My newsfeed these days is awash with inspirational quotes, either from famous people or the insights of aspiring yoga teachers/ life-gurus. This obviously just reflects my choice of subscription, but I get several messages a day with variations on 5 Steps to Become a Better Human Being. These are usually along the lines of:
- Forget the past
- Embrace change.
- Think positively
- Follow your dreams
- Don't compare yourself with others
You get the point. Nothing much here anybody would disagree with and we all need a little motivation from time to time. Still, most of this well-meaning stuff misses the essential point of how to get there and more importantly, how to stay there.
Resolutions on the level of the mind are hard to keep: 'The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak' *. In a good mood, we might wake up with good intentions and even carry some of them out. A new health regime takes the required weight off, brightens the eyes, and we chalk it up as a good experience. So I may be making too much of this.
But the understanding has grown up that the Eightfold Path of Yoga, for example, starts with good conduct and leads eventually to Samadhi (transcendence). If the post-2012 Utopia means anything, we should know that Samadhi comes first. It is, and should be, easy. Regular practice of transcendence anchors the mind and good conduct, diet and lifestyle follow spontaneously from this. Direct experience is everything, and Intellectualizing the process only takes us so far.
It's not just an Eastern concept, either. The other famous New Testament line from the Book of Matthew is usually written: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you'. (6:33). Right, but wrong: there should be no semicolon after 'righteousness'. In other words, righteous conduct is one of the things that is added by finding the inner Kingdom.
(Matthew 26:41)
