Refresh Your Resolution!

Finally, after weeks and weeks of waiting, I received my copy of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda's "Sadhana of the Heart" by yesterday's mail. This is the text, I'm told, that will strengthen my commitment to my intention this year, this is the text I need if I really want to immerse myself in the discipline of yoga.

So far, so good. In fact, I can barely put it down. Now I get why the couple of people I asked to borrow "Sadhana" from, just couldn't part with their copy. This is one to read and re-read, underline and annotate, carry around.

One quarter into 2010 now, it is such a pleasure to read Gurumayi's words, to have them draw me back to my written goals for the year, to support my own deep desire to stay on this track.

With each new beginning comes a natural desire for change. We respond by setting a new direction. And so we make a resolution, a shining promise to ourselves. However, it cannot stop there. Every resolution, large or small, requires effort. It can be realized only if this effort is sustained. It needs your attention on an ongoing basis. Every resolution has to be carried out with resolution. When this is not the case, you make resolution after resolution, resolution after resolution, resolution after resolution -- you have an ocean of resolutions crashing on the shores of daily life, littering your mind with broken promises.

You see, a shining resolution that is not honored will not disappear. It stays in your awareness. Like driftwood in the waves or a blinding flash of light on the water, it's always moving around trying to catch your attention. You know it's there. You become aware of your inability to act on it. You see your laziness, lack of strength, and negligence.

By contemplating and setting the intentions I did, I gave them life and so now it is my task to sustain the effort required to realize them. It's been easy, actually, so far to check some items on my list off, not because they were easy but because they corresponded deeply to changes I really wanted to make. Some, though, are taking a lot of concerted attention, a day-by-day commitment. But if not now, then when? That is entirely up to me, and so the work on the intentions for the year continues.

Each one of us is in the driver's seat, as much as it's easy to forget, to get caught up in the notion that we're doing what we're doing because we "have to." It's all a choice, so make it a happy, conscious one to the best of your ability all the time. Without intending it, that's where my long list of 2010 goals has brought me, to this realization that by giving myself entirely to their fulfillment, I take a comfortable seat as the driver of my own destiny. From this vantage point, my intentions are clear and I know I'll get there.

Resolution refreshed! Next stop: fulfillment!