Cassandra Voices

Author: Chris Parkison

  • The Myth of the Spiritual Contract

    According to Western medical science I suffer from a condition called depression. And from my perspective, I suffer. The conditions of my reality are such that sometimes no matter the environment – with loved ones, by myself, in mediation or not, eating or fasting, sleeping or awake – I feel a sense of dissociation, dread and low energy levels in my body. It comes and it goes and the time it stays can never be predicted. It’s not a comfortable existence.

    Practicing yoga has been a wonderful way to help with depression. Lonely and isolating thoughts can’t intrude when those thoughts have been stilled: yogas chitta vritta nirodha [trans: yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind].

    When I told a good friend recently that my yoga practice didn’t seem to be helping with the symptoms of my depressions, as it had in the past, she said, “maybe it’s not working? Maybe you should try something else? Like a hobby?”

    My instant reaction was, “how dare you question my practice?” I got defensive. She didn’t understand. She’s not a yogi. These practices are fundamental to my life. Yoga has helped me overcome substance abuse, break ups, a mid-life crisis, and poor work/life balance. What do you mean “it’s not working”?

    Right and Wrong

    As it turns out, she was both right and wrong. She was right: the yoga wasn’t working. She was also wrong: yoga always works.

    My yoga practice wasn’t working because I was expecting it to alleviate my suffering like a drug alleviates the symptoms of disease. I practice and I stop suffering. Like buying a salad at a restaurant. Like purchasing a bicycle. A contract.

    I was offering my dedication and daily practice and expected to receive something (bliss, freedom, insight) in return of equal or greater value. And the harder and longer I practice, the more and more rewards I receive. In this case, I expected to be delivered from my depression in return for my yoga practice: daily meditation, kriya and pranayama, and Japa practices.

    So, my friend was right: yoga wasn’t working because that is not the way yoga works. In a spiritual practice, the investment is the return. The discipline, the devotion, the surrender, these are the practices AND the results. And this includes surrendering any expectation that your suffering will end just because you practice yoga.

    Our daily lives are comprised of contracts or agreements. We aren’t aware of this most of the time. We work to make money. We use money to pay for food and shelter. These are transactional agreements we make many times a day.

    I use money to buy a thing and I expect a thing in return for payment.  The expectation is of something foreseeable with pretty good accuracy: I see an orange, I pay money, I go home with the orange.

    Let’s go further. The dentist says if I brush my teeth, I won’t get cavities. Doctor says If I eat a healthy diet, I’ll avoid heart disease. I shower to keep my body free of germs. I eat to nourish my body. My friend and I agree to meet for lunch at 12:30pm.

    These are what we might call causal agreements: I do one act and expect a certain result or effect in the future in return. The expectation is foreseeable based on past experience and current knowledge with reasonable accuracy: if I brush my teeth, it is reasonable to expect that I will get fewer cavities than if I did not.

    The Wrong Dressing…

    Sometimes the orange you buy isn’t ripe, or the salad you purchase doesn’t have the right dressing. You can bring it back and get a refund or buy another orange or salad. Sometimes no matter how much you brush your teeth, you get a cavity. And sometimes your friend texts you a half hour before lunch to cancels.

    In the manifest world, events are sometimes out of our control and agreements are broken. That’s why we have contracts: to incentivize performance and provide a reasonable expectation of performance in the future. With incentive (cause) the seemingly chaotic world develops a certain stability (effect).

    I was seeing my yoga practice as just another transaction. As with buying an orange, I assume that if I practiced hard and consistently enough, I would see a change in my mood, my health, and my overall happiness would improve. As if there were some sort of Rewards program that grants more freedom and happiness the more we meditate, perform religious rituals, and/or bend ourselves into pretzels.

    This contract is made with our egos, “I” want to avoid suffering so I will practice āsana.  I want to achieve enlightenment so I will meditate every day. If I practice this kriyā long enough I’ll feel refreshed when I am done.

    Spiritual (not religious) work is done internally. By definition, it should always be under our control. So why is there no guarantee that the spiritual work you do today will pay off tomorrow? Because spiritual work is not transactional: if it were, we’d always have a return because we are the only ones that need to perform.

    A refined spiritual practice transcends the ego and the deal-making we engage in with it. Part of that transcendence is letting go of expectations and the ego incentives that feed them. All of the practices and the effects of yoga happen only if I commit totally and let go of “I.” And the practice of letting go of “I” never ends.

    In moments of union or yoga we experience totality. There is no lack. There is no restriction. We are liberated, filled with vast silence. This can last seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months or years depending on the effort involved, if we can let go of the ego and its tendencies.

    And so there is no need for a contract in the first place; there is no lack to be fulfilled. But to do that there must be constant effort and a discipline that becomes devotion. Resistance that arises from conditioning must become love.  So that the act becomes the gift itself in the present instead of something to be had in the future.

    Hunger

    If I am hungry, I need food to satisfy hunger. This is a basic function of the body. As long as the body is alive we must eat to keep it nourished. Hunger will always arise though, and needs to be dealt with (food is but one option, actually). There is no such biological prerequisite for the ego, however.  And yet most of us feel there is, and this is one source of suffering.

    The ego will never be satisfied, no matter how much you feed it. Ego hunger, like actual hunger, will never go away unless we transcend it through practice.

    There is no causal/transactional link between the practice and the state of union or state of “no lack”.  The practice is the state, and the state is the practice.

    Transcendence as a result of practice involves moving past the perceived separation between cause and effect, between past and present, and present and future. A strong spiritual practice never ceases, there is no past and now and future. There is only now. And now. And now. And now.

    We are humans and it is human nature to suffer, to make mistakes, to lie, to steal, to cheat, to hurt others just as it is human nature to tell the truth, give to others, to love and to forgive.

    We have a great capacity for growth as well as destruction. That will never change. The gift of a spiritual practice is not the removal of depression, lying, cheating or suffering from your experience but the transcendence of how you perceive them.

    As long as I perceive my yoga practice as something to be bartered with it will forever be one half of a transaction with my ego, and my suffering will only increase.

