I’ve spent a considerable portion of my life asking the question “what’s the point?”
Often I am triggered to ask this sort of question when I don’t understand a predicament I am facing. In my despair, I’ve gone so far as to ask “what’s the point of even living?”
They say it never hurts to ask a question, but to question one’s own being? Ouch… it’s rough.
When I ask “what’s the point” I have certainly lost track of my ‘why.’ Without a why, the mind spins endlessly.
The point is an aim, a goal, a device to focus the disparate energies of life.
This is where Yoga helps; the ancient framework and applied practices assist us to bind one’s energies into a single point, the bindu, a place where instead of rambling on, the mind dissolves.
What is the Yogic point? To dissolve any notion of separateness from the one unified plane of consciousness (called the Paramatma or Supreme Soul.)
What causes the mind to be out of whack and to forget this ‘point?’
According to the Yoga, the experiences we endure leave deep imprints in our ‘mind stuff’ or chitta. Like bugs on the windscreen, the remnants of these impacts and their gooey remains obscure our vision.
The mind, in its pure state, is clear, empty, just like polished glass. The presence of doubt, rumination and desire indicate a clouded mind.
And with cloudy vision, we bumble on. The ‘point’ is now lost. The sorts of decisions we can make from this wounded place hurt us, and others around us; not by malice, but by ignorance.
Nihilists argue there is no point, the Yogin’s suggest otherwise.
Fuelled by unconscious drives and uncertainties, without a point we run towards pleasure, and away from pain, in the belief that an abundance of one and an absence of the other will make us what… happy?
What are the pleasures that drive you? Do you dare admit to yourself what you are running from?
Has the attainment of any desire ever truly fulfilled your Soul?
Yoga says the Soul has a point – reunification with the Ultimate. The mind and body are our vehicle for the journey back home, but we pay a hefty price for the use of their services.
When our direction of travel is towards life, not towards the beyond, our mind and body kid us into believing that sensory, physical or mental gratification will make us feel content.
We want the burger. We order the burger. We eat the burger. And again we get hungry.
After we get a flash of sensory pleasure, (if we haven’t already spoiled it by judging ourselves for enjoying the burger) we are left wanting.., more.
The next hit. The next desire. Maybe not a burger immediately, but what about tomorrow? And so again, we chase – the next experience, the next meal, perhaps the next award or accolade or the next episode on Netflix.
Eventually, all of this chasing of desires, like a kid playing chasey, tires us out.
From deep fatigue, that question again… “what’s the bloody point?”
Part of a Yoga practice is reminding ourselves of that simple point. We begin any traditional practice with invocations and prayers, not to make an homage to some imaginary spirit, but to remind ourselves of the things we need to remember.
The mind loves novelty and change, which drives pointless desire. The best medicine, the antidote, is repetition.
Reminded of ‘the point,’ we continue on with our practice; be it more physical and energetic, like Hatha Yoga, or meditative and devotional.
Though it may feel like trudgery (and many days, boy does it), habitual practice keeps the point in focus.
I know my nature, at some point I will eventually succumb to the desires of my mind and get lost. Equally sure though, is my faith that I will again find the point – that my return to the Soul is as certain as the fleeting moments of despair or helplessness.
How so?
I’ve made the meditation and the Yoga a pretty key part of my life. For me, they are more than a ‘wellbeing’ practice. They aren’t a toy to play with but a mode of worship; an instrument to sing the praise of the divine. Over a sustained period of application, they have taken on a gravity.
If treated as exercise, they become too light to ground you when you need it, and not bright enough to illuminate the dark chapters.
This is ‘the point’ of a Yoga practice – to offer oneself into God / the Beyond / the Ultimate, and to then merge, to unite with that supreme reality.
In truth, it is a reality we were never divided from, save for the conjurings of our pesky mind.
One of the insidious tricks of the mind is to keep itself eternally busy. It does this by finding a destination away from this present moment in which it hypothesises it will be happy.
The mind, as wonderful as it is, is a right PITA.
If it doesn’t get what it wants, it won’t be happy. If it gets what it wants, it still won’t be happy as it will now want… more.
The only answer to this trap?
Cease the chasing. Build a habit of letting go. Give time to do nothing.
Chasing something, be it material or spiritual, keeps us stuck in an endless cycle.
Meditation is the antithesis; it is the absence of doing.
When we give up the game… through you guessed it, a simple moment of Surrender, who and what you are is revealed to you by the immensity of the cosmos before your eyes.
Sit for long enough and you will realise that you were, you are, and always will be… the point!
If you want to remain free, point to the chase, don’t chase the point ie see the mind, don’t be the mind.
