You know the urban myth that if you make your bed every morning, as they do in the army, all of your problems will be solved. Well, they won’t be, I’ve learned.
If you meditate every day, it’s possible that all your problems could be solved. But not really. I still have problems. A lot of them. Some of them have to do with tedious things I can’t manage, like debt and taxes.
The real world gets in the way of my spiritual aspirations all the time. But as a Sikh, we are not supposed to go to the mountains or the forests to find ourselves and god. We are supposed to stay in this world. Be a householder. All the Gurus were married with children. (In a manner that was very different than the show, by the way.)
Spirituality and life don’t have to be separate but equal; sometimes they can merge. Washing dishes, if done mindfully, can be a meditation. Since I’ve been thinking that way recently, I don’t mind doing the dishes as much. I know I said we have a cleaning lady, but she comes once a month. I am the cleaning lady around here.
Photo courtesy of Maksim Chernyshev via Scopio
In our house in India, we have servants; in fact, we tried to make “servant quarters.” My dad made a diagram of the house, and in it, it said, “servant quarters.” I had to go to Kinko's and hand this drawing to a black man. I can’t even…
Apparently, in India, it was illegal to have servant quarters, which is evil because everyone has servants and they should have a place to live. We had to put them in a room. It’s terrible. No one lives in that house in India; a guard is watching it, but I secretly hope the servants are using the whole house, not just cleaning the dust from the floors.
It’s not a sin to have a servant in India because it gives the poor people jobs. My dad’s father educated his servants, made them into doctors and stuff because he was a doctor. My mom’s father educated all of his servants’ children and put them through college and gave his widowed servant enough money to buy a house of her own.
That is the right way to deal with poverty in India. Although that is not the blanket answer to poverty in India, it’s a start.
Anyways.
We don’t have servants in America, or do we? A lot of immigrants are doing jobs no American would ever do. They are essentially ‘indentured servants.’ I use that term loosely, even though it may be questionable. Sometimes immigrants are able to escape poverty; sometimes they are not.
I don’t want this to be a rant about immigration policy in the United States, but I’m very angry about a lot of it. That’s all I have to say about that.
I think the way you treat other people is a demonstration of your spiritual nature.
Let’s go back to spirituality and living in the real world. Spiritual people are not immune to the harshness of the world.
Photo courtesy of Maksim Chernyshev via Scopio
It’s ridiculous to think so. You can meditate for an hour and still have a pile of unpaid bills sitting on your kitchen counter. I sometimes do.
You can experience bliss during meditation and then lose your mind because somebody left a dirty dish in the sink. I don’t want to talk about how nazi I get after I wash the dishes. It’s actually not right.
You can understand the nature of the universe and still not understand your taxes or your credit score. I definitely do not understand the universe at all, but I understand it better than I understand tax law and credit scores.
But maybe the real world isn't getting in the way. Maybe it's where the spiritual work actually happens.
I once read this book; I don’t remember the title. But it was about an American man who became a Buddhist monk. He moved to, like, Tibet or something. Then, while he was there, he realized he never left America. It was inside him. It was haunting him. It would never leave him.
He came back. He now lives in a place of peace between both places. How beautiful is that?
We want to leave the world, all of us, at some point. The world will have its way with you. But we can’t leave; it is a part of us. It created us.
You know, in some Eastern traditions, they believe that if you kill yourself, you will be brought back to a similar place in another life, and you will have to get through it. You cannot escape it.
There is a spiritual idea that suffering cannot simply be escaped, and then there is the reality of suicide. Someone experiencing unbearable psychological pain deserves compassion and help, not the suggestion that they have failed to prevail. So there’s that.
That is not to say that suicide is a sin. But maybe it’s not the way out. Maybe there is no way out, only a way through.
I have a friend who passed away a few years ago. He was a very good friend of mine and became a friend of the family. He died in an accident. At the time he died, I was pretty deep in a depression and did not fully acknowledge his passing. I couldn’t even cry at his funeral.
Now, years later, I suspect he may have killed himself. I would never mention that to his family, because that is a very difficult thing to accept. It’s hard for me to accept, and I don’t know that it is true.
I don’t know what happened to him after he died. Maybe he’s hanging out with god. I’ve imagined him running into my dad in the afterlife. My dad really liked him. Who knows, he could have gone on to his next life. I’m not sure how these things work.
Spirituality doesn't promise us an easy life. It gives us something to hold on to when life isn't easy. Sometimes it gives us more questions than answers. Maybe that’s a good thing. We don’t know much; we should be humbled by that.
But I do know that life will beat you down, and it can take all of you if you let it. James Taylor sang, “They’ll take your soul if you let them, now don’t you let them. You just call out my name…” I feel like god was singing that song to me.
nina
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Imagine two loud, dramatic, hilarious Indian women explaining to a white man what it's like to grow up and live in America. Join us for laughter, deep thoughts, and witty banter about life, love, and culture. We tell it like it is, with honest, bold, and funny stories, discussions, and arguments. We explore boundaries and challenge norms. Join us for a good talk.
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