This morning I found great difficulty putting myself to work. I was strangely shifting between thoughts of great success and great failure. I was reminded of a reading that helped me go through a creative block: Karma Yoga by Swami Vivekananda. I read it again, and this time I understood much more.
A passage which particularly stuck in my mind is (paraphrasing), a man can have a library of ten thousand books, but he will only understand those which he deserves, and it’s by his actions (karma) that he will come to understand them. As the old reading offered fresh insights, I could only realise I’m not the same man that read this text some years ago.
I then went to a new library and found three hours of deep focus, then I came back home and I had a nap.
When I woke up I didn’t like what I had done. When one is in a less than ideal state of mind it’s difficult to distinguish between bad work and a perception of bad work due to mood. I undid what I didn’t like and I kept what was useful.
I then went to a yoga session at the gym. I had gone before, and despite the apalling quality of the teacher, I found myself much improved after then session, so I was willing to give it another try with a different teacher. This session was much better, and when I layed down for savasana I came into a profound state of relaxation. I hit a peak experience, I remembered why I’m doing all this, things fell into place and I thanked the teacher for the class with the outmost gratitude.
For a time I’ve been thinking it’s time to wind down this frenzy, it’s taken a tremendous emotional and health toll, but I was saying to myself I’d have to wait until the game was released to begin. But this experience told me it’s time already. I intend to hit my release date, but I’ll do it as I detach from the work that has been done.
The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself. He goes through the streets of a big city with all its traffic, and his mind is as calm as if he were in a cave, where not a sound could reach him; and he is intensely working all the time. That is the ideal of Karma- Yoga, and if you have attained to that you have really learnt the secret of work.
Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease, Creating, yet not possessing. Working, yet not taking credit. Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever.