It’s natural for our minds to cling to the known, to the familiar, to those things that we can handle, whether they’re good for us or not. It feeds our #ego when we see around us a world that reflects what we know. To see a world that reflects what we don’t know – now that would be terrifying, and exactly what we need in order to grow.
Distancing ourselves from our ego, it becomes easier to see the patterns, or #samskaras, that we hold on to which work against our best interests. It also becomes easier to welcome the changes, the ebbs and flows which are a natural element of life.
“Use all your power to free the senses from attachment and aversion alike, and live in the full wisdom of the Self,” the Bhagavad Gita 2.68 says.
Yoganand Michael Carroll from the Kripalu Center says,“The spiritual practice propagated by the Bhagavad Gita is to shift identity from ego to #purusha (self), from the field of action to the observer of the field,” Yoganand Michael Carroll from the Kripalu Center.”
By dismantling the ego, we leave more room for our #Self. The Self understands and welcomes the #impermanence of things, and therefore has no expectation or attachment to specific outcomes and situations. The Self knows, on a level of deep consciousness, that all things change, and therefore that any phase, whether good or bad, will flow into a different phase.
The faith in impermanence empowers us to feel all our transient human emotions deeply, to truly experience the vast range of feelings humans are capable of, whether that be grief, fear, love, joy, sadness, boredom, jealousy, excitement, anticipation…but without letting the emotions become our masters. When we know that all things change, we can fearlessly dive into the emotions, through the emotions, and observe them, experience them, witness them, accept them, and watch them float away.
Things around us are changing all the time. Some we have to fight harder for. The saying goes that you never step into the same river twice, but I believe it’s truer to say that you never step into the same day twice. It may seem obvious, but reminding ourselves that #change is not only a natural but an essential force of growth can make every day, every week, every month more meaningful and mindful.