Finding
Balance
“In
the way, nothing is personal. You are merely an instrument in the
hands of the forces, participating in the harmony of balance. You
must reach the point where your whole interest lies in the balance
and not in any personal preference for how things should be. It's
that way with all of life. The more you can work with balance, the
more you can just sail through life.”
Michael
A. Singer (The Untethered Soul)
Michael
Singer uses a sailing metaphor for the way one lives within the Tao.
I, myself, am not a sailor, but have been sailing with others many
times. Skill is required in understanding the position of the sail in
relation to wind direction, the tautness of the ropes and the balance
of weight inside the boat. I remember sailing on the ocean once with
my former husband when the wind was very strong; one side of the boat
dipped low in the water, and we hung off the opposite side to keep
from tipping over. He loved that speed, and the perilous dance of
keeping the sail just so. He found hanging above the freezing depths
of the northern Atlantic to be exhilarating. I was never so glad to
see dry land in my life. It's all about balance, he'd say, but I
remembered another time when the ropes became tangled and the boat
turned over and all its parts and occupants spent time in that cold,
choppy water. I prefer the relative security of terra firma.
The
point is that each of us has a balance point, and that point is
dynamic rather than static; we must adjust when the circumstances
change. When we discover how to balance, the wind can blow and the
sea churn, and we will be still and secure in the eye of it. Some
days, we find our balance and live from it, and some days, our ropes
get tangled, our sail comes down, and we take a dip in the deep.
Finding and keeping balance requires work; we have to try and
fail, and try and fail many times, before we get the hang of it. We
have no control over the wind and the sea, but we can learn to hold
our center in the midst of the chop. Practice, dear ones, practice!
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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