality and loosening, even just loosening your body around concepts that might make you uncomfortable is a way in. It's a first step. Change. I think fundamentally there can be a fear of change because we know that as we change and as the body changes, as time, psychological time moves forward, the body, which is part of matter, is decaying. Our body, which houses our eternal spirit, it will die. It will disintegrate. We'll transmutate to the next thing and that's okay and that's wonderful and beautiful. In fact, that's the good news from one perspective, but it can be scary. Change can be scary. It's okay to allow yourself to be unnerved by these things, but instead of running from that, maybe just sit with it. Again, these are just the things that I try to do for myself to deal with the challenges of human life. What kind of change has deepened me the most and what were the painful changes? Well, outwardly, the change in one's outward circumstances, like the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, losing your job, finding yourself in hard times financially, these kinds of life circumstances bring about rapid and radical change, which can be jarring to the system, especially to a system not well-balanced and not feeling good and not aligned with one's own dharma. These can be radical changes and they can be difficult, and every good crisis is an opportunity. I think for me personally, having the courage to end relationships that weren't working has been the largest catalyst for change in my life, and it has invited and allowed for growth at a more expanded and exponentially more rapid pace than in normal times, because there are moments in life when large events happen, like the end of a relationship, and in my experience, those take some time to achieve and to have the courage and to be ready to enact those. I mean, I remember when I was getting divorced. I didn't know that I was going to have the courage to go through with it because I was so emotionally engaged and identified with my circumstance. I remember feeling that, what if I don't have the power and the courage to do this? I felt that many times in life. What if I don't have the power? What if I don't have the courage? What if I don't do it? What if I can't do it? And then just sit with that feeling. Just sit with the feeling. This is one of the most powerful ways to transmute an emotion or a feeling is to just let it be. Sit with it. Feel it fully. Stay with it. Stare at it. I'm telling myself this. I don't want to sound like I'm telling anybody what the right thing to do is. I'm just sharing reflections from my own life and from my own circumstances. I also think that it's okay to lean on the truths that others have explored and found to be helpful. I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about, for me, many of the spiritual masters who I've read and who I've spent time with, and I mean that energetically, the truths that they have discovered and uncovered and brought back to humanity are so valuable. I highly recommend exploring the different kinds of spiritual and philosophical traditions out there and seeing which ones resonate. There's also something mystical that will occur. One might think to themselves, oh, how am I going to know which one to go to? How do I know what's right? How do I know what's wrong? There is something at play that we don't necessarily understand in language and in our minds. For example, we don't know who created this human body. I mean, if I were to ask you right now to explain to me how your body was created, you probably wouldn't be able to tell me. This is the workings of God and of mystery, and so there is something beyond our cerebral capacity at this stage. Now, if you're an enlightened being and you're one with the Source and you've achieved and all of those things and you've broken through, well, many of us have not. To recognize that there is power and there is creative intelligence beyond that which we can conceptualize, then by just putting yourself out there with the right intention and with an open heart to discover things and to be open to new ideas and to be humble and to ask, how radical, ask for guidance. Ask who? Ask that which we do not understand. Call it God, call it spirit, call it your elders, call it those who have gone before, call it anything you want, but to be humble enough to open your heart and ask for guidance in whatever way that you think you might need it or in whatever way you don't even know that you need it. Be humble, ask for guidance, put yourself out there. It's okay to learn from others. It's wonderful. What have I learned about the difference between growth and restlessness? They toggle back and forth. I can be a very restless person. I understand the idea of restlessness. I think there's a physical component to that. Don't drink too much coffee, nourish yourself well, get good sleep, get exercise, deal with the problems and anxieties in your life in as best a way as you can through counseling, through meditation, through reading good books, through spending time by yourself, through spending time in nature. It's a formula that you have on your own to discover what works for you to keep yourself grounded and to keep yourself balanced. Growth is a wonderful thing. Restlessness doesn't feel very good. It may serve a function.