The Lazy Yogi

Many lives are lived on a moment to moment basis revolving around survival. You see it today in third world countries or the most impoverished stratum of a society. 

Free time is a luxury, a moment’s rest can be a luxury. If you go back thousands of years, perhaps around the time of the agricultural revolution, you will see that humanity had to focus on survival. Food and protection, procreation and parenting, humanity was little more than the human animal. 

Therefore, ask yourself this: How much had to happen for an individual to have the privilege of sitting for a meditation? How much evolution, how much revolution, how much invention, discovery, philosophy, fate, experimentation, understanding, had to happen?

When you come out of meditation, don’t just jump back into the world. Take a few moments and breathe as you open your eyes. Extend your thanks and appreciation to your ancestors, to your teachers, to the universe, for providing and leading you to the pinnacle activity of existence. 

What are the odds that a human in modern society turns away from the endlessly available diversions to look inward and learn what exactly it is that they are diverting?

When you can appreciate the opportunity to meditate and understand what a blessing it is on behalf of the cosmos, it transforms the activity into a prayer of its own. It isn’t a chore, a rejection of the ego, a wriggling away from our mortal bonds. It is a rejoicing of how far we have come to be able to begin to recognize what we really are. 

When you feel gratitude, it keeps things in perspective. 

Namaste, sangha.