Last weekend, as I’m emerging from Safeway with my groceries, I see an elderly woman attempting to open the passenger’s side door to my car. I imagine she had tried her key on the driver’s side and it didn’t work there, either. And for good reason: it isn’t her car. Parked nearby is one of the same model and color; I gather that that one’s hers.
Letting her continue her effort, I go ahead and load my groceries in the trunk. When I shut it, that’s when she notices me and becomes embarrassed. I tell her it’s okay; I’d recently done the same thing myself.
“Everything’s okay,” I say. As the words come out of my mouth it strikes me how true they are. Everything is okay. And that means everything. Everything is in divine order.
Wrong car? It's okay. In fact, everything is.
In Patanjali’s eight-limb yoga there’s a practice called Ishvara Pranidhana, which means total acceptance of all that is. Some interpret it as surrender to the divine. Surrender in this context doesn’t mean not bothering to get out of bed. All it means is to accept the inevitable as it already happened or is current unfolding in the moment. By all means, do your thing, but don’t argue with the outcome. When we argue with what is, we’re bound not only by tension and struggle but insanity. Ishvara Pranidhana means being okay with everything—not that we have to like everything—but once we can accept everything (including ourselves) it’s a huge relief and liberation to give up the argument.
In our practice this morning, there was one opportunity after the next to practice being okay with everything—tough poses, tight muscles, outbursts from the tennis courts, you name it. Our yoga nidra featured a visualization to notice areas of tension or pain and simply be with the discomfort. When we do, we reclaim our power, which we can use to heal rather than argue.
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