After a nice dinner out tonight, and a lazy walk home down lamp lit Main Street in Vineyard Haven, I settled in for Day 2 of the 21 Day Meditation Challenge.
And, it’s a good thing I meditated today — because I spent half the afternoon vexing Verizon about my bill. The one they sent me because I canceled my service. “Early Termination Charge” they call it. I would call it an F*ing something, but it’s not Friday yet. Just WHO ARE YOU, Verizon? I would like to know.
So would davidji.
Today’s meditation centered around the question: “who am I?”
As my spirit rose and my meditation mind succumbed to the question “Who am I?” — I found many answers, tons of answers coming to me: creator, worker, builder, writer, blogger, sister, daughter, girlfriend, divorcee, cousin, friend, smashing success, total disaster, picture of health, arachnophobe, cancer survivor, marathon runner, couch potato, yogi, sun worshiper, scaredy-cat, brave-heart, prompt, late, over-thinker, spontaneous.
In that moment, where my list of answers ran out before me like a scroll on long winding paper, I realized exactly what I am: everything in between.
I was once an athlete. I was once very, very ill.
I had a fairy-tale engagement in the streets of Paris. I had the world’s worst divorce in the courts of Boston.
I led the team. I rode the bench.
I won all the awards. I lost everything.
I created a company out of a dream. I watched my company fizzle in the dust.
I experienced the love of the most amazing mother. I lost my mother too young, too soon.
I was given a second chance to live. I have a second chance at love.
I have been in the ups, downs, ins and outs and EVERYTHING in between.
It makes me sensitive and understanding. Sometimes short tempered and opinionated. Occasionally frenetic, but most generally patient.
I have many layers. And, they don’t all look the same, or even match like polka dots and plaid. According to davidji, this is normal.
In the ninth century, the Vedic sage Adi Shankara was also asking this question, and he came up with an elegant description of the three primary layers of life that mask our essential spiritual nature: 1.) the physical realm, encompassing our environment, our energetic body, and our physical body; 2.) the subtle realm containing our mind, intellect, and ego; and 3.) the causal realm, which includes our personal soul, our collective soul, and our spirit.
Sounds like head, heart, body and soul to me.
It’s a good question:
Who am I?
Here’s one even more interesting:
Who are you?
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Tags: 21 Day Meditation Challenge, Chopra Center, davidji, who am I
