I’m glad you like the Wisdom. I did a workshop with Cope at Kripalu last winter, and loved it.

On the thought by Swami Kripalu, I’ve come to think of difficult times as preludes to transformations. Sounds weird, but I kind of look forward to them now. (I told my yoga students today that they should be grateful for experiences of pain or fear that don’t entail real threats to life or health (think bee stings or the fear of falling out of Crow pose) because they allow us to practice mindfulness and equanimity for the times in life when we need them most.

In the entire world, there is not one human being who is free from pain. Even in favorable conditions, a person encounters struggle. The external form of struggle appears to be cruel. Some describe it as a horrible demon, but its nature is not malicious. In fact, it is proper to welcome struggle, for its arrival is always auspicious. Struggle keeps us from growing sluggish. It changes an animal into an ideal person. It transforms an ordinary human into a spiritually awake person respected by the world…It is alright if we cannot receive struggle with love, but struggle should never be discarded. To discard struggle is to discard God’s grace.

A Poem

You cannot stay on the summit forever -
You have to come down again.
So why bother in the first place? Just this.

What is above knows what is below -
But what is below does not know what is above
One climb, one sees-
One descends and sees no longer
But one has seen!

There is an art of conducting one’s self in
The lower regions by the memory of
What one saw higher up.
When one can no longer see,
One does at least still know.

-Rene Daumal (1908-1944)

And as sattva wrote and posted here and I wrote and posted here, that was a truly remarkable afternoon.

Slightly more on point with the topic, we’re changing every minute of every day. Even our attachments change from moment to moment, year to year, decade to decade. The moments when we intersect completely — letting down guards, setting aside formulations and conceptions, discarding labels and masks — those are the times that we allow ourselves to become a dance of energy and matter and awareness and Quiet. I ran across this during my readings today:

Just as the oceans have but one taste, the taste of salt, so do all the teachings of the path of the dharma have but one taste, the taste of liberation.
–Siddhārtha Gautama

Even though I do not practice yoga, we do share a connection through Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy and it’s SO nice to have people who understand where I’m coming from and have been on the same journey at one point or another…or still are.

I have finally found a friend here locally, which I met through Post-Mormon. He is like a twin. We share so many things in common it’s just spooky, and we have the same spiritual interests, and our families get along great.

I too wonder if the dust will ever settle, but at the same time, the dust keeps me motivated at the moment, so for that I am grateful.