I hear crickets chirping on my blog – and I feel guilty. It’s been a hard year. 2015 started out ok, then it was like a sucker punch to the gut. It’s like I just could not keep up. I could not win. I kept going the only way I knew how. I decided to focus on teaching my classes and nurturing my soul. Then when I thought it could not get worse my doctor who I love got a stroke, I got mystery stomach illness, I nearly died from a CT scan and I got Zika.
I had more days where I did not make it out of bed. I really began to question my life choices. Then a few days ago in a pain induced delirium I started remembering the story of a Hindu deity that became a pig. I searched until I found the story in The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda:
At one time Indra, the king of the gods, was forced to descend from his high position and take the body of a pig. Pigs, as you know, live in mud. So Indra got into the mire, rolled around and eventually found a female pig with whom he mated. The outcome of their love was a number of young piglets. They were all very happy.
But the gods in heaven, seeing the plight of their king, were horrified. When the gods could no longer tolerate it, they came down and said, “You are Indra, our king. What are you doing here? We are ashamed of your present habits.” Indra replied, “Who says I am unhappy like this? You live up there and say I don’t have a happy life here. What fools you are. You should become pigs. Then you’d really appreciate the joy of it. Come on. Don’t waste another minute. Get into pigs’ bodies. Then you’ll see how wonderful it is.”
“Sir,” the devas (gods) said, “we can’t let you go on like this. You must come out.” “Don’t disturb me,” Indra replied. “I have to take care of my young ones. They are waiting for me to play with them.” The devas went wild. “All right,” they decided. “Since he’s so attached to his children, we’ll have to take them all away.” One after another they killed the piglets. Indra began crying and wailing. “What are you doing?” When he calmed down, he went to the shepig and clung to her, saying, “All right. I’ll just have more babies.”
But the devas were adamant. They pulled the she-pig from Indra and killed her. When Indra continued to moan and cry, they decided to get rid of his body as well. As soon as they pierced open his pig body, Indra’s soul came out and looked in amazement at the dead body on the ground. “Not only were you in that body, sir, but you wanted to stay there.” “I don’t want any more of this,” Indra said. “Come. Let’s go back.”
That is how nature works. As long as we enjoy experiencing nature, no matter what those who understand the truth tell us, we will answer, “Oh, you just don’t know how to enjoy the world. You don’t have enough education, enough money, enough power. You people come from your poor country and tell us nonsense. You want us to become beggars also. Get out. We want to enjoy all our luxuries.” And because the enlightened can’t tear out your pig’s body, rip up your checkbooks and finish up your bank balance, they say, “We’ll wait. One day you’ll learn your lesson.” When all the entanglements tie you down, when you see you have no room to move about any longer, then you will realize the truth of their words.
Then I forgave myself. I forgave all the mistakes I made. I forgave all the times I forgot my brilliance and rolled around in the mud. I allowed myself to just be. My glory may be around the corner but for now I’m going to listen to the messages that the universe keeps sending to me.
In the meantime I’ve been working hard: developing new programs, updating my website, and deciding what direction I want my business and my life to go in.
I will post later this week with more details and I will try to post at least twice a month; but in case I don’t, please forgive me and know that I love you and I’m thinking about you.
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