Today (Thursday) I spent largely horizontal, lethargic, barely able to get up from the bed.
A friend suggested that deep core issues may be coming up, which is what the Mother has been telling us.
I said “no, I’m not aware of any issue” and went back to my semi-stupor.
And I looked really closely, for perhaps hours.
And then it struck me. This very lethargy was itself the core issue.
Just as there was earlier a subterranean anger and hatred that had been with me all my life, so there has been a subterranean lethargy there continuously too.
If I try to put words to it, they’d go something like “There’s nothing I can do. There are no solutions. You can’t rouse people. Nothing will work. You can’t fight city hall. What can one man do?”
On and on the thoughts would roll out of my mind and the result of them would be this experience of lethargy.
I’ve settled for mediocrity in my life, just getting by, doing the least amount possible. I don’t mean that in quantity but I do mean it in quality. I live an onstage/offstage life, like so many people. When the stage lights go up, it’s showtime! When the lights go off, it’s back to being the same slouch I’ve always considered myself to be.
I do see its roots in early childhood when I gave up in the face of a heavy-handed father. I would go through the motions, look good, have a good story, invent a good excuse. But I didn’t really care about much any more. I had that precious quality of caring, striving and daring more or less kicked out of me.
Nowadays I don’t snarl outwardly. I just snarl inwardly. I’m not all that disciplined or committed. I may not be the walking dead. But I definitely am a sleepwalker, compared to where I’d like to be.
And this mediocre effort that I put out, in the face of what I conceive to be no-solutions and impossibility, produces this heaviness.
I’m also very tired and will need to take some time off just to relax, never mind the lethargy. But I know the difference between the two.
Commitments, promises and stands would handle the matter, eventually. But before I go there, I want to experience this almost-invisible vasana through.
I don’t want to plaster solutions on top of a problem I don’t fully comprehend or understand. I want to see where all this comes from first. I want to know the truth of it and the truth will set me free. The rest will come naturally, I firmly believe.