Life is But a Dream

Walking down a dusty Whitefield road this week to teach Armchair Yoga, I began to think about “what we leave behind.” The scooters and lorries (trucks) leave clouds of choking dust. The man who washes two vehicles every morning up on the bank sends streams into the traffic; there is always a giant mud puddle in front of his home.

What have I left behind? What is in my wake?

For many years, I believe I left wreckage. My inner conflicts were so great; I could only survive by generating a similar level of confusion and noise outside myself. Like the cell membrane that won’t be satisfied until the contents outside the wall are the same as what is inside, I needed equilibrium.

Only when my interior was emptied of the pain and fear did my footprints change. Once I found that peace and contentment I had misplaced within, I could leave it without. I am reminded by the old rule we learned in Girl Scout Troop 249, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, when we would go camping at Merrie Woode: “Always leave the campground cleaner than when you found it.”

~~~
A few mornings ago, I woke with the old nursery rhyme, “Row, row, row your boat,” singing in my head. For the first time, I listened to the lyrics: “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”

Wow! Was the author a Buddhist? A yogi? Seeing life as an illusion, as maya, is one of the central teachings of the rishis, the ancient sages of the East. We are taught to not get fooled into thinking that what is projected on the screen is real. Only the screen is real.

So the daily dramas, come and go, in our own lives and in the world at large, and every where in between. Yes, when we know that all of it is a dream, that it is not what or who we are, we can remain merry. I wonder if the original lyrics could have been, “Verily, verily, verily, verily,” as the little verse contains such a Mighty Truth.

“When you are in the flow life ceases to be a struggle. You don’t have to fight for what you want, or defend what you have. When you are in the flow, your every need it met so easily, so completely, so consistently, there’s only one explanation for it. There must be a higher power at work on your behalf.” So writes Steven Lane Taylor in his book Row, Row. Row Your Boat, a Guide for Living Life in the Divine Flow. I found it through a Google search, after my dream. (www.rowrowrow.com)

Lane continues, on his website, “It makes no difference whether you picture this higher power as a very real supreme being or some kind of conscious cosmic energy. The effect is the same. It feels like something infinitely greater than yourself is operating in this world and you are directly benefiting from its existence.”



When you are in the flow, life ceases to be a struggle, and we no longer leave wreckage, dust, debris or dirty water behind us, in our wake. Rather, we join the great river of life, moving with the current, and like the river, there is truly, only, the present.

Like the river, we are constantly changing. The river is not the same as it was this morning, and neither are we.

What I hope I leave behind is no misery or mess.
What I hope I leave behind is the faint scent of roses and sound of laughter.
What I hope I leave behind is a kind word and deed.
What I hope I leave behind is gratitude for all that I have been provided.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.