The book by Bessel van der Kolk, "The Body Keeps the Score", is wonderful. Gripping and a little difficult at times because it is about traumatic experiences and how people heal from them. The reader gets a clearer and clearer picture of the process of stashing away something that is too horrible or frightening to bear and then slowly digesting the experience. Many deep traumas come from childhood experience, battle experience in war or domestic violence but being the victim of crime or a bad car accident can affect the mind, feelings and body, too.
Several times in the book, the author mentions "Yoga and the Quest for the True Self" by Stephen Cope. I respect the author enough that I wanted to follow up on the Cope book but it is not available in Kindle, my main source for books since they are delivered immediately and take no space, besides being quite a bit cheaper. I realize my local libraries loan books for free but I like having my own copy and I like the convenience of highlighting important parts and sharing the highlights with followers on Twitter. I have even gotten to the point of making use of both audio and print versions of a book. The audio gives voice tone and tells things that print doesn't but sometimes a name needs to be spelled out to make further research possible.
I ordered a used copy of the Cope book and read it on our recent trip. In some ways, it seems to be the typical story of a lost soul, pining for answers and understanding of both inner identity and dealing with life's issues. Cope worked at Kripalu, a famous yoga center in western Massachusetts for quite a while. He tells the story of a man who was the main resident guru during that time. This man sought higher levels of yogic achievement, to the extent of being so focused on his practice that he forgot to eat and needed constant care from others. After a long period of working and teaching yoga, Cope got the idea that "this whole thing is probably much simpler than we make it."
He goes on to say that he found he was tired of practicing, tired of meditating, tired of eating right.
Such a reaction is fine, it seems to me. We can search for peak experiences and we get peak experiences, often when we don't expect them. Discipline and application are fine and necessary but there will be periods when we have to just sit and be where we are, not especially enlightened, not especially charmed or excited, just breathing. We can't help that we are built for excitement seeking, for striving, for achieving. But the times when we tire out, when we don't want another delicious bite or any further thrill, those are fine times to notice that sight, and touch, and balance and friends and many other ordinary, everyday things are, in fact, marvels.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
