How often do you end up settling in life for something less than you really want? And not only settling, but not even trying to reach higher? We end up defeating ourselves before we even begin. We tend set our goals low so we don’t have a challenge and don’t have to face any discomfort. And if we do set our goals a little higher, when we are faced with discomfort, we stop. We decide it is too hard, too painful, or too tedious to continue. So we turn our backs on our higher potential and settle for less, and shut off our higher self.
It’s in the many times of discomfort that we need to find comfort, open our hearts up, and reach higher. There is a Guru in India that has held his hand, straight up above his head for the last thirteen years. Seriously, thirteen years???!!! Why would anyone choose to hold their hand, not only still, but in a difficult position for thirteen years? In our weekly group meditation class we began talking about this Guru. Why was he doing this? Does he have an unanswered question for the past thirteen years? Did he have a previous life where he used his hand hard on someone else, and now he must perpetually hold it up for his karma to balance out? Or could he be showing that holding his arm in an unnatural, uncomfortable position is what it takes to open himself up and reach higher and deeper into himself?
Hmmm…we all pondered? Why would he being doing this? We all kept throwing out ideas of what his purpose could be in doing this. How will guessing his purpose help us learn ours? It won’t. Walking around in life, watching others, and trying to figure out their purpose is not going to help us with ours. Look again at the Guru. What is he doing? He is holding his hand above his head? My purpose in the moment is to help facilitate others. How can the Guru’s demonstration tell me more about my purpose? And how can my purpose of facilitation help him with his? When we are with other people, we need to be able to see our purpose in them. We need to see their purpose in us. And we also need to see their purpose in them, and our purpose in us. This is what we have to do in every moment.
At this point in the class, Sensei had his hand raised for about 30 minutes now. Just sitting, teaching class with his hand above his head. No big deal. We were all talking about this distant Guru, and not even noticing Sensei had been doing it as well. At this point I too raised my hand. Since sitting and guessing the Guru’s purpose wasn’t going to help me, maybe I needed to raise my own hand and see what it was like. I had to experience his purpose and line it up with mine. Is it possible that the Guru’s raised hand is telling me that I need to always reach for something higher? Now with my hand raised, and the others’ in the class as well, we can experience more in this moment. Several minutes go by and we begin to feel the strain of reaching up. Is this the same strain and discomfort Michelangelo is talking about? Is this why we set our goals low so they are at arms reach and easily attainable? After a few more minutes I think we were all wondering what were we raising our hands for? What are we reaching for? It was not something tangible that we could see or touch. The only tangible feeling we were getting was discomfort and doubt if we could hang on any longer.
Take a moment and raise your hand, straight up, like you have a question. Now, hold it there while you continue to read this. The Guru is a person who has done this for thirteen years. He is so dedicated to this that nothing has stopped him. He sleeps sitting, with his arm still raised. He eats with his hand up, everything he does, his hand is up. Have you had the urge to put it down yet? It’s probably only been about 30 seconds now since you raised your hand. The blood is still pumping strong to your hand, your shoulder may be a little uncomfortable, but overall, your body is fine, you are just not used to this exercise. Now, keep your hand up for several minutes. After a few minutes, you will notice that the blood is not filling your hand and fingers like usual. They may be a little tingly, or getting a little chill to them. You have probably shifted your position several times and have wiggled your shoulder around trying to find a more comfortable position. It is hard to find. You cannot use your physical body to push through this discomfort. It may work for a few minutes, but not for thirteen years.
Now we have been holding our hands up for probably about twenty minutes now in class. Yes, twenty minutes! When I first raised my hand I didn’t think I could do it for two minutes. I thought to myself “I will raise my hand and give it a try and see how it goes.” Now it has been twenty minutes! WOW! There are strong moments we are all experiencing…”Wow, we are doing this, and we are okay and this is great.” And we are also hit with moments of self doubt and willingness to quit. It would be easy to quit. Gravity would even help us with putting our hands down to make it easier. But we don’t stop…we continue holding.
If you are still holding your arm up, you are probably feeling the discomfort at this point too. What is this discomfort we are all feeling? Yes, is can be explained physically by saying our shoulder muscles are fatigued and the tendons in our arms are straining, etc. But there is a deeper point causing this discomfort. If we had never raised our hands, or stopped at the first sign of discomfort, we would have never experienced this place within ourselves. This is what Michelangelo is saying…“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” When we were all listening to Sensei teach the class with his hand raised, it took me thirty minutes before I jumped in. And it took me jumping in and raising my hand for the others to raise theirs. At the end of the class we had all held our hands up for over an hour. Not a single break. We pushed through something we weren’t even willing to do at the beginning of class. Then we decided we would give it a try, but only half-hearted at the start. We were willing to quit and settle before reaching a deeper point of understanding. By us all holding our hands up for over an hour without quitting, we were able to experience reaching a higher goal. We had to get in touch with a deeper part of ourselves to push through and find the comfort in the moment. We had to reach higher in our own self.
We have these opportunities all around us, but we are not seeing these as moments to go deeper into ourselves. Rather we question the reasoning behind the Guru choosing to do this for thirteen years. We ask “What could it be doing to help him?” When we should be asking…“What could it be doing to help us so we can help others?”
