Going With the Flow
12/06/07 21:11
I spent 4 beautiful weeks in Hawaii, and utterly enjoyed the weather, people, the beach, and most of all, the ocean. It is such a sattvic place, where you can literally feel the breath of god rise and fall with the ocean waves. My first few days in Hawaii were spent in Maui, and I had the good fortune of meeting good friends who enjoyed snorkeling.
The first time I went snorkeling, I ran into a gigantic sea turtle - the reptile was at least as long as I was, and it looked as if it was flying through the water. The look in it's eyes was one of fearlessness and compassion as it swam no less than 3 feet away from me. I followed it as it bobbed up and down in the water, catching a breath and then sinking back into the deep blue.
The next day my friend Mark and I went snorkelling again at another location. We saw so many colorful fish, and swam for a long distance along the beach. With flippers on, it is so easy to go fast, and we cruised along with the current at a pretty fast clip. When we decided to turn back to head the other way...it was nearly impossible.
The current kept sweeping us backward and sideways into the beach. No matter how hard I churned my legs, I could not gain any headway back to where we came from...and I had a sudden realization. I was expending so much energy fighting the waters, and I came to the conclusion that there was no way I was going to win against the ocean.
I decided that instead of fighting, I would let the ocean carry me back to shore, and I walked back to the beach towel, laid on the sand, and closed my eyes in gratitude. It was so much easier to go with the currents of the ocean, than to fight against them. How much time do you spend, expending an enormous amount of energy fighting against life, when in the end, it's going to lead you where you are supposed to go anyway? Imagine if you focused your energy on the messages and direction that life was sending you, as opposed to kicking and sucking in salt water, convinced you were meant to go the other way. We can learn from the sattvic sea turtle who flies through the ocean with ease, and know that life is going to take us exactly where we need to go.