    Image: Daniele Idini

    Separateness

    One need not be a Hindu or even a yogi to have a spiritual practice. Many faiths lead to a transcendence of the ego and cause and effect in the material world. Prayer, service, devotion and keen insight require total commitment of your being and isn’t just an intellectual exercise.

    Much of the modern world is based on an intellectual concept – the presumed individuality of existence.  Each of our bodies are a thing with a brain that controls it and heart that sustains it.

    One aspect of this view is actually the contract: by definition, there must be two parties to a contract. So, we view each other as separate and separate ourselves on a daily basis, many times a day. This point of view will always lead to internal and external conflict because conflict requires two parties as well.

    Separateness is one of the great illusions of the modern world. It is a belief that is reinforced again and again. A belief is an intellectual understanding based on assumptions. You see this everywhere. People “believe” in lots of “things.”

    Again, two parties must exist: me and the concept. This is totally different to Faith. Faith is a knowingness, a surrender to what is: that there is no separation.

    In a state of Oneness there is no contract. There is no conflict. It takes discipline to overcome the feeling of separateness created by our conditioning and our ego. That constant discipline is devotion. In that state of constant effort, we are free from the suffering of separateness.

    And so my friend was also wrong. It was the practice which led me to these insights about my condition. All the benefits of a spiritual practice happen now, not sometime in the future as a return on the investment of your practice.

    The promise of yoga IS the sustained practice: be that pranayama, meditation, yamas and niyamas, āsana or puja.  Yes, you may reach an enlightened state sometime in your life.

    Yes, it may happen in the future. Yes, daily practice can make enlightenment more likely to happen. Yes, sometimes your friend cancels and you are disappointed. Yes, sometimes you will feel like you want a spiritual refund. But that’s not the point. A spiritual practice, once started, never ends. It is action, not passively waiting for suffering to end.

  • Mysticism for the Modern Skeptic

    Five takeaways from my experience at Sattva Yoga Academy in india: 

    • Have an experience without using words to describe the experience at least once a day.
    • I am much more than my mind.
    • My ego is not the center of me, my heart is.
    • Miracles and mystical experiences happen all the time – be open to them and life will become richer,and more abundant.
    • There are no avocados in India. People ask: was there anything you missed while you were there? Yes, I did. 

    Questioning

    One of the most influential lessons I learned from my parents was the value of the question.  Always ask why. I clearly remember learning this in school as well: who, what, when, where, why (and sometimes how). These are the basics of problem solving. When a problem presents itself, ask the questions,answer them and you have your solution.

    This thinking was so influential for me that over time these questions became automatic in every interaction I had with others and myself. I didn’t have to consciously ask these questions, my mind just did it. They became a habit, a reaction to every event, stimulus, interaction and emotion.

    Asking questions has helped me greatly. This mindset helped me succeed in areas we might consider beneficial and desirable: I got a good education; I have a great job; I have a house of my own; I am healthy; I have many loved ones in my life. Much of that is due to how I frame the world and see people in it. If I lived my entire life without anything else, many, including my parents, would say I did a good job (and I would say they did a good job raising me-thank you mom and dad. I love you.)

    And yet, I have questions. Constantly. Because of my conditioning, I feel I don’t have a choice.  These questions encompass most of my thoughts during any given day. So much so that when someone starts talking I immediately start thinking: why? when? who? what? when? As if the only reason people talk to each other is when there is a problem. Even if there isn’t one, I create one to solve in every situation I find myself in.

    So I am a seeker.

    But I am also a skeptic. I want answers but am only willing to accept them if I am satisfied they meet the criteria of logic, reason, and experience in the database of my mind. Every question, from the mundane to the existential must be answered before I can rest and let it go. Rest easy, knowing that the question is answered for all eternity. And I never have to ask the question again.

    And yet I don’t. I keep asking questions. I keep being skeptical of my answers. I must ask questions or I get bored, distracted or worse, become self-destructive.

    And so while I have all the things one would want in life, my day to day experience is one of relative suffering. I can’t answer all the questions no matter how much I think. But I must try continually because my conditioned existence demands answers with the end goal that one day I will know them all.

    And so I began the practice of yoga. Not to find all the answers, but to stop asking the questions.

    I’ve been practicing yoga for ten years now,asana mostly (or the practice of postures or poses). I liked it so much I became a yoga teacher. I always knew that asana was only a small fraction of the tradition of yoga and wanted to learn more. So I went to India to Sattva Yoga Academy, a small yoga center outside of Rishikesh in the foothills of the Himalayas.

    In one of our last lectures Anand Ji (the lead teacher at Sattva Yoga Academy) suggested we keep a Wisdom Journal instead of an Emotional Journal because Emotional Journals are just ways to help us believe the lies we tell ourselves. I agree. What is wisdom and what is emotion are not always easy to separate though. So I wrote it all in the moment and left the parceling of Wisdom and Emotion for later

    Below is my Wisdom journal from the trip as I see it now. With a little emotion.

    Note on the use of “I” and “you” in the Journal entries – we occasionally use these terms as a way to separate ourselves from each other as distinct forms of being when we speak to each other. In written, journal form this changes. Sometimes when I use “you” in a sentence, “you” is really my mind I am addressing and “I” is my intuitive experience or my Self. Sometimes when I use “I” in a sentence I may mean my mind and “you” as my Self. Keep that dynamic in mind when you read these words and let the thoughts you have about “I” and “you” be fluid.

    The mind likes to see and then make the world around it static and finite but experience is dynamic and infinite. Consciousness exists within and beyond the boundaries of thought, sense, memory and reason. So, if it helps, let the distance between our distinct forms of being dissolve and let “you” and “I” be One.

    April 9th 2022

    Plane flight to India. Departure 9:30pm and landed 9pm April 10th

    Ate paneer on the plane. Super tasty. I am now a vegetarian

    Business class is awesome.

    April 10th 2022

    Mysticism. The words we use to describe a thing say more about us than the thing.  It’s impossible to describe a thing in it’s entirety. The more we try the more we reveal our thoughts about a thing rather than the thing we wish to describe.

    No one wears shorts at the airport in India. Except me. I might have packed the wrong clothes.  All I packed were shorts.

