Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Stay Out Of The Future


The voice while meditating, "Stay out of the future."  Next lesson plan. I was just digesting the past 12 hours and now already onto the next lesson?  Internally rolling my eyes regarding this plan--found out again.  Yes, that ego tentacle keeps piping up and asking how does this all fit into the future, what am I doing, and am I sure that I should be doing this.  Yes, I have been noticing that ego tentacle, but the other pieces have been taking a priority.  The now extraneous brain starts to sort through the options for the new lesson plan.  Nature has been pulling on me again.

There is a relatively unpopulated "park" that runs around the edge of the lake.  It is only a few minutes walk from my room.  I found a park bench, trees, birds, mongoose, breeze, flowers, no humans, and no time time frame.  Entering something familiar, but now unfamiliar from the deepening of the past few months.  Nature's lesson--how to be.  There is no agenda, no timetable, but an obvious life force.  I don't even find this purity in the ashram.   I spend a lot of time looking at the tree/plants/sky and listening to the birds/breeze at the ashram, but this is more pure. The ashram has schedules, human activity, required actions even though they are minimal.  How lovely to sit with the master teachers of the earth world and it even qualifies for not being in the future.

On my way back, I scrambled over a wall to walk in the forest.  No sound from the city, no garbage, few paths, and no agenda.  Sigh, reentering my tribe.  Feelings of gratitude welled up inside, I had to do a pranam to the forest.  Surprisingly, there was a little twinge of sadness.  I recognized the presence of nature as a religion in itself. A teacher.  Now looking at it all from the understanding of divinity "behind" it all. Maybe the sadness was similar to when you find out that there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or tooth fairy, but the being is unbeatable.


No comments: