Contentment and Complacency

Santosha - is the word in Sanskrit for contentment.

I practice this a lot and I get very satisfied even with the effort let's say, it takes for me to get up at 4:00 am in the morning and take my morning jog at 4:20 am down the hill to the bus stop on Tuesday mornings.  Or I get super Santosha from gazing

at stars

or flowers

or today - my tie-dye purple white Mick Jagger yoga pants drying in the bathroom.

And then there's the awful lethargy of complacency - which is when I know I have to "For God's sake move on!" but I'm too hardened and set in my ways to do anything about a situation - and I become godawfully Tamasic.

Tamas = Sanskrit for deep, dark, heavy depression and laziness

Tamad= Tagalog for lazy

See the sameness in the two words?

The constitution that dominates in this body-mind is Vata-Pitta (Air-Fire)- so "Tamad" or laziness is rarely an expression of myself.  But I've definitely experienced the darkness of Tamas even in the midst of high activity in the world.  I can accomplish a lot - outwardly - and still feel a heavy weight inside.  Yes - it's happened before.  But now it's quite rare.  But the rarity comes with all the meditation I do - which is about 4 hours a day nowadays on a high day or 2 hours on a low day.  Yet there are 24 hours in a day.  So I'm working on stretching it out to "one-without-a-second."

Santosha - and its English equivalent - contentment - is beyond the word "satisfaction" in English.  Because satisfaction connotes "wanting" or "desiring" something and its attainment or fruition.

Santosha just says - well, everything is just as it should be in every single moment.

So contentment is fun - detachment sits right next to contentment and swings her legs up and down for the sheer joy of having legs to swing. 

I love exercises in logical reasoning (where the mind uses razor-sharp discernment to understand the details of any matter or energy at hand) but the heart must remain ever so loving  throughout the process. 

Compassion goes hand in hand with this wise discernment through logical reasoning to create what is called Wisdom.

It's fun to break down languages - truly.  Just makes a girl so damn happy. 

Sanskrit, Latin...oh so healthy for the heart.

why?  because I begin to understand.  And once I understand, then I let go.  And once I let go, God catches me on his pinky finger and wears me as a ring of gold.