    The experience speaks for itself in the moment.  Everything else is your reaction from that instant pulled through time.

    Lots of cows here.

    Lots of Indian tourists white water rafting on the Ganga. It’s sort of like Northern Virginia but with huge shrines and statues of deities at major intersections instead of fast food restaurants. More like Maine. In fact, this is definitely Maine. Only its 99 degrees here.

    No one wears black. I may have packed the wrong clothes, all the clothes I own are black

    Anand Ji welcomed us during an opening ceremony where we all shared whatever we wanted to share. That was cool. The recovering lawyer phrase I usually use when people ask me to describe myself got laughs. Told them I was a fitness professional and had been leading teacher trainings. Some people are wandering and left their lives wherever they were to go on a journey. I guess I am too. From a variety of countries: Romania, Australia, Philippines, India, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Kuwait, India. The United States has a lot of folks here.

    The food is great. Very nourishing and light. I am definitely not going to get enough to eat to sustain my current physical shape. And I’m okay with that.

    April 11th

    Got 3 hours of hardcore sleep the first night and woke at 2am. Tried reading the Economist and Wikipedia but stopped since it wasn’t helping my mind.

    Pretty sure I heard monkeys screaming last night. Better than the fucking crows we have in the States, although I’ll probably want to shoot them after a week or two as well.

    I must remember that I came here of my own volition to learn what is offered. It is a much different world here than the one I am used to. I feel like an outsider, a visitor. Hopefully in a week or two I will feel more in tune.

    Morning Puja: offering of flowers, food, water and fire. Mantra.

    Morning mediation. I hate meditating but I’m pretty sure that’s the main thing that will make my meditation practice awesome.

    Everyone talking at morning fruit and juice despite the rule that we must be silent until after breakfast. I wonder if they are making spiritual progress even though they are not following the rules. Then I wonder why I care what they are doing and I stop the judgement. I’m not as hungry after puja and meditation. My mind does seem less cluttered and I am not pressed for time or thought.

    I smell like the donkey that hangs out down by the river. I am gonna stink bad after 26 days.

    First yoga practice- pranayama. Lots of pranayama. Kundalini yoga with lots of Kriya work.  Pranayama, then kundalini with a few vinyasas. Repeat.

    Donkeys wear bells. Unclear what the donkeys do besides drink from the river. I wish I was a donkey sometimes. I probably am most of the time

    Breakfast was good. They serve hard boiled eggs. All is not lost. Lots of Chai too- will help me stay alert.

    Morning wisdom session, origins of Yoga lecture was amazing. Spent the month prior to this training reading the Tao of Physics. Its main theme is that you can’t reduce mysticism to a single thing just like atoms/quanta and then we spent two hours categorizing yoga in this lecture. Lol.

    So much breathing today. I’m utterly exhausted. Can’t remember the last time I had so little sleep.

    Evening Asana practice, slow vinyasa class. So many kriyas. So much pranayama. Thought my hips were gonna fall off. They still might. This was only day one.

    April 12th

    Went to bed at 9pm and woke up at 4am. Dead asleep. I feel much better. My third eye is throbbing. That could also be my prefrontal cortex just not knowing what to do with all this new information. Or jetlag. Probably all of those things.

    I have no idea how I am going to use what I am learning here in my classes back home. The practices here are so much different than the usual vinyasa class in DC.

    April 13th

    Yesterday I felt 100% better. The energy was there and I felt more at ease with the Kriyas and meditation. Especially the Kriyas, I am starting to get it. They induce a type of euphoria that is pleasant for me. The instructors say we are forming new neural pathways (samskaras) with this work and as we tread the path it gets deeper and deeper into our consciousness. This makes sense to m: by forming new habits, we drop old ones. A new habit must contain an element of pleasure for us to pursue it and if not pleasure then a faith in the principles set forth that will lead to a result we seek once the habit is formed as related by those who have tread the path before. This is no different than telling a person new to physical fitness that they need to workout for six weeks to see results: sometimes the workouts will produce endorphins that make us want to return. Other times this won’t happen. The key is to stay on the path.

    Some may say It is better to have bees circle around your body than flies.  Bees are attracted to honey and flies are attracted to shit. The flower is only one manifestation of the plant. 90% of the plant is needed to produce that beauty. Beauty which is very fleeting for most plants.  Flies are attracted to the shit in the soil.  Soil that feeds the roots.  Roots that feed the plant that make the flower possible.  So don’t be worried if you attract flies.  Without the shit there is no flower. Start to worry if you never feel like a flower. Or you only attract bees.

    April 14th

    Skipped Puja today. It now starts at 6:15am. I’m like, 6:30am I can be there. But 6:15am? No way. That’s too early.

    Meditation sucked less worse than it usually does. I didn’t look at my watch once. I’m very proud of myself but, strangely, there wasn’t a trophy waiting for me at breakfast.

    Then the hippie stuff started. Morning Journey was 45 mins of seated kriya and pranayama.  Then 30 mins of dancing with our eyes closed. Then staring into people’s eyes. Then hugging. Then face holding. Lots of crying. More hugging. More crying. Then singing. Giving up all ego, giving fully to others, creating an energy that is quite literally beyond words and left me speechless. A mystical experience. Which is what I came here for. It was truly lovely. I am a hippie.

    I think to myself, the same class probably wouldn’t fly in Washington DC. There’s just too many personal and legal boundaries. But, what the hell, I’ll give it a try anyway.

    Morning talk entitled “what is the Self” was a good one. Most of it was stuff I was aware of and had read elsewhere.I it is good to have that validation. I feel a little less like a fraud or at least if felt good hearing it from someone other than a yoga teacher in DC or Bryan Kest or the 30 guests I had on my podcast or a book I read whose author I don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t feel like a fraud after all.

    Memory is linked to time in a linear way. And so life can seem linear but it isn’t. That’s just memory. And time is both a way for the ego to distract us and a thing for us to use because without time there is no growth.

    April 15th

    One week down. Three to go. Time flows differently here, especially in classes. Our morning journey seems to last longer than a 90 min class. Meditation has become a little more enjoyable. I don’t look at my watch every 5 mins anymore.

