Resistance

Resistance. We hate it. We love it.

Resistance. Friction. Heat. Fire. Smoke. Ash.

Resistance. Without it we'd be a bag of flesh and bones on the ground. No wait. We'd be "one with the earth" because we wouldn't have the resistance of skin and other tissues to hold us into a shape. No wait.  We wouldn't be "one with the earth" because there would be no earth because there would be no cell walls and therefore no cells. And we would all be one big whatever it would be which is pretty dang hard to imagine because the nature of the physical world is resistance. And resistance is fun. It's the tension in a good play that makes us want to stay in our seats to see how it ends. It's foreplay. It's the dance of push and pull, give and receive, coming and going. Because of resistance we can push ourselves from where we are to where we want to be.

So why do we place so much emphasis on letting go of resistance? Because resistance is also a lot of work. And all this work can wear us down - like brakes on a car, tread on tires, (all I can think of is car metaphors right now, so i'm going with it). The ride was fun until the car breaks down. Resistance implies that something is in our way, keeping us from something we'd prefer. It can be painful. Like trying to open a mayonnaise jar. And the resistance we carry inside that keeps us keeping up with social morays and pretenses and other people's ideas of who we should be and what we should be doing can be very hard, frustrating, and also painful. And thank God for that pain, that frustration, that resistance because those very obstacles are going to give us the amount of fire power we need to move past them. The bigger the obstacle, the bigger the chance of growth. Or pain. And that is the rub.

Resistance.

From the "yoga" point of view - resistance can also be Tapas - a heat or fire that helps shape our spiritual character. It's the thing that helps us evolve. We push against something to get somewhere else, starting with birth. Medical intervention aside, what "makes" a baby come out of the womb? Who decides it's time? And in order to move on to the next round of experience, both mother and baby push. I've never done it, but I'm guessing that childbirth is a form of Tapas. Mothers out there, feel free to weigh in on this one!

So our physical life is dependent on the presence of resistance. And it's the resistance itself that leads us to the place that we start resisting resistance. And as we start resisting resistance, we start letting go of our attachments to and in our physical life. And we move back towards wanting to Know the Oneness. The non-physical. The place of no resistance.

We start letting go of resistance, things will glide more easily, we become the water, not the rocks, and you know who "wins" that battle over time - Grand Canyon anyone? And as we release our attachment to the "pain and suffering" associated with resistance, we learn to pick our battles, choosing the ones that will help us evolve in the most efficient manner. The "gliding" is being able to flow in the face of resistance. We are become aware that we are both rocks and water, and then the water gliding over our rocks carves out and creates that Grand Canyon as we become another wonder of the world. Standing on the edge, in awe of the work and dance between flow and resistance, we see ourselves as that miracle, and at one point, we say "thank you" to that which pushed our buttons and generally made our life a living hell. The payoff? It made our life a living heaven.