>While inundating my neighbors with hours upon hours of Krishna Das and India Arie, in between bouts of bouncing on my trampoline and baking dozens of gluten free, vegan chocolate chip cookies (wow, that really sounds crazy-pants when I write out what I actually did tonight,) I brought to mind a reading concerning integrity I came across this morning.
Tonight I made a playlist for the Yoga Stops Traffick event tomorrow I’m hosting in the city and scrolled through my digital library searching for the liveliest beats trying to choose what I deemed to be the “coolest” songs. In my quest towards understanding or experiencing the inexplicable, I find there’s a whole old school genre of hippie-dom that is almost in essence a barrier from making some of these ideas accessible to a more modern, fast, streamlined generation of people. Yes: peace, stillness, stripping away, all of that must be present as part of any serious investigation, but I find as soon as anything gets too precious, too Laura Ashley, too smelling of Mid-west, too “earnest” as a friend of mine dubs it, faster than the speed of halogen, my interest jettisons. (and yes, I’m working on it.)
So scanning my playlist of hip-hop, down tempo/breakbeat, soulful pop, cheerful mainstream kirtan, I wonder if I am in danger of keeping it too light. If maybe my way of presenting ALL of this is in danger of keeping it too light. My bestie loves my writing and the blog, but flat out told me he thought I was playing to the masses, dumbing myself down. (side note: Ten years ago, I once angrily threw a vodka tonic at a black-tie political fundraiser against the floor in reaction to, and in the presence of, this bestie. That I can now accept criticism from this same person with detachment and grace is as much an advertisement for yoga and meditation as I will ever need.)
There’s an overreaching idea that talking about this stuff in a way that is more modern, casual in style even, may make these ideas more palatable and so I do choose to seem to be flippant or glib. Plus, now that my mom is reading the blog, I want her to be able to understand what’s going on and presumably if I get too deep into esoteric discussion about the niyamas or some such, I think I’ll definitely lose Halina.
Personally, I still sometimes wince at the word “God” depending on the context, and if it’s just a dance in semantics that’s the issue, then why not participate in (potentially, at best) clever repartee? Really, being dry or understated, lobbing around the occasional all caps, it’s writing for humor, isn’t it? (Well, let’s not be so bold now Margaret, let’s say it’s the attempt to write for humor.. and clearly those attempts chose to skip this particular blog post)
And really the question is—can we joke about the divine? The worry perhaps is that these things are not taken seriously enough, whether rocking it out about Hindu Gods via hip hop or jauntily dubbing designer shoes a religion—they are not holding “God” in a sacred or holy ENOUGH space. How light a touch is too light? Naysayers might say anything other than pious, solemn worship is blasphemous.
Yet there are no defenses that can be made to that point, really, are there? I mean no matter how much I or someone else protested their integrity or righteousness, quantifying intention or hours logged of prayer/practice/meditation/kindness/yoga/whatever, that in and of itself is a falsehood, because if you need to protest, already something is lacking.
There’s the argument that something more surface, casual, glib, sexy, is going to appeal to certain people or perhaps is a portrayal of one person where they are in their development, and then, is that not indeed perfect and just and “right” in and of itself, because the idea was birthed?
However in the interest of cogitation, there is something to be said for the basics. There are universal Truths, and I purposefully use a capitol T there, shared by almost every major religion/philosophy in some metaphor or another, and these are the basics that I believe must be a foundation of any practice. They are the fabric, per se, and our interpretation and design and expression of them, simply the fashion of the day. Silk is the same substance everywhere; Eileen Fischer and Patricia Field will yield two very different results using the same “basic.”
Commercial self-help superstar Anthony Robbins says to learn a new skill always go to a master. He has the means, of course, to want to learn to play polo, for instance, and seek the top instructor in the world, which is what he did. Obviously something of that nature is not easily accessible to all of us (not the polo, the means for the world’s top instructor, although polo is not exactly making a resurgence in the 21st century either.) There is something important to be said about getting the best information one can, in whatever way that knowledge is accessible to you and from the “purest” resources possible. That is not necessarily the sexiest, most glamorous route; in fact, it most often is not. And as we continue along, we naturally outgrow teachers, sometimes even those close to us. The best teachers understand when it is time for us to move on, that it is part of the process. The beauty of finding a master is that person can seemingly be a teacher for life—in one respect, you will never “catch up” to him/her, so he/she will always be a wellspring of wisdom for lucky you.
My reading this morning was the text from one of my gurus, my master teachers. He said the moment there is inner integrity, your link with God/all that is/the universe/source is established. And that the link is like a telecom line– it is there, but it needs to be open and that opening happens with being integral. I interpret that to mean, get the basics, get it pure, get the fundamentals, and then you can embellish. Just as the same way you would work the barre in ballet before going through an entire piece, learn to dice an onion before firing a skillet or run drills in whatever sporting events it is that boys do drills in. Do your yoga, your meditation, your deeksha, your conscious efforts in whatever way they unfold for you, right where you are, and then go rock it out with sparkly, loud love.
I suppose this little discourse illustrates just how clearly un-evolved I am to a certain extent because here I am justifying the way I express my interest in these philosophies. Perhaps it is some underlying anxiety about this event I am spearheading tomorrow and either a fear about my lack of being “qualified” to put it together, or that what may come across as fun or funky or downtown or cool is perceived as superficial. Or that it’s not really cool at all– certainly that would be the last thing in the world some might call three hours of barefoot, sober connection on a Saturday afternoon. I suppose at the end of the day, there is nothing to be done about that, because only those who know me have the right to judge me, and the people who I keep close don’t as a rule, judge. Or as someone said it better than I: “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” My integrity is between the universe and I. If I’m out of line, I’m sure she’ll knock me on my ass soon enough.
