No matter how the wind howls

the mountain will not move.

- Buddhist phrase

My friend would always say this to me - a great friend.  A lovely dear soul brother.  And I see its effectiveness when faced with difficult situations.  As he and I often were in a stressful, tense situation in our old job with a very irate, irritable boss. 

But there's an extreme that can be taken with this and any phrase like it - when not balanced with other adages such as - "Mind your own business" - what happens is that the reason the wind is howling, screaming, terrorizing is so that you will, "for God's sake, Do Something!" about an issue, a problem.  And if you sit, like a rock and say "No matter how the wind howls, the mountain will not move," I realize, as Caroline Myss says - that the angels sit back, slap their hands to their foreheads, sigh and wring their hands looking at God for why we don't take the hint that we are called to "Do something!" and just watch as we humans fumble our way through not taking a course of action that will make life better for us.  This is the power of the human will.  The human will does not have to take God's will.  This is our choice.

As the Bhagavad Gita explains.  Krishna tells Arjuna what course of action he should take and then says - near the end of the Gita - that even with all the guidance, Arjuna could do whatever he wants.

Ah!  The Free Will.

When we are afraid to move... when the wind howls and tells us - time to move on.  We are like Prometheus - creator of fire - bound to a rock for eternity.

I learned this.  And I have to remind myself this when I stand up for myself in face of difficult people and situations with this story:

I will never forget sitting in front of Baba Muktananda's picture at Siddha Yoga satsang - and asking him - "do I really have to confront my terrible, irate, miserable boss about her horrific way of speaking to me and everyone around us at work?"  And he looked at me and said yes.

And the next day,  I went in and let her have it - back and forth yelling we went until we both ended up crying in her office.   I told her that her behavior was intolerable and inappropriate - in  so many words and expressions.  And she agreed.  and cried.

And she left me alone after that but still created uproar all around me.  The wind howled.  The mountain - me - moved.  I was safe.  But not everyone else.  Because she continued to be a HOLY TERROR to everyone around us.  Situations like these are when I hear the message from Guruji.

"Mind your own business."

Meaning - everyone else needed to defend themselves from her too - not put up with her.  I could not fight everyone else's battles for them.  Believe me, I've tried to fight other people's battles for them.  And always ended up exhausted, depleted.  And invariably, these same "defenseless" people come back around and ask me to fight for them again and again.  And that's when the rescuer in me lets go - and says - no, you must learn to stand up for yourself. 

This little Leo learned to ROAR and relax. 

Relax. 

Relax.

Relax.

Most walk away from a lion's roar.  Lions, therefore, rarely have to pounce or attack. 

Simhasana.