    April 16th

    Received a mantra yesterday based on my energy, date of birth, place of birth and time of birth.  I may not have gotten the time right. I wonder if that will make a difference?  Probably not – it was a good faith effort on my part though

    Downward facing dog is also upward facing Donkey. Think about it for a second.

    Drum circle and fire pit tonight with the full moon out. Dancing and singing mantras. A little taste of home. There was a time when I would have felt pretty awkward dancing and singing but after doing Zumba auditions for the last 8 years nothing is embarrassing.

    The people here are super kind, supportive, and loving. I fucking love them.

    April 17th

    You’ll never find the right answers if you keep asking questions. Sit with the experience and you will gain wisdom. “Learn to be wise instead of right.” – Anand Ji

    Chasing the right answer is an intellectual addiction. Like any zealous addiction, it feeds itself and not your Self.

    Sometimes the temptation is to “figure it out” and then make a conscious choice to believe or not believe “it.” “figuring it out” may only be building an intellectual outcome you are comfortable with based on your own superimposed structure, your learned behavior. “It” then becomes a product of your mind instead of the observance of reality. And your memory is then one of you instead of the experience.

    April 18th

    Day off from training. Morning Meditation and Journey and then taxi into Rishikesh.

    Lots of shopping. Got scarves for people back home and for myself.  Got white clothes for the closing ceremony.

    Lunch at a cafe overlooking the Ganga. Then more shopping.

    Aarti in the evening at the Ganga. There’s a elephant that bathes on the other side of the river.

    Took off my shirt and went in the Ganga. It was really cold but not so cold that I went numb. Growing up at the New Jersey shore where the water is so cold it makes your testicles crawl up into you stomach comes in handy sometimes.

    April 19th

    Went back to Puja this morning. 6:15am isn’t so bad after all.

    We get angry at ourselves for making mistakes as if we shouldn’t. Without mistakes there is no growth. It is arrogance to think the last mistake will be your last. You’ll come face to face with this arrogance the next time you get angry at yourself for making a mistake.

    There are limits to what you can know if you are only using your mind.

    April 20th

    Meditation continues to be a challenge. There is much resistance from my mind which is not surprising- I have spent a lot of time making my mind fit a certain pattern that sustains me.  Unfortunately that pattern hasn’t brought me peace. So meditation it is!

    A group of cows came down the path this morning by the river. One of them ate the apple core out of my hand. When I went into the river to clear trash out of the small dam, another cow drank my Chai.

    During class today I rolled my eyes further than I ever have in Agni Mudra. Felt like I was looking into my brain. How can the brain look at the brain through the eyes? Like placing a mirror in front of another mirror?

    When you ask a question are you inviting an opinion or an experience? If an opinion, can you let that pass and accept or do you feel the need to argue? If you argue what is your goal? If you want an experience can you let that pass without judgement? If so, you’ll finally be listening.

    April 21st

    Started the day off with a hike to a waterfall. We walked up a mountain and I never felt out of breath. Sat under the waterfall and after someone said it looked like I was being baptized. It was an apt observation.

    I asked Anand Ji a question during our session on the Koshas.

    “How do we know the difference between reaction from learned behavior and insight? How do we know we aren’t manifesting deep learned behavior?”

    Answer: “insight comes from stillness and conditioned activity comes from a place of disturbance.”

    Word.

    My follow up question was “how does this relate to Dharma?”

    Answer: “Dharma is to live a life of spontaneous right action”

    Which fits nicely: if you have stillness Dharma will flow because insight will always lead to right action.

    April 22nd

    A Pundit is a learned person or keeper of knowledge and they are usually advisors to leaders in India. Ironic that we call experts on television who yell at each other Pundits. I haven’t seen a Pundit do that here.

    April 23rd

    Meditation isn’t getting any easier to do. My mantra brings up certain images that are repetitive. My mind goes elsewhere to avoid the images and when I bring my mind back to my mantra, I see the images again. I will try to see past the images until they no longer arise in my mind.

    “I think, therefore I am” is taking on new meaning for me. I have always understood the phrase to mean, to think is to exist as a human. It has been interpreted that rational thought derived from the mind makes us human and separates us from other life forms. And Descartes may have indeed meant the saying as meaning: we have rational thought, therefore we are human. It has been acted on frequently as a rejection of any action that isn’t logical or rational. But I can  recognize the mind and so as an observer of that intuition, I must be more.  I think therefore I am becomes the whole of the human, not just the mind, I experience, therefore I am.

    What they teach here is- when you have an experience you can’t explain, don’t try just because your mind needs to put the experience into words Wait until you have more insight/knowledge. Know that you don’t know and let that be okay until you do KNOW instead of rejecting the experience or putting the experience in a box limited by your current knowledge. Grow from the experience – evolve.

    It’s quite liberating actually. We always want to know the answer Now. And if we don’t have the answer now, we just go with reacting with what we know. We put words to experience that frame the experience with our accumulated knowledge. We put the experience in a box before letting the experience settle. When we do that we stagnate. To grow and understand we sometimes need to let experience settle.

    Growth (and understanding) take time to happen. A tree doesn’t grow in a day. I always knew that, now I know that.

    At least that’s what I’m experiencing. Try this: if you want to teach a baby language, you need to show them meaning. You can’t explain English by using baby language. The baby has to accept that arm means arm. You have to accept the new learning on its own terms, not on the reference points you have in your current conditioning. If you never do that, then there is a limit to what you can know because language is a crude (and artificial) way to describe experience. For example: how do you describe subatomic particles like electrons?  As a wave?  As a particle? It’s both actually. But if you only accept waves and particles, then you’ll never know what an electron actually is.

    Of course, you don’t have to accept that subatomic Quanta are waves and particles. That’s your choice.

    And a baby can go through life just babbling. But it doesn’t. So why are you?

    April 25th

    There are some who walk up the stairs and trip on the first step because they aren’t looking directly ahead of them. There are some who put the first foot down successfully but trip as they place the second foot on the first step because they are only looking ahead and don’t know what is behind. There are some who look ahead AND know what’s behind and realize that you need to do both without tripping. That is being present.

