The Value of Action
Dear friends,
It is easy for some folks who are spiritually inclined to think that "meek and mild" is the way to go. That a lowered voice, slightly bowed head, and slow movements indicate great spirituality. Someone once said to my Teacher, "Several people are mad at me." His shocking reply was, "Good! It shows you are doing something!” Vivekananda said it is better to steal than lay around doing nothing. At least energy can be redirected through learning, but it is hard to create energy from nothing. Yogananda had so much energy that when he wanted to manifest it you felt the Earth would shake.
The reply to the fellow mentioned above was obviously individually tailored, but it raises a good point. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says at one point, "I am never without action." He did not mean he was always running around in circles! The idea is that even inaction is a form of acting because you are deciding to do nothing.
We cannot escape karma by not doing anything. In fact it is by doing that we learn. One of the great myths on this planet is that by doing less, and thus "saving" time and energy, we somehow advantage ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you are in the slightest down mood, go out for a brief run or brisk walk and you will feel better at the end, not worse. Acting with a positive attitude and great energy helps us stop focusing on our regrets, fears, how we have been slighted, what went wrong, and the host of plagues our own mind visits upon us.
Too, it is by acting that we can better feel what Spirit wants of us. By moving forward we can feel the rightness, or wrongness, of something, like the children's game of hot and cold. It would be easy to think, "Well, I want to learn to ride a bicycle, and clearly riding is harder than sitting on it, so I will start by just sitting motionlessly on it and balancing." Good luck with that! It is the motion itself that enables the learning to take place, and for the ability to balance to be acquired. At a certain point, doing something—anything—short of complete madness is better than the paralysis of indecision and doing nothing. Moving energy has its own intelligence that cannot be felt without action. Move a few inches in the direction that feels right and see how things feel from that new slightly-advanced position.
May we each have the courage to act both boldly but with great sensitivity so we may feel whether we are moving in the right direction at all times. Spirit speaks to us through action and energy.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West