The Wisdom of Interconnection
March is a month to awaken to the energy the days bring as it starts to get lighter. It is a time to slowly turn our attention outwards again, grounded in the knowledge we gained over the restful winter period.
Rather than changing our focus from rest to action, we combine the two. The recent Spring Equinox helps guide us in this direction. Just as with day and night during the equinox, we should achieve an equal balance of rest and action.
Yin and Yang
Many wisdom traditions draw similar lessons from nature, becoming aware of the balance that sustains life and developing the insight to live more harmoniously. One of the most famous examples is the ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang, commonly symbolised as ☯. Though sometimes misunderstood as being opposites, they encompass much more. Yin is the black half of the circle and yang the white. The two dots in the symbol convey their interactive dynamic where they merge in one another.
There is not a clear-cut difference between the two and together they form the whole. Their relationship is fluid and complementary, their value intrinsically linked and defined by the other. They also come from and return to the same source. Yang is created by activity, when it is exhausted, it becomes stillness and creates yin.
When stillness is exhausted, there is a return to activity. Through the cycle of activity and stillness, yin and yang become the source of each other. This perfectly embodies the interplay of rest and action.
The path of action
In the Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna provides a slightly different perspective. In response to Arjuna’s decision to avoid a critical dilemma by refusing to act, he explains that as we sustain ourselves through action, we are never truly free from it. As we fulfil and uphold our duties through our actions, we should never give in to inaction.
Our progress depends on our actions. If we never acted, we would never learn or cultivate the conditions to grow. Our actions give us the opportunity to put what we have learnt into practise and develop our experience and understanding. Through action, we sustain the cycle which replenishes us.
In prescribing an action-oriented spiritual path, Krishna emphasises the awareness with which we perform our actions rather than the actions themselves. This involves letting go of the view that actions are only valuable and worth performing if the outcome is desirable. He instructs Arjuna that he has a right to act but not to the fruits. In other words, performing an action should never be about seeking a specific outcome.
When we act without concern for the outcome, focusing on the task itself, we are free from the usual thinking and worrying which shapes our experience. When we worry, we become afraid of failure, fearful to act and, in some cases, avoid acting altogether. Valuing success more means we do not accept failure, overlook what it teaches us, and even develop an aversion to it.
Krishna tells Arjuna that practicing yoga requires acting without attachment, being equally accepting of success and failure, and having equanimity. He says this is a combination of stillness and action. Action denotes the performance while stillness comes from us not chasing the outcome. Though we perform our actions, no longer governed by attachment, there is no resistance or force involved. In Chinese philosophy, this is named wu wei or effortless action.
That we only have control over our actions and not their results informs Krishna’s advice to act but not covet its fruits. Trying to force an outcome we have no control over causes us distress. The more we chase, the more attached we become. This stresses the importance of us acting with the wisdom of stillness. We then see that our actions are as valuable as our restful periods. We build a bridge between the two and the lines blur, seamlessly flowing from stillness into action.
Shiva and Shakti
When Shakti is worshipped, she is the intelligence and universal source or womb which gives birth to all things. As Shakti, the goddess Kali is depicted with her foot on Shiva, who lies beneath her in an act of reverence. Kali is typically shown having a small demon underneath her feet, curled up in terror from her power. The difference is Shiva is smiling peacefully, he has no fear and she does not have to conquer him.
In traditions that worship them separately, Shiva and Shakti take on each other’s qualities. Rather than accentuating brute force, depictions of Shiva are androgynous, with soft facial features and a benevolent gaze. This symbolises the masculine and feminine in harmony, both contained within him.
When Shakti is worshipped, she is the intelligence and universal source or womb which gives birth to all things. As Shakti, the goddess Kali is depicted with her foot on Shiva, who lies beneath her in an act of reverence. Kali is typically shown having a small demon underneath her feet, curled up in terror from her power. The difference is Shiva is smiling peacefully, he has no fear and she does not have to conquer him.
Shakti is creative action and Shiva is her source. She is the activity of consciousness and Shiva is consciousness itself. Shakti is the personification of Shiva’s power – without her, he cannot do anything. Pairing Hindu gods and goddesses together conveys the dynamic between the god and their power or qualities.
The union of Shiva and Shakti represents the projection of consciousness, responsible for our sensory and perceptual experience, returning to its source. This is also the final teaching in the Yoga Sūtras – the power of consciousness becoming established in its own nature.
This projection is more commonly known as Maya. Through Maya, we mistake what is illusory for being real, especially the sense of being separate from the world.
Because it appears separate, we perceive and experience the world as something outside of us. By realising we have projected this view, we uncover its false appearance. In Shakti traditions, she not only creates the illusion but also reveals and destroys it.
This elevates the power of consciousness, shining it in a more positive light than the falsehood Maya represents. Seeing past the veil of Maya is Shakti’s union with Shiva and is symbolic of the self-knowledge that we are consciousness itself, not its many appearances. Our journey parallels Shakti’s efforts to return to Shiva, embodying both the masculine and feminine within us.
Dependant Origination
In Buddhism, the dependence of the existence of one thing on another is called dependent origination. When we are not aware, we believe things to exist by themselves, separate from each other. While this includes how we view and experience rest and action, most significantly, it refers to ourselves.
By believing we are separate, we do not see how the belief itself exemplifies dependent origination. If we were truly separate, our being so would not depend on anything. As our experience of being separate is dependent on first having the idea that we are, it has dependently originated and cannot be true.
Dependent origination also applies to the process of letting go of this belief. The Buddha taught finding the cause of suffering gives us the solution to free ourselves from it by reversing and creating the opposite conditions. He formulated, when this exists, that arises, when this does not exist, that ceases. By having the idea that we are self-existing, we suffer. By no longer perpetuating it, our suffering ends. As the existence of one means the absence of the other, suffering and its cessation are interdependent.
Written by Lewis Gwilt