    Sadhviji (Sahvi Bhagawati Saraswati)  from Parmarth Niketan came to speak to us yesterday at Sattva.  She gave the speech about Earth Day at Arti last week. She has a grace and vibration about her that I could feel very strongly. I asked her: why do toxic people seem to be rewarded for their behavior and do not suffer. A topic I wrote a little about in my Article- Compassion for Trump. Her answer was that they may be rewarded financially but not spiritually. They are not happy: “when you feel joy you make others happy. When you feel toxic you make others around you toxic.” I feel the truth of that statement. I’ve been there

    April 26th

    I realize now I can only help others if they ask. It isn’t up to me to decide that someone needs help. I can no longer assume that everyone I see with a problem wants my help in solving it.  And I can no longer accept responsibility for the solution. I can give advice and support but I can’t make someone else’s problem go away with the force of my will.  Will has limits

    May 3rd

    200 hour YTTs graduated today. Was delightful to see everyone so happy and full of wonder.  The spiritual path is a river, always there in the Self. Every once in a while, no matter who you are, your mind becomes aware that it is swimming against the current of Self. When your mind awakens to the spiritual path your mind struggles even more to stop the struggle because it does not know how to stop and doesn’t have the courage to learn how. As You become fully aware that the mind struggles and not the Self there is an even greater awakening. The struggle with the mind ceases and you feel the flow of the river. You let it take you downstream. Flowing downstream, you make adjustments to your Self so that the river doesn’t overwhelm you. The mind is now your ally. You make ever more refined movements with the mind that lead to stillness without effort as you float. Every once in a while you will need to readjust and regain the flow. But you never feel the need to turn around and start struggling again. That is yoga.

    May 5th

    Pointing out that someone is a hypocrite is like going to a baseball game and filling out the scorecard and then bringing that scorecard to the next game and getting pissed off when the teams don’t play the same exact game as they did the day before. The teams have the same names, the players have the same names, the rules are the same but everything else has changed from the day before:the weather, the line up of the teams, the individuals who make up the teams, and most importantly, you have changed (whether you admit it or not). All those changes result in a totally different game that is played by others and perceived by you.  It’s the reason we go to games, to see the unexpected, to be an active participant in the unexpected. Not to be an observer from afar who judges every action. If we go expecting the same game as the day before we are deluding ourselves and playing the role of an all-knowing God, which we are not.

    If a person says they believe or act in one way on Saturday and then don’t act the same way on Monday, from your point of view, they are a hypocrite but from their point of view they may be acting or believing based on a new set of circumstances that you are unaware of. Who are you to keep score of their lives? Are they just part of a game in your mind for your entertainment?  If they did care that you are keeping score then don’t you become the master of their future actions? To approve what they do based on your scorecard? Why would a person want that? Why would you want that? That’s an awful lot to keep track of. And who keeps your scorecard? You?  If so, maybe you should pay more attention to yourself and keep score. If someone else, then be prepared to give up your own agency to that person. If that is God then great. But who are you to be God for someone else? They didnt authorize you to be that for them so you have no right to take on that role from their point of view.

    You could spend your entire day keeping the scorecard for other people and then making sure they aren’t hypocrites tomorrow. But you would only be an observer and never a true participant. Going to the game but never being a part of it. Where’s the joy in that?

    May 6th

    I can here not knowing what to expect but trusting in every way. I wouldn’t have believed a future me who came back in time and tried to tell me what would happen. I guess that’s what a Journey is: an experience beyond what you could have predicted then when you look back. Evolution is the Journey in the present moment. Flight home. A little over half way through the 15 hour flight dawn started. And for the next seven hours it stayed dawn until we landed. The most amazing thing. I’ve never seen dawn last that long.

    After flying for 14 hours at 30,000 feet The most comforting thing in the world is seeing the ocean at 1000 feet. a grey, early morning where the Sea is tinted dark green, blue and white- the lights on the container ships, the fishing boats, the white caps framed by low lying clouds complete the tapestry entitled “Welcome Home.”

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  • The End of American Leadership

    First there was: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’

    Then there was: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’

    Now there is: ‘We have so much testing. I don’t think you need that kind of testing or that much testing, but some people disagree with me and some people agree with me.’

    The first quote is from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first Inaugural address in January 1933 during the nadir of the Great Depression. It is worth quoting the prelude to that famous sentence and, especially in these times, his explanation of what the phrase meant:

    I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.  In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

    For FDR the “truth” was that “fear” was the root of the problem. The attitudes and actions provoked by fear were preventing Americans from pulling themselves out of the Great Depression.  A psycho-analyst could not have put it more succinctly to the most desperate of patients. FDR was calling for a wholesale change in outlook on economic, social, and political life to bring recovery.

    The rest of the speech is full of hard truths about what it takes to survive and then flourish in trying times.  There is no blame attributed to wicked Wall Street tycoons, immigrants overrunning the country, or the failures of past Presidents.

    This is the kind of Leadership that most of us pointed to over the course of the twentieth century. It is the sort of leadership America has lost – not only for its own citizens – but for the rest of the world too.

    JFK

    The second quotation is from President John F. Kennedy at his Inaugural Address in January 1961. He focused on the problems of the day: poverty, the arms race, the last vestiges of colonialism and human rights cross the globe. The most prescient part of the speech is:

    In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

    And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.

    My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

    Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.” 

    JFK was speaking at a time of increasingly hot wars around the world, resulting from the end of nineteenth century colonialism, and the onset of colonialism from the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. that led to the Cold War.

    This had led to a build-up of nuclear weapons sufficient to extinguish humanity. In that stressful period he was calling not only for Americans but people around the world to work towards freedom for all humanity.

    He was also urging people to use that freedom not just for personal gain but for their country as well, for it was the community people represented in a democracy that has the power to make real change for everyone.

    His pitch was that when we work together as individuals through a democracy we all get wealthier and healthier. This too was American leadership at its finest.

    Trump

    The third quote is from President Donald Trump on May 5th 2020 in a Q&A with reporters. It came at a point when there had been 1.3 million confirmed cases of COVID- 19 and over 76,000 deaths. Meanwhile the unemployment rate had reached almost 20%, and a majority of the population had been under stay at home orders for six weeks. Here is the quote in full:

    We have the best testing anywhere in the world, not even close … Look, we have so much testing. I don’t think you need that kind of testing or that much testing, but some people disagree with me and some people agree with me. But we have the greatest testing in the world, and we have the most testing in the world.

