Wisdom of Yoga A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living

Chapter 1 THE SECRET STRENGTH OF DISILLUSIONMENT SAMVEGA:TURNING AWAY FROM THE BONE During the summer of his "breakdown," all Jake knew was that he couldn't go backward, and apparently he wouldn't go forward. The experience of direct involvement with the present moment was just the place in which he had previously been unable to dwell. He was determined now to stay put. He knew that, paradoxically, some great success was buried within his failure. He sensed that he had had some kind of awakening. But what was it? Yogis call this statesamvegaa complex state involving a kind of disillusionment with mundane life, and a wholehearted longing for a deeper investigation into the inner workings of the mind and the self.1Samvega, as described by the contemporary Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu, involves "at least three clusters of feelings at once": the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle.2 Samvegais a developmental state not mentioned in Western psychological texts. It brings with it a realization that objects of grasping (money, fine things, titles, fame, even peoplewhen seen as objects) cannot supply any true satisfaction. It involves a radical realization that all objects are intrinsically empty of the capacity to feed us in the way we really wantor needto be fed. A classic Buddhist teaching story describes this realization: A dog stumbles across a bone that has been exposed to the elements for many months, and is therefore bleached of any residual flesh or marrow. The dog gnaws on it for some time before he finally determines that he is "not finding" any satisfaction in the bone, and he thus turns away from it in disgust. It is not that the bone is intrinsically disgusting; it is rather the case that the dog's raging desire for meat just will not be satisfied by the bone . . . when he wakes up to the truth that the bone is empty of anything that will offer him satisfaction, he becomes disenchanted, and spits it out in disgust.3 Of course, the symptoms ofsamvegaarise only after extensive experimentation with "the bone." Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says it elegantly: "The shoe of ego is only worn out by walking on it."4 For many of us, objects of longing gradually reveal themselves to offer no real happiness. No matter how hard we gnaw on them, we find no meat on the bone.Samvegathen arises with a linked complex of symptoms, many of which Jake was now experiencing. These can include: A puzzling failure of previous sources of satisfaction A heightened concern with authenticity A deepening pull toward an intuited interior world A sense of urgency about realizing deeply hidden gifts and talents A global and diffuse sense of internal disorganizationequal parts psychological and spiritual A deeply felt internal imperative to stop business as usualor, as Jake said, to "get quiet" A call to explore a path that might give transcendent meaning to the enigmas of life One of the harbingers of the developmental imperative ofsamvegais that welike Jakebegin to hear ourselves muttering about our Old Life and our New Life. Out of the blue, we begin to feel like captives in our liveslives which may have fit comfortably for years. Our well-known wCope, Stephen is the author of 'Wisdom of Yoga A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living', published 2006 under ISBN 9780553801118 and ISBN 0553801112.