The paradox in spirituality

 

There should be none you say, I promise you there is immense paradox in spirituality. A little bit of back story may be of help here, I was a creature of habit. Painfully so but that is exactly what allowed me to achieve seemingly supernatural feats. For years I successfully juggled a full time job, housekeeping, children and the Uber-like service we offer them as mothers, being a full time wife and somewhere in between there obtaining a post-graduate degree. Well I was successful in as far as the external world was viewing my “have it all together, do it all by myself” thing. My success came at a very high cost to myself. 

One day or what seemed like one day, the beautiful house of cards came crashing down around my pretty ears. I was lost, did not know who I was or what I was meant to do. Never mind that I went from full energizer bunny to “I cannot get out of bed for all the money in the world”. Thank the Great Intelligence for a supportive spouse. I was way out of my depth and now he had no idea what to do because I was the one who always had the answers. Long story short I came out of it on the other end literally cut loose, nothing to tether myself to. That was the single most frightening episode of my life! All the junk that I had to let go of in between was nothing compared to the feeling that I did not know “who” I truly was.

Time elapsed as it always does and slowly I started to come to terms with what had happened to me in the most dramatic of ways. Of course a part of me held on to the fact that I was very habitual and functioned extremely well within clearly set parameters, there where none to be found in this brave new world. Sleep requirements went from the usually prescribed 8 hours to I needed no less than 12 hours of sleep per day. Alas! if that quota wasn’t met I would be a veritable train-wreck till the body received what it demanded. Never in my entire life had I slept on my stomach, it was singularly the most uncomfortable position I could be in. I would feel starved of air and eventually become lightheaded and cross-eyed. Remember those 12 hours of sleep? I was spread flat on my stomach the entire time. Sleep with the lights on? Oh dear Lord! There was no way that could ever happen, well guess what? A good portion of those 12 hours, the light would be on, husband would walk into the room to find me dead to the world until whatever systems were rearranging themselves were done for the day.

Soon enough with copious amounts of research, I searched for and fell back onto the tried and true….routine. I found no shortage of gurus/spiritual teachers that advocated a routine of some sort and stuck to it for a while. The guffaw from the universe must have been heard light years away. I went through attempting to do yoga and meditation on a daily basis, that soon became tiresome. Suddenly I cannot stand routine, do you see the paradox? No? Let me show you from my perspective. Mainstream spirituality in one form or another is all about routine, most exhort one to make time on a daily basis for spiritual practices like yoga and meditation. There were two forces that I could feel at war within me, one who wanted to embrace routine and a small baby that was having none of it. Interestingly the latter turned out to be stronger than I could have thought possible. 

While this may sound like a long and pointless story there is some lesson in there. We are all on a spiritual journey whether  conscious of it or not. When you do become conscious of an inexplicable change in you learn from others but do not latch onto their teachings. There is no one size fits all approach to spirituality. Explore, make your own prayers, incantations, whatever floats your boat. Find that which speaks to you and nurture it with utmost gentleness. The reward is living in flow with yourself first and nature as a whole. 

Side note: I do practice yoga and meditation, just not on a set schedule or in a set manner. Whatever floats my boat at that particular moment in time is what I will go with.