    Granted this is not President Trump’s Inaugural Address.  We’ll get to that in a moment.  This is the President’s answer to the question: are there enough tests for people in the U.S. in order to reopen its economy?

    It perfectly encapsulates the President’s style of leadership: cocky, bragging, dismissive of anyone who disagrees with him; demonstrating an utter disregard for the American people he governs, and unwavering focus on…himself.

    Further, he is saying we have everything we need to reopen because we are the best. The truth, as many of us know, is quite different

    Inauguration Speech

    This is in line with his Inauguration Speech from January, 2016.

    For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.  Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country … We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/

    This is best summed up as: ‘America is broken and suffering from helping out the world; this was caused by greedy politicians; by disregarding our commitment to the world and getting rid of these politicians we can be awesome again. Federal government and foreigners are holding us back and by doing away with them we can realize our greatness.’

    This is the end of American leadership. Far from the introspective challenge laid down by FDR or the self-sacrifice called for by JFK, we have a President who blames others, who, he says, we need to be rid of in order to fix our troubles.

    But Americans do have homegrown problems – lots of them. And we’ve had them for a long time. It is precisely these domestic issues that led FDR and JFK to make their exhortations during equally challenging times.

    Leadership demands change from within and then shows the way. The current President seems to think we don’t need to change ourselves to make life better for all – we can just lay the blame on others and avoid focusing on ourselves.

    There’s no hard work, no sacrifice. It’s all about finding the next person to blame, while we wallow in a perceived notion that there is nothing wrong with us. There could no better example of this than the character of the President himself.

    It may not need to be said but if the U.S. wants to be great again, it needs to return to the values of hard work of FDR, the ideals of JFK, and be rid of Donald J. Trump.

  • The Slow Death of White Male Privilege

    The history books are laden with white men changing the world, from Alexander the Great to Churchill. Look at our religions- Jesus and all his disciples are white. Every saint painted on a fresco is white. The great explorers of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were all white. Every astronaut who landed on the moon has been white. Every statue we have from antiquity to the Renaissance is a thing of white marble beauty. Even the most famous wizards of all time–Merlin, Gandalf and Dumbledore–are all white old men. And of course movie stars have been white males from the Silent Era to the present. Finally, who runs and has run the Western governments since time immemorial, only old good ol’ white men.

    This may create a perception that white men are exceptional. Is it any wonder then that people of all races, religions, social status and nationalities look to white people to lead them? It’s the perception of trust that leads to a feeling of entitlement: ‘I can be President. I can be an astronaut.’ And the stereotype has been fed time and again by artists, the media, politicians, universities, military organizations, educational systems and now marketing departments.

    It has been established that people who are more attractive have a better chance of landing a job than those who are not. Given our heritage, what is sexier than a white male fueled by innate self-confidence.

    And what happens when we come across white men in history who may have noble ideals but end up killing millions?  We frame them as tragic figures with flaws that lead to disastrous outcomes (Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Richard Nixon) or misunderstood (Julius Ceasar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Lenin) and a warning to other white men not to make the same mistakes. After all it is assumed that white men in power are basically good guys, who will do the right thing.

    Is it any wonder then that we feel secure at a reptilian level when we see a white guy in power? After all, we know the history of white guys and with it the frequent narrative of progress: haven’t they done a good job for the vast majority of humanity? And if they haven’t, who are we to trust? In any case we can always (at least in liberal democracies) get rid of the white guys that are bad apples, and replace them with white guys who will do better.

    Of course this is a very Eurocentric view of the world, but who can argue that our interconnected world is not a product of the Age of Discovery (circa 1500 to 1700), the Enlightenment (c. 1600-1800) and Colonialism (1600-1900), all led by governments, leaders, and thinkers that were white men?

    We can argue about their methods, and whether we would be better off without them, but we cannot argue against the proposition that they have been largely responsible for creating the modern world. The representation of white men from history, from art, to science, to commerce is long and well-rooted, and it is there that we find the root of white male privilege.

    As a white man the odds of you getting the job, education, spouse, bank loan or a role in a major motion picture acting role you aspired to were significantly higher than if you were from any other gender or ethnicity. That is the American Dream we talk about, although what we all know is that it is really the white man’s dream. How can we question whether there exists White Male Privilege then? Indeed, if you are a white male and not in a position of power or wealth, many people will assume there is something wrong with you.

    From this perspective can you see the appeal of Trump? A rich white guy, who promises to change a broken two party system run by white men. A white guy, who promises to come in and throw out the other white guys, who have been corrupted by power and wealth. A white guy, who blames women and minorities and immigrants for the country’s woes. The country was doing dandy under the white guys, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr., until that black guy came into office and some white lady became speaker of the House. Conservatives (mostly white folks) want a return to the status quo and can you blame them? America has been great for white people so far.

    If you’ve come this far thinking I am Conservative, or worse, then this next bit is gonna be a let down. I am not. In fact, my argument is that this long history is starting to crack, and indeed will crumble over the next fifty to one hundred years. Our children and grand-children could be in for a real treat, as the world moves in fits and starts out of the Age of the White Man, and into the Age of, well, whatever we call it in two hundred years.

    We have already seen the beginning of this in the twentieth century. With some exceptions, every country in Africa, Asia, South America and Oceania has thrown off the yoke of colonial white masters from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yeah, people of Spanish, English and Chinese heritage control some countries, but they were at least born in those countries and serve the inhabitants instead of a bureaucracy in Peking or London of Madrid. This means that new leaders who aren’t white are getting a chance to change the course of their country’s political history.

    How about Europe, where the leaders of he two biggest economies, U.K. and Germany are women?

    The world’s second and third largest economies? China and Japan (the EU doesn’t count as a country) are run by indigenous Chinese and Japanese.

    African and South American countries are run by local governments, increasingly at liberty to forge regional alliances that do not involve European powers.

