The Virtue of Flexibility - 04.06.10

“One of the differences between ego-mind and Sat Mind, is that ego-mind tends to be rigid whereas Sat Mind is flexible,” maintains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “The tree that bends in the wind will survive whereas the rigid structure will collapse.” And because “we’re living in a time of radical uncertainty, our flexibility has to become radical.” And therefore we can no longer depend on plans stored away in the back of our minds for riches, vacations—any fantasies that we have about the future or any system that we have built our lives upon—but we must be able to adapt to anything that our environment throws at us. Our movement must not be “based on some plan that was developed in the past,” but rather “on an accurate assessment—and an intuitive knowing of what is the right way to proceed in any given moment—that serves the whole, and is no longer based on egocentricity or on trying to achieve some very fixed point, but to be able to flower around the obstacles, to flow around the rocks as water does in a stream, and to always be able to keep the ultimate compass of true north present, but know that there are many ways for the river to wind to the sea and not to be stuck in a single channel.” Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, April 6, 2010.