Push Your Boulder up the Mountain

What does the myth of Sisyphus teach us? We are all like Sisyphus, having to struggle against the gravity of our laziness and negative inclinations in order to progress in life. What is the boulder that we push against and what is the mountain? They're both made of the same dense substance – karma. The mountain represents accumulated karma of all our lifetimes and the boulder represents the karma that has come due, what we have to deal with for this day. If we had to deal with all our karma at once, we would be crushed. So God metes out only a little bit each day for us to balance.

In the Sermon on the Mount (appropriately), Jesus said, "Take therefore no thought for tomorrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil [karma] thereof." He said this after exhorting his listeners to seek first the kingdom [consciousness] of God and his righteousness (See Seek First the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness). So, take each day at a time and don't worry about the future. And don't complain about the boulder and the mountain, for they'll develop your strength and positive momentum.

The more you push in developing a good habit, the easier it becomes. That's positive momentum. But the more you slacken in developing a bad habit, the harder it will be to stop it. That's negative momentum. That's like Sisyphus letting the boulder go just before reaching the top of the mountain and watching it roll back down to the bottom. So, in the process of rolling our boulder up the mountain, there's always the danger of developing negative momentums of bad habits and accumulating more karma. This begins on the subtle level of desires and cravings, then we engage in thoughts. Thoughts have karmic consequences too just as actions. And we can develop bad habits and negative momentums of thinking that play over and over gain in our minds. So, don't give up and let the boulder roll down. Just deal with your daily karma, develop good habits, and seek first the kingdom of God, which is beyond the peak of the mountain.

The other day, I was editing The Essence of Sun Yoga, which I realized was a series of flows by the author just as The Way of the Higher Self is, and came across this poignant passage: “As the end comes, we receive Atma Darshan which will, in the last moment of our life, cast a glow on our face. Once we have received Darshan, we are forced to leave the physical body... We are drawn to God almighty by a very strong energy, reach the top, only to drop down and die. This transition brings only the briefest joy, for the body does not have the strength to keep living. We find out first at the end of our life how we have wasted our time and want to tell everyone how foolish we have been, want to share our new wisdom to others so they do not repeat our mistakes. But our time is up and we must go. The vast majority of people live their lives like this. We may, in the end, reach the mountain top, but the true summit is reached only if we can safely come back and tell our story.”

So, don't waste the precious time and energy God has given you in negative habits but become strong by developing good habits so that you can reach the summit of Being before you die and tell others your story.