Notes on 2020
This time of year is always filled with lots of looking back and introspection. It's also become a tradition to bash and trash the previous year. Even before this wild year, you'd often hear folks saying or posting things like "2019 was garbage" or "Let's forget about how terrible 2016 was". Now we've obviously heard more of that due to all that has occurred in 2020. But it is important to recognize that this is nothing new. 2020 has absolutely been a demanding year for all of us; individually and collectively. No one has been exempt from challenges, changes, pain, discomfort, and tragedy. That all must be acknowledged and processed.
Yet there is something else that must be acknowledged: growth.
According to the Vedic Worldview, there is only one that is ever happening and that is progressive change. Evolution. Everything going on-in any place and at any time-is growing and progressing. It's becoming better. For many of us, that can be hard to see right now. It can be extra challenging when we respond to any event with the question "Why is this happening to me?" or "Why is this happening to us?"
What if we switched it to "Why is this happening FOR me?"
Every moment, every experience, is an opportunity for us to grow...to be better. The world is constantly offering us the opportunity to expand and change. It's simply a question of whether or not we take the hint. Sooner or later, growth is going to occur. Are we perceptive enough to take the hint the first time? No one is exempt from change. No one is exempt from growth. If we don't grow by our own choosing, then it will be enforced. And that is where we are now: enforced growth and change on a collective level. It is not a punishment. It is not random chaos. It does not have to be horrid. And it certainly does not need to be berated. If we can see what is actually going on and adjust our attitudes toward it, then we can move through these demanding times with much more grace, frictionlessness, and productivity.
Long before 2020, people have hungered for change. We have wanted a new job. We have followed fads. We have craved this person out of office and that person in office. We have wanted this person in our lives and that person out of it. People want change. They want it all to be better, yet they are addressing the outermost symptoms of the issue and ignoring the innermost source. It's like dealing with a tree that hasn't been watered. The leaves are brown and withered and what do most folks in our society do? They grab some green paint and painstakingly paint each leaf green. The tree may look better, but nothing has truly been treated. We have to nourish the source. Water the roots and, as a result of that nourishment, the outermost expression will be healed.
Change is an inside job. Change is a grassroots effort. You want the world to change? Change how you see the world. Change how you operate. Change how you deal with demands. Change how you respond. That is why we meditate. It is our twice-daily practice of nourishing our source. Watering our roots by de-exciting, removing stress, and replenishing our nervous system.
So, rather than spending this time of year looking back and trashing what happened and hoping for change in some far off place and time, let's acknowledge the growth that has come from all of the challenges and discomfort. Let's remember that there is no future. The closest thing we have to "future" is the eternal continuum of the present. The present is the future in the making. What you are doing right now dictates what will happen. If our only aim is longing for things to go completely back to "normal", we are inviting more enforced change and interruption. We must take the hint and adjust accordingly.
Let's relinquish what has been let go, admire and reflect on what has been maintained, and marvel at what is being created anew.
And after all of these words I've written, the most radical and transformative thing you can do is sit down, close your eyes, and not do much. That’s how we change the world.
Let's get to it.