Taking it With You

I had a marvelous conversation last night which brought up many wonderful topics and ideas to think about...I'm sure it will influence this blog for a while to come.  One of the many useful things that came out of the conversation was the idea of taking your spirituality with you.

I have to confess...when it comes to working I can be pretty lackadaisical.  I don't want to get up and go to work any more than anyone else I know.  What I want to do is stay home, meditate, do some yoga, take a walk, read, ponder, write, talk to people about spirituality and basically enjoy my life steeped in a deeply spiritual practice that the outside world does not intrude upon.  When I think from this perspective I see work as the enemy, the obstacle to my deep spiritual practice and if life would just cooperate I could have it.  But no!  I have to work and I leave each weekend resentfully and resistantly coming in at the beginning of each week angry that I have to leave my spiritually centered life and focus on something as mundane as work.  I come in grumpy, short-tempered, seeing obstacles not solutions and in short I'm no good to anyone.

Poppycock!  Spirituality isn't based on a single place or a certain amount of time.  Spirituality, like life itself, manifests everywhere...all around us and is there if we need it.  There's nothing that says if I need to I can't shut my door for five minutes and close my eyes and meditate.  In those five minutes I am in the presence of the Absolute, there is no separation between me and eternity, I am experiencing it.  It isn't less Divine or eternal just because I'm in my office...It, Divinity, God, the Absolute, The Eternal, the Infinite...whatever you want to call it...is right there, it always has been an eyelid closing and breathing exercise away.  It is incumbent upon me to remember that and be aware, not to limit the possibilities of spirituality just because I have attachment to what I think my spiritual life and practice should look like.

As my friend said last night, "Ideally you should be able to meditate while riding a roller coaster."  As a lover of roller coasters and meditation it is an experience I am looking forward to trying...seems like it would be a blast...and ideally my spirituality never leaves me, it is never more than a careful breath away.  The anger and resentment don't serve me, my co-workers or the people we help...but my spirituality does and that is with me always.
Blessings.

It All Seems so Pointless

So here I am spending another day at work and wishing that I could be home tending to my spirit.  Apparently I feel as though there is something that my spirit needs and doesn't get at work.  Some of that comes from the constant needs that I must fill as part of my position.  This is a job that is basically one of giving, whether it is my intellectual gifts that are required, my ability to listen, decision making skills, emotional support, or just my body in the chair at the desk this is a position of giving and I don't feel as though I'm in any place to give...I need...

I try to fill that need through meditation and journaling mostly, otherwise I just waste my time and my brain watching movies or tv shows off of Netflix, hoping to fill my non-work hours with activity which is supposed to give my life meaning.  The problem is I'm not giving myself enough meaningful time.  There is no meaning in watching a fairy tale love story, or a sitcom...it's not even real, so why do I even bother doing it?  Because I'm trying to find my way to normal, but I don't even know what normal is.

So I'm on this Spiritual Journey (note the capital letters indicating importance here...ha ha only important to me) I want my life to be deep and meaningful, to be connected to spirit and aware of my cosmic interconnectedness with all beings at all times.  I want my life to be peaceful and quiet...no waves, just tranquility.  I want my finances in order so I'm not always scrambling to try to survive, to have balance...a little fun here, a little care there, everyone's needs get met and we are all happy.  I want all the holes filled...family, friendship, just enough love to keep from being too lonely and all of these things are so doable, they are easy...then life hits and it all seems so complicated.

The truth is, it isn't complicated.  I'm still connected to spirit, we are all connected to each other, there is deeper spiritual purpose and it exists all around us all the time.  But when life rears it's ugly head I feel as though it all goes away and I have to fight my way back to my center.  When people stand around me shouting and arguing about the latest political action by this party or that party, when people get caught up about what this person is doing or isn't doing, when we all get caught up in the Maya of life I get impatient and angry and it all seems so pointless.  I'm not even participating in the conversations, apparently I'm just sitting there judging and wishing everyone around me could be focused on the things that I think are important...meditation, love, equanimity, compassion, Divinity.

I wish that my family could get together and not talk about illegal immigrants in a hateful way.  I wish my co-workers could get over their ex-husbands and the cute guy they want to go out with but are too afraid to talk to, I wish my community would stop being so closed minded and open it's arms to people who don't follow a traditional WASP lifestyle and the truth is it's none of my business.  It's none of my business what people think or care about or talk about.  I can choose to participate and I can choose not to participate but the last thing I need to be doing is sitting around judging them for how they choose to spend their time because in truth, it's not about me anyway.  So I have to let it go.

We are all on this Spiritual Journey together whether we can admit it or not and there really is room for everyone.  Where I am walking may not be where you are walking...may not even be where you want to walk, but at least we are all walking.  And while I may prefer where I walk to where you walk there is no better place to walk - no place that is karmically better or more useful...there is only walking, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

So while I can feel like my day is wasted in paperwork and petty conversations about things that don't really matter (to me, anyway) I can also feel like whatever today is, it is part of the journey in whatever form it takes and there is purpose...there is a point.  It's hard for me to feel enthusiastic about that last bit, but it's true.  Maybe if I can just sit with that today it will be better...maybe it won't.  The truth is my unhappiness with being at work is more about me and my life than it is about anything else...and I can sit here and blame work, my co-workers and my community...but my happiness lies only in the palm of my own hand and no one elses.