    In the US there are black television channels (BET), Hispanic television channels (Univision), movies with all black production units and stars that are no longer on the fringes of society: they are mainstreaming.

    As for university curricula, well you can major in Spanish, Chinese, African, Asian, African American, and Women’s Studies at just about every place of higher learning in the US.

    Artists? Who are the biggest stars on the planet today? Lady Gaga, Dre Dre, Madonna, Taylor Swift, BTS? Who makes the best music? Kendrick Lamar (Pulitzer Prize). White crooners like Elvis, Sinatra, Harry Connick have disappeared, boy bands have crawled back under the rocks from whence they came, even the most popular singer-songwriters all seem to either non-white or female.

    I am not saying that white males don’t have a leg up anymore. But the system has been rigged in their favor for hundreds of years. It is going to take some time for that ebb away. Now that increasingly all kids can look up and see people of their own skin color, sex, sexual orientation, and religion make it, they can have the confidence to do so too. They will work harder knowing it is possible to succeed.

    And we are just starting to see how the crumbling of their privilege is affecting white men. The confirmation hearing of Brett Kavanaugh is a perfect microcosm. Why were Conservatives in such a hurry? After all, there were plenty of conservative white men more qualified than Kavanaugh for the job.

    Midterms are coming up, and to start the confirmation process again risked hitting the speed bump of an altered Senate, where there is no guarantee that white conservative men will control either branch. They had to get this guy and they had to do it now.

    The white male fears run deeper. With a majority of white male conservatives on the Supreme Court, white men think they can now rest more easily, secure in the knowledge they may have one remaining ally in the years to come, when white people will not longer be a majority in the country, and when Blacks and Latinos and LBGTQ and women, and Indians, and Chinese will start to win districts that were were once the preserve white men.

    The Brahmans in Congress know their time is limited, and this was the last major push to keep a hold on a power they have enjoyed since the foundation of the state. So hats off to them, but it it won’t last.

    What we’re seeing now is the last wheezing breath of old white men in power, pathetically clinging to it like an addict who cannot quit, and refuses to die, because their vanity demands they go on using others.

    Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, but the tide of history is too powerful at this point. Instead of leaving a legacy to be proud of, they will leave a stain we will all wash out eventually, so that instead of being remembered they will be forgotten, once new leaders with vision take over.

    In one hundred years you won’t read about Mitch McConnell or Newt Gingrich or Donald Trump, but about Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama, Ruth Badar Ginsberg, Angela Merkel, Serena Williams, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or Neil Degrasse Tyson. After all, they are who kids look up to these days, and certainly not George Bush or Donald Trump or Samuel Alito. Wanna know why? Because if you are white, male, grew up in Kentucky, and have an eighth-grade-education, your whiteness won’t get you where you want anymore. Republican policies will ensure you don’t have access to a proper education, healthcare, a healthy environment, or social services. Live in a city however, where you can hustle, make connections, go to college, and kill it in law school, and you will have a pretty good shot at making Partner one day, or even the Supreme Court.

    We will see the fading of trust in white power and a belief in leadership which is colour and gender blind. That is my hope anyway.

  • Defiant Compassion

    On yoga teacher training courses among the heartening questions I receive are ones that readers of my previous piece have also posed: how can I be compassionate towards what I consider wrong, or evil, and still fight it? And, does an excess of compassion diminish a capacity to affect change?

    The short answer is the second question is ‘no’, while the first question invites you to take some simple steps, assuming you have arrived at a place of compassion.

    In that article I advocated compassion towards Donald Trump, because feelings of hatred will (a) not change his behaviour, and (b) make you miserable. Extending compassion to someone so obviously tortured by vanity maintains sanity, and acknowledges a shared humanity.

    By adopting this approach we bring calm to our own lives, and thereby make the world around us a marginally better place. Getting angry at Trump solves nothing.

    Have you ever wanted to impress someone so badly on the first date that you went out of your way to make it perfect in every way? So ideal you expected to sweep her off her feet? And then she never called you back?  Yeah, me too. The mistake we made was to have a preordained plan rather than focusing on the person when we actually met them, and being authentically ourselves. It’s a case of wanting something so badly that you are blind to the reality of what is needed to make it work.

    Yogis have a name for this: ‘Avidya’, loosely translated as ‘ignorance or blindness’. While its root is habit, it branches into ego, attachment, aversion, and fear. When we give into hate or anger (towards Trump or whoever), or fear (failing to make the right impression on our date) we are blinded by that mindset. We won’t get what we want, no matter how hard we try, because we have lost all perspective.

    By clearing our minds through compassion, and stepping back from our fear or anger we begin to see more clearly. Then we find fresh avenues of thought that were previously hidden. Now we are ready to act with awareness instead of rage. When this occurs, according to yogis, there is nothing you can’t change because you see a situation as it really is, instead of idealising it

    This leads to the second question as to whether excessive compassion leads to crippling passivity. I would start by saying it is almost impossible to affect change without compassion. But compassion shouldn’t imply passivity. Compassion is a mindset, and passivity is an action (that is, the decision to do nothing, which is an action in itself).

    Through growing awareness you develop compassion; then you resist anger and see the world more clearly. You find ways to resist that are born of reflection and rooted in reality, not impulsive responses based on distorted outlooks. Now is your time to act: with total clarity, knowledge, purpose, and a drive that will never run out of fuel, because it is rooted in truth instead of fear. Welcome to compassionate defiance.

    But this is only halfway towards a solution we are still working on within ourselves. The second part is the action. Once you have decided to act, what then?

    There are many great examples of compassionate defiance through history. Not least in Gandhi’s campaign that brought down an Empire. His approach was based on yogic wisdom, especially drawn from the Bhagavad Gita. Like Descartes’ Discourse on Method, it is the kind of book you can read in a day. Its influence is still felt in every corner of the globe. From it we glean a simple key to unlock action out of compassion:

    You have the right to work but never the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself – without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is the perfect evenness of mind.

    Take refuge in an attitude of detachment and you will amass a wealth of spiritual awareness. Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action grow miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the rewards they believe they are entitled to.

