Can We Trust the Mystery of Life?

Snap — the sound of bone breaking on cement is a sound I will not soon forget.

We sat through an agonizing five minutes waiting for the ambulance to arrive while the stranger who fell on the curb getting on his bike - and broke his fall with his forearm on cement - sat, trying to breathe through the pain.

I was watching my three year old daughter (and helping her use the potty we keep in our car) while my husband was on the phone with 911 and tapping his body to offer some kind of relief for the situation.

In between explaining to my daughter what was happening, I was in full-on prayer mode calling in all the angelic support I could for the situation.

Accidents like this get me thinking about astrological influences (I did confirm with my astrologer that there was intense planetary war energy between Saturn and Neptune that night—which also happened to be when an earthquake hit off the coast of Russia and Hawaii, prompting tsunami warnings along the West Coast).

Injuries like this also get me thinking about karma - was this moment destined? Was It going to happen one way or another? And were we supposed to be there to help? Or was it all just chance?

The next day my dear friend of eleven years was at the emergency room for a condition that has led her to be unable to walk for many, many months.

I remember just months ago encouraging her to focus on the gratitude of being able to paint, even as so much was falling apart. Not too long after, vertigo and other symptoms set in, making it hard for her eyes to focus on tasks like reading or painting.

In her situation, we still don’t know why these symptoms are happening, despite many tests, and all we can do is be humbled by the mystery.

Which makes me think of another friend, who lost her husband last Fall to cancer. She is now raising a baby and two year old without him (with the help of family thankfully).

Or the yoga teacher I know who needs to be on four months of bed rest after having a surgery to keep her pregnancy going when her baby started to come at 20 weeks. She now sees her husband and son on the weekends and only has 10 minutes a day to be outside.

While I sit reflecting on these situations, I am also called into gratitude.

Gratitude to not have a broken arm.

Gratitude to be able to walk read, paint, sit outside as I please.

Gratitude to be raising a daughter alongside the physical presence of my husband.

And amidst it all, including a 3 day fever that cycled through my family, I came across this piece of wisdom from the spiritual study lessons I am reading from Yogananda, (the author of Autobiography of a Yogi):

“If we look at life impersonally, we find it to be wonderful. We see it as a show; every day a different moving picture. We would not like to see the same film over and over again; it would be pointlessly monotonous.

If life did not have its ups and downs, its victories and hard knocks, it would hardly be worthwhile. Only do not take it too seriously, for then it becomes extremely miserable.

As the Gita counsels: If you want to attain the unchangeable, imperturbable state of Spirit, be thou always of even mind…"O Arjuna....The relativities of existence have been overcome, even here in this world, by those of fixed equal-mindedness. Thereby are they enthroned in Spirit —verily, the taintless, the perfectly balanced Spirit."

…This world is but a stage on which you play your parts under the guidance of the Divine Director. Play them well, whether they are tragic or comic, always remembering that your real nature is eternal bliss — nothing less.

The one thing that will never leave you, once you transcend the four changeable mental states, is the joy of your soul.”

(This was a lesson about the four changeable mental states which are described as sorrow, false happiness, indifference and a deceptive, passive peace that claims the ego for brief intervals, whenever it manages to shake off the other three.)

I think it’s impossible to know exactly why things happen the way they do —

Is it karma? Is it fate?

We just don’t know.

After asking my friend how her spiritual beliefs have changed after her husband passed she replied, “I am much more surrendered to the mystery.”

Because finding the meaning of why hard things happen doesn’t necessarily make them better in any way.

We may never understand why certain things happen. Sometimes searching for meaning helps—and sometimes it just doesn’t.

But maybe we can continue to meet life with surrender, an openness to the mystery. A willingness to be completely humbled. And surprised.

And in all of it, may we find some equanimity, an ability to flow with life, and some gratitude for what we have in the moment…

With love,
Meredith

Seeking spiritual community, guidance and support this year? I recently opened enrollment for the year-long program I lead for women, The Way of the Priestess. Sign up for the program guide for all the details.