Strive, persevere, never give up

In the face of all the challenges we face today, is my optimism about the future of humanity idealistic? Perhaps it is. Is it unrealistic? Certainly not. To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up.

Dalai Lama, on his official Facebook page, Friday Jan 13, 2012

Strive.

Persevere.

Never - ever - give up.

 

I was listening to an interview on the radio today. The person being interviewed was a Finnish yogi, who is apparently quite widely known, in fact, to the extent that he has been asked to teach yoga in India. The person who was interviewing him asked him the reason for this since one would, of course, assume it be the other way round.

 

What he said was that as it happens his personality and being a Finn go very well together with yoga. His quiet, somewhat intrevert personality is something people expect from a yogi. A humble guy. He did not take credit for anything although he is widely respected and tends to draw crowds of people to his classes. He just found it a little funny that he fits so well to the preconceived perseption of what a yogi should be like.

 

I remember a similar comment about us Finns from an Orthodox nun, a Finn herself. She commented about Finns that "Finns are natural hesychasts".  Finns are naturally quiet and drawn to peaceful and quite places. This is probably somewhat true, too. Although making such a statement is, of course, rather a generalisation.

 

When asked what are the most important things in life from his perspective the yogi's response was health and then came the part that really got me thinking, he said: "I think it is important that when we make decisions we stick to them." He went on to talk about how we seem to lead lives of indesicion and that it seems to be that freedom is seen to mean freedom to change one's mind as often as one wants. What constitutes a good life from his perspective is that you make decisions, stick to them and begin to get more depth into the life precicely because you do not change you mind all the time. I like that.

 

Quite soon after I had been ordained minister I was asked to talk to the students at Turku Christian Institute (Turun kristillinen opisto). I could talk about anything I wanted and I chose to talk about commitment. Of course I did I had just made a whopper of a commitment myself. Now, almost ten years later I can still remember how I felt and I can still remember the words I said because they are as true now as they were then. Except that, I do forget sometimes.

 

The thing is, choosing is something exclusive. You choose this and, thus, this and this and this - and this - are no longer available for you to choose. The secret is, though, and I still find it remarkable, that when you do choose you find yourself breathing more easy. And you start to see all the openess that has been hidden into the choice you have made. Exclusiveness is more often than we think more inclusive than we could possibly imagine. This is why I whole heartedly agree with the yogi.

 

We cannot jump from one place to the other and keep on jumping untill we drop. It is not good for us or the world around us and it will not get us anywhere. We have make choices. We have to think and pray and make choices. We need to take responsibility and strive to achieve those things we value worth doing so. And I agree with Dalai Lama we may not see them come true but if something is truly right and truly Godly then it should not matter in the least.