Time to Turn Around + Change Direction
“ Vitarka bhadane pratipaksha bhavanum.
When disturbed by disturbing thoughts, think of the opposite.”
Pratipaksha bhavanam = cultivating the opposite or turning around/ changing direction
One thing yoga teaches us is that life is very fluid and not fixed. Nothing is set in stone. It is malleable- like Play-doh, you can shape and reshape it endlessly.
Under normal circumstances, we believe that aspects of our lives are much more solid, more permanent, fixed, unchanging than they really are. Did it ever occur to most of us that one day we wouldn’t be commuting to an office? That we would no longer be able to walk down the street and sit at a restaurant? That we couldn’t go to a sweaty yoga class and practice as a group?
But in the face of our current circumstances, we’ve all had this huge wake up call that things can and DO change. Dramatically. In ways we thought weren’t possible. At a moment’s notice. If this could happen, ANYTHING could happen next… who knows…??
In chapter 2 of the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali tells us that when we are disturbed by ‘disturbing thoughts’ to cultivate the opposite. Or as one of my teachers says, if you think you’re going in the wrong direction, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, TURN AROUND. Go the opposite direction.
If you’re walking down the NYC streets and realize you’re walking up streets when you were meant to go down, you simply turn around. Like that, we can always change our direction and our trajectory. It’s never ‘too late’. The options and opportunities are as vast and endless as our consciousness.
So this is our wakeup call.
We have all looked (leaders and individuals) rather helplessly at the climate situation and our ‘inability’ to cut emissions dramatically, and yet in the blink of an eye- look around, emissions WERE cut dramatically due to this event. It is possible- it always was. Just like that, we CAN change the norm of entrapping and eating animals, which is the origin point of human disease. We can even change our political situation- our healthcare system. It is all possible. We all need to just turn around, change direction. Go the opposite way. Try something new. It is time. This is our wakeup call.