Can A Yogi Be Unhappy
The creation of a new reality comes from shaping chaos into sense; the young spiritualist has been awakened, rather quickly and abruptly, to the seriousness and absurdly contradictory nature of life. He is lonely, but his newly acquired principles helps him believe his loneliness serves a greater purpose. After years of liberally giving energy to undeserving spaces, he becomes conservative, and aches at the thought of wasting a day and trembles at the thought of wasting an hour. He notices many people do not stick with their spiritual practice because of their failure defeating personal dragons. Spirituality has become the only option in his days, there is no other existence. Slowly the realization of how quickly our desires become reality is dawned on us, and it causes him to live closer to his principles; which means he operates within a tight window of reaction-ability. No matter how well his attempt to curb negativity or meditate the thoughts that caused his spiritual liberation, the absurd always continues grabbing hold of his conscious and wraps tightly around his head waiting for an acceptance of defeat. Slowly, the realization of our eternal fight for mastery of life becomes apparent; his outsider status is revealed through conversation with his fellow man, and his attempts at conversion are met with disgust. The young spiritualist becomes so isolated that some moments cause him to wish for the blissful ignorance that so many people carry. If he cannot completely dedicate himself to the craft and recognize his illusions he will be another unhappy smiling yogi.
The unhappy yogi realizes the limited amount of hands worthy of touching his flesh, and sits patiently to wait for authentic love. As the loneliness of the path unfolds before him, the battle between spiritual knowledge and physical desire begins; acting from a spiritual knowledge increases a love for the world, but the conflict of acting from what we know becomes a intimate decision of the will. The young spiritualist begins delaying gratification to increase his personal power and stands patiently on top of mountains then descending at the appropriate time. We must allow ourselves to be constantly remolded, reshaped, and made anew or we become addicted to identities that are not serving us. But his dedication to principles leads the battle against instant gratification, he learns commitment demands his entire being. Our entire involvement — tears, patience, attention, devotion, craftsmanship, love — becomes devoted to our inner life. It becomes a life devoted to accountability and the use of our pain, feelings of rejection, and patience to become everything meant for us. We must learn to act in accordance with the known and stand within the mystery of the unknown; then demands the most from ourselves to reshape everything we consider ourselves to know.
Many will look at the title of the essay and insist in the errors of my personal practice; all the smiling, enlightened with ignorance, faces of yogis selling t-shirts and doing 30 day challenges will be enough evidence to support the happiness in the craft. They all appear to be extremely calm and even their moments of vulnerability are a descension into the human world from their heavenly thrones. Unfortunately, the need to sell a lifestyle — yogis, mindfulness entrepreneurs, meditation coaches — has caused a wave of anxiety deep within the community; the knowledge, commitment, and devotion needed to elevate in a craft has been replaced by a quick fast paced enlightenment where students are attempting to become teachers. The wisdom of self-proclaimed gurus is often an oversimplification of an egoistic projection that lacks a recognition of the complexity of everyday life. The young spiritualist grows weary watching spiritualist shove themselves into constricted boxes in order to sell a mirage.
A contemporary yogi must not be trapped by the Upanishads, but must express the connection between the existential absurdity and concept of antagonistic cooperation in human existence. Attempting to deny our own tendency to self -loathe, feel lonely, over-think, and becomes anxious will only increase our distance from the people. We will produce a pseudo-wisdom that has nothing to do with actual people, and suggest nothing of man’s fate. The yogi devotes his life to remembering and dissolving illusions; with little effort lonliness can consume a person, but the yogi’s responsibility is to the spirit. We have a tendency to lock ourselves into labels and confine our experience into how people expect us to act, but we should create our own limitations and live from those judgements.
What must the lonely yogi do? With all the chaos around him, what must be done? Experience, for the most part, is what we make it; the lonely yogi must not relinquish his faith in the practice, but must question his devotion. He must utilize the hour set before him and admit the truth of his devotion to the practice and acknowledge the difficulties and truth required for the hour. We must live with the wealth of wisdom and act accordingly to our knowledge. The young spiritualist must become aware of the vanity of human wishes and endeavors by recognizing the challenge involved in his transcendence. Adversity is an inescapable condition of human existence and the modern spiritualist have attempted to destroy this fact of life in 30 day meditations and yoga challenges. The affirmation of obstacles must be embraces, which means the young yogi must develop a deep inner patience that is unwavering and intentional; life is difficult and we must answer the difficulty with love and recognize the blessings within our sufferings. The unhappy yogi must bear the burden of living by accepting complexity and absurdity.