    This is the bedrock of Karma yoga: the use of yoga in the world. By detaching ourselves (or being compassionate towards ourselves) from emotional responses to the outcomes of our actions we retain our composure. We have already seen what anger and hate can do when we allow ego, attachment, aversion, fear to cloud our judgment. Now we must stay the course to prevent our actions from leading to more Avidya.

    The kernel of the passage is to act with the clarity of truth, and to be content with that. For we cannot predict the outcome of our actions, and trying to do so only leads to suffering. Act because it is right and let the result take care of itself. To do otherwise is to live a life of constant resentment, not grounded in reality, but based on what we desire in any given moment, just like the failed date experience.

    To affect change one must be willing to let others make changes in themselves. Truth must be uncovered individually for it be lasting. That is the genius of the Gita, and the genius of compassionate defiance. In other words, ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ starts with compassion for others, and ends with compassion for yourself.

    When we can do these things, change can take place all around us. We stop being Trolls on our own emotions and start being effective.

  • Compassion for Trump

    We are a little more than a year into the Trump Administration, and the US President shows no sign of slowing down. His behavior – erratic to some, predicable to others – and character (vanity fueled by obsession with, well, what is he not obsessed with?) have propelled a global audience into a compulsive cycle of: ‘He said what?’; followed by either withering criticism, or loud guffaws. And guess what. Trump wouldn’t have it any other way.

    If you love him, great, be happy for him and grateful he became President. But try to avoid insulting immigrants, harassing women, or bragging about the size of your guns, car, private golf club, or male member, you know, all the things you laugh about when Trump says them, but would never say yourself, right? But what if you don’t like the President, or his policies? What then?

    Compassion is the answer. Seriously. Show compassion towards Donald Trump. Before you dismiss the idea out of hand, consider how you have reacted to him over the past year. Have those responses made you any healthier or happier, or helped you sleep at night? Have you instead grown more bitter and angry? Donald Trump isn’t going to change, but your reactivity towards him can. And by altering this you will make the world a better place.

    Let’s conduct a thought experiment for a moment (one grounded in centuries of Yoga and modern cognitive science). At first Trump was a mild annoyance as a Presidential candidate. Then he won the election and became your nightmare. Now you spend at least 30 minutes a day complaining about his policies, and hating his tweets. You’ll do this again and again, and again, for the next 3 years: complaint followed by hate, followed by hate and more complaint. A habit will form, without you even being aware of it.

    After 3 years you may get your wish if Donald Trump is defeated and is no longer President. Then you will celebrate like never before. That will last exactly a week, after which you feel an emptiness. The complaining starts again, the hating is back. Only this time it is directed against your mayor, or your Congressional representative, or your mailman. And it feels wonderful. You haven’t noticed that the habit has become an obsession, not with Donald Trump but with anger. Now you are addicted. Without putting too fine point on it, you have become similar to the man you so loath.

    Don’t believe me? Can’t happen to you right? Just look at the number of Republicans who have decided against running in the next electoral cycle, just two years after the man they complained about and hated, Barack Obama, has been defeated and left office. You’d think they would be ecstatic! Republicans got what they wanted: ‘Ding dong! The witch is dead’. But the reason many of them have given for not seeking re-election is some form of excuse from: ‘Washington is broken’/’we cant get anything done’/’I don’t like my job’.

    What about people that voted for Donald Trump, are they happy? You wouldn’t know it, since all the world’s problems can no longer be laid at Obama’s door (although many do still blame him). The fault now now lies with Fake Media, and government regulations, even though the Republicans are now running it. This could be exactly the mindset you’ll have after three years have passed. You’ll look for something else to complain about, and hate. Unfortunately, anger and hatred are fast acting drugs that give you a brief feeling of elation, but corrupt the spirit and lead to emptiness in the long term.

    So what to do? Try compassion. Trump is a man filled with self-doubt, who uses vanity and anger to cover his insecurities, over and over again. Instead of falling into that trap yourself, recognize Trump and those like him as people deserving of compassion rather than hate. Why? Because the only person who can change Trump is Trump. By hating him we fuel his vanity and anger. By feeling compassion we give him a chance to change. More importantly, we become better people instead of angrier ones, who are more compassionate and less frustrated. And since the world is composed of billions of us, not just the US President, the more compassionate we become as a group, the better the world we live in becomes, despite the Donald Trumps.

    This answer is gleaned from one of the oldest treatises on spirituality: the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali.  Compiled about 2000 years ago, it offers a glimpse at how to maintain a healthy mindset, and simultaneously change the world around you.

    1.33 In relationships, the mind becomes purified by cultivating feelings of friendliness towards those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, goodwill towards those who are virtuous, and indifference or neutrality towards those we perceive as wicked or evil.

    Act on it – just for a day even – and observe how you feel when next you go to sleep. We already know what the alternative is.

    Here is the other half of the equation, if you happen to love Trump. Not a problem right? Wrong. You probably still hate Obama and Big Government, and now you are bound as Trump supporter to hate the media, universal health care, minorities and anyone else who doesn’t agree with Donald Trump.

    Sure, every once in a while, like Trump, you look back and feel a little pride at having beaten Hilary, but basically you have seen how complaining and hating can raise someone to the Oval Office, and you think that might work for you too. It won’t. Need proof? Do you actually feel better now that Obama is no longer in office? If so, why are you still complaining? Maybe you are just as addicted to it too. So what to do?

    See 1.33 above. You get to feel goodwill towards Trump and indifference to all others. You can try and feel friendliness to Trump, but honestly, does he seem like a happy guy? Anger and hate might win you the Presidency, but it won’t make you happy. In the end, love or hate him, you can only make choices about your own mindset, and what your reactions to Trump will lead to.

    One only needs to look back on the life and Presidency of Richard Nixon for an example of someone who became the world’s most powerful person, and yet felt completely alone with his regret, his anger, and his complaints. And how do we feel about him now? Love him or hate him, it’s hard not to feel compassion, even pity, for the embittered man he became. My point is, you will come to compassion when you are done hating anyway. Why not start today instead of waiting 30 years?

    Chris Parkison is a recovering lawyer and full time yoga and pilates Instructor.  He lives in Washington DC.

    Featured Image by Daniele idini.