Category: Yoga Philosophy

Is Today Being Sacraficed for Tomorrow

I heard a 51-year-old man elaborate on this topic recently.  He had just retired from a VERY successful career as a fashion executive.  He owns two homes in Italy.  He has a loving wife (he’s straight, I promise.  I met his lovely wife).  They have traveled the world and can buy almost anything they want.   He said, “If I had known then, what I know now, I would have quit years ago.”

Careers never give back, they only take from you.  Sure, they give you money, but at what price do you pay for this income?  Time, relationships, health?  If you dedicate almost every waking hour of your life today is dedicated to your career, today gets sacrificed for tomorrow.

Today is often spent for planning tomorrow, or worrying about yesterday (or last month, or last year).  Today seems to wiz by us a warp speed.  We don’t usually slow down long enough to have a look around and enjoy today.  Sure, planning for tomorrow sounds wise and responsible.  But here’s the catch… tomorrow never comes.  When tomorrow does come, its today and today always gets sacraficed for tomorrow.  Truly a vicious cycle.

And what if tomorrow comes and you get hit by a bus.  Are there things you want to experience before you die?  What if you work yourself into the ground, and you die on the first day of your retirement?  What then?

Today.  Slow down, look around and enjoy this moment in time.

Lotus Flowers

Sure, I always thought they were pretty, but I recently learned the symbolic nature of the lotus flower:

The lotus flower represents the struggle of life at its most basic form.  It starts as a small flower down at the bottom of a pond in the mud and muck. It slowly grows up towards the waters surface continually moving towards the light. Once it comes to the surface it blossoms into a beautiful flower.

As the lotus flower grows up from the mud into a object of great beauty, people also grow and change into something more beautiful.  Like the flower they have been at the bottom in the muddy, yucky dirty bottom of the pond but have risen above this to display a life of beauty.

The lotus flower is often seen as a symbol for awakening to the spiritual reality of life and can also represent a hard time that has been overcome.

The Snowglobe Theory

I recently started a daily meditation practice.  Five minutes a day, 30 days in a row.  So far so good.  The image that makes the most sense to me is this: Daily life is like carrying a snow globe around with you 24/7.  It shakes all day and the snow is in a state of constant movement.  When I take time to meditate daily, it gives my thoughts- which are normally swirling all around me chaotically– a chance to slow down, settle to the bottom of the snow globe and relax.  What is left after this happens is a profound feeling of stillness and calm.  I went out and purchased this Buddha snow globe.  This metaphor speaks to me.