Last night we went to a movie together, and afterward decided that what we liked the most about it was the special effects. Looking around us at the flat, uninspired faces of the departing moviegoing crowd, it seemed like we were not alone.
As we slept that night, visions of the movie continued to play in our consciousness, and it was difficult to get to sleep. And there came a realization that it is the mind’s desire to be entertained, to space out before bright lights and thunderous sounds and emotional intrigue. All that time, effort and money had been spent to entertain the mind, while the consciousness went along for the ride.
One of the most insidious enemies of spiritual practice is boredom. Boredom counts the minutes, forgets the past, and dreads the coming hour. It saps our passion and invites us to retaliate by finding inspiration. This is just another game of duality.
Don’t get me wrong. Reading a book, listening to music, or going to a certain teacher’s yoga class in order to kick start our personal mojo is a great thing, and we need it. But some of us do crazy things in order to find inspiration, like move across the world, leave a lover, or quit a job. All of us know someone (maybe ourselves!) who seems to always search and never find.
The search for inspiration usually leads us to sever ties or form new ones, to abandon or join, or both at once. It could be that we have found something wonderful in our lives, like the first yoga class that moved our souls to practice at home, or the first meditation in which we found peace, or the first dharma talk that summed up our most personal pain. These first experiences of inner awakening are priceless, and we would do most anything to re-experience them, especially when boredom pecks away at our practice.
But practice means commitment, and we must understand that commitment will sooner or later bring us face to face with the boredom-inspiration duality. Will we transcend this maya? Or will we backtrack, abandon our practice, and search for a new way to remember that initial spark that started us on our path in the first place?
It’s important to keep in mind that our attempts to remember this spark should give us forward momentum in our ability to commit, rather than drive us to abandon and join, repeat and forget, over and over. As yogis we will necessarily tread the fine line between breakthrough and backtrack, and be deceived by our feelings as each approaches.
There may be nothing harder for us than finding that our meditative center has moved somewhere else, and for us to feel as if we don’t know how to find it again. But in these moments of uninspiration, boredom and even anxiety we can become again the new student we were, without abandoning, without joining, without searching. Don’t forget that when we commit to using yoga to connect to our Source, the Source commits to us as well. Be still, feel what you are feeling, and wait for the creation to serve your prayers.
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