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May 4, 2007

What the Flu Taught Me

Nobody wants to be sick, but I’ve just discovered that every once in a while, when it happens, succumbing to illness can prove invaluable. The busier you are, the more useful it is. For regrouping, most everyone would prefer to go on vacation, but I’ve found that illness can be a kind of vacation, if I’m willing to vacate my usual expectations and life demands. Like many people, I always have so much to do: commitments, preparations, projects, deadlines. Relief that one project is over is followed immediately by an anxiety to get the next and get to it. No time to be sick, naturally. But I got it. The flu. I would have worked my way right through the fever had I been able, but another plan was in store, and that was to go to bed and stay there, hog-tied. So in the middle of the most beautiful weather in seasons, when I would have loved to be out romping with the dogs and enjoying the tulips and wisteria -- instead, I lay in my tiny ship-captain’s room with its hull-like beams and cubbies in the wall. I stared at the golden light upon my fractional river view, watched a merry boat pass, and mentally protested. What a waste of time! What a headache! I tried to read. I tried to watch a movie. I found myself reading the Interpol warnings over and over. I tried to write and draw. They elicited crankiness. I tried to make yet more lists of everything in every category I had to take care of, and by when. But all I could do was close my eyes and be with this flu. I felt like a hobbled calf. And hog-tied. And blue. Everything hurt, even my eyes.

When I tired of my futile objections and Moebius-like conversations, I decided to replace them with simple observation. It wasn’t so hard to do, being roped down and held this way. It probably took all 30 years of my involvement with yoga to remember to stop thinking. I pretended at first that I wasn't me. I was a being breathing in a bed. I gave up my identification with everything I call myself and got past my thoughts. It was more of an adjustment than a decision, rather like squeezing, in a blink, through a gate. Where to? To an awareness of nothing, or something--a surrendering to an awareness of being aware. Physical discomfort didn’t bother me much. Matter didn't matter. The light all around made me smile. I was aware that I was aware of all of this--and without words. This felt new and nice, this awareness of being, with nothing extra. I could be in this state because, in a physical sense, I had no choice. In a spiritual sense, this was my choice. The flu had forcefully un-distracted me. Yoga lets you use anything handy as a tool.

I observed that the inner state is full, but never busy. It has no use for any of the things I chase after, like respect, relational reference points, accomplishments, disappointments, history. I felt a lovely, unconditional equipoise – no expectations, no hurry, here’s a sneeze and here’s a cough. I realized that even perfect health, without this awareness of being, is not so perfect. I was not hog-tied, or a hobbled calf. “I” was consciously drowsing in a perfect little dinghy of beingness, upon an unsounded sea.

Now I’ll have some NyQuil.

Posted by Jane on May 4, 2007 9:25 PM

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