When the right thing is wrong
And some genital electrical shock therapy.
When does too much of the right thing become the wrong thing?
How do we know when we’re at that point?
Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been conducting an experiment to find out.
As I sit at this moment in a beautiful sun-drenched outdoor cafe, listening to the opening notes of Andre 3000’s new flute album, writing this feels like a catharsis, an upheaval of my personal status quo, and a holy and sacred release from my shackles, as much for my own sake as for yours, the reader of this painstakingly researched piece.
You see, I spent the first 3 months of the year in an Ayurvedic hospital in India undergoing 67 days of deep, intensive panchakarma purification which included 4-6 hours of treatments per day, nightly enemas, soaking my eyeballs in ghee, and attaching leeches to my skin, among other enjoyable activities like crying barefoot in the park, eating the same bland food every day, and showering from a bucket.
I spent the next 3 months traveling intensely, lugging around suitcases of herbs and attempting to integrate the new daily routine of ancient techniques I’d been prescribed by my doctors into modern life. There was a steep learning curve which involved adding things like lentils, rice, and Indian seasonings to my traveling inventory, so I could prepare home-cooked meals in places like Ibiza and Mexico.
Once I settled down in LA for July and August, I finally worked out what I considered to be a sustainable daily routine, which felt incredible.
I woke daily around 4:30 and read, took my herbs, did my abhyanga oil massage and coconut oil gargling along with 300 pushups, showered, did a full round (expanded form of meditation including yoga asanas, and breath work) and finished it off with a few other advanced techniques that you’ll have to learn about for yourself before making an omelette and finally sitting down cross-legged on the floor for 2-3 hours of deep work on the computer. By 11am, it was time to prepare the day’s kitchari so it would be fully simmered and ready to eat by 1pm, giving my body the minimum 3 hours required to properly digest food while I resumed working at the computer before embarking on my daily 10,000-step journey at 4pm…so that I could get back in time to meditate, shower, and eat dinner with at least 3 hours to spare before climbing into bed by 9pm and listening to Vedic chanting with medicated oil in my navel before going to sleep to do it all again. Every single day.
You must be exhausted from reading that. I’m exhausted from writing it.
…And none of that even includes the actual work I was doing in between ritual gymnastics to manage my life and career as a self-employed traveling meditation teacher and freelance creative consultant.
And here’s what I learned….
All of those things were the right things at the time.
And for what it’s worth, I felt AMAZING. I was sleeping deeply, creating and producing prolifically, and feeling happier and more balanced than ever before, with the energy levels of a teenager.
But in doing my damnedest to follow my doctor’s orders to a tee, I risked running afoul one of the major laws of nature.
A ‘law’ is a repeatedly observable pattern of occurrence.
In the Vedic worldview, there are three driving laws of evolutionary change, from the perspective of nature:
Creation
Maintenance
Destruction
Behaviors, relationships, movements, and entire civilizations are first created, and then maintained, in accordance with the ‘need of the time’—that is, whatever is most evolutionary at that particular juncture.
But the process of progressive change also demands the ‘sloughing off’ or destruction of that which is no longer relevant.
When we attempt to maintain anything for longer than is relevant, we invite destruction.
If we don’t let go willingly, destruction does so for us in a way that is usually much more jarring.
We can either progress gently on our own or get dragged kicking and screaming by nature, but one way or the other, progressive change is inevitable.
In 2022, long COVID brought the destruction of some health practices in my life that were no longer relevant, so I started 2023 by creating new routines based on a new medical system.
It took me a few months to integrate these new routines, but eventually, I became proficient at maintaining them.
I was feeling great for many months…until I wasn’t.
Through my militant adherence to doing all these good things every day, I had neglected to go outside and play enough.
I wasn’t eating enough cake. [Editor’s note: You’ll be happy to know I enjoyed a huge slice of excellent German chocolate cake at lunch yesterday]
Ironically, I found myself burnt out from health-giving activities.
I was engaging in what we call over-maintenance.
And now, to lighten the mood, I’d like discuss excruciating genital pain, in order to illustrate the idea of over-maintenance in the most hilarious way possible. Below is a video of Bryan Johnson, the 45-year-old billionaire who has devoted his life to attempting to preserve his body in the same condition it was in when he was 18, talking about the extremely painful electrical shock therapy his technicians administer to his penis in order to stimulate healthier erections. I sincerely hope Bryan’s Johnson isn’t soon visited by destruction operators, but the immutable laws of nature would portend it may be inevitable. Let’s hope, for Bryan’s sake, that it’s actually highly relevant that he maintain a bionic penis—you know, for science—because he seems to be visiting enough literal destruction upon himself already.
Back to our main character—the new need of the time was play—doing the opposite of what was usually good for me, like going out for pizza instead of cooking dinner.
We have a serious responsibility not to be serious.
Through the help of a dear colleague, I propitiated Shiva, the lord of destruction, to help me reset and temporarily dismantle the routine.
Things we do to take care of ourselves, like waking up early, meditating, cooking, taking herbs, and for some of us, occasionally administering painful shocks to our genitals, are all sacrifices that we make willingly. They are often also enjoyable, but in performing these rituals, we’re sacrificing our time, energy, and soma into the fire.
But there’s no such thing as perfection in the relative.
The closest we can come is perfect balance.
The wind will never cease, and the traffic on the road will never disappear.
Instead of trying to will the world into some perfectly arranged non-changing position in order to support our balance, the rider of the bike must learn to achieve his or her own balance in spite of the constant flux of these forces.
We learn to adapt to the need of the time.
Eventually, we may reach a point where we’ve sacrificed enough, and the most evolutionary next step for us is to sacrifice the sacrifice.
For me, the new discipline was to let go of discipline temporarily.
Maybe that resonates with you right now.
Or maybe at this moment in your life, more discipline is what’s in order.
We’re all different, and we’re all at different stages of life.
The point is that yesterday’s needs are not today’s needs.
What worked once won’t work always.
How do we discern the difference?
By remaining aware the need of the time.
Different laws of nature take precedence at different times.
Sometimes we need to create new systems. And maintaining those can be good for a while. But what was relevant yesterday must eventually be destroyed in order to make room for the creation of what is relevant today.
Through regular meditation, we clear the mind and sharpen our perception.
The more finely tuned our perception, the more capable we are of taking a hint from nature about what’s needed—a mere indication is usually enough.
We don’t need it to shout at us.
If enough time passes though, it will. First nature whispers, then it screams.
Even sometimes seasoned meditators like myself need to be reminded of this.
After all, we’re in the business of forgetting.
The best meditators are not those who can think the mantra the most times, but those who can most easily allow it to be forgotten.
So keep that in mind.
Or don’t.
You’ll be reminded later, if you’re listening ;)
This letter is dedicated to Kim, an incredibly powerful and wise friend, who helped me remember what I already knew but had temporarily lost sight of.
Let’s discuss these and other ideas during Collective Effervescence, our online group meditation series, this Sunday December 3 at 9AM PT / 12PM ET / 6PM CET. Drop in for meditation only (first 30 min) or stay for discussion + Q&A on this and other life topics from the Vedic perspective.
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Music today is the first new material in 17 years from the transcendent André 3000, an album of entirely ambient flute music. The opening notes really feel like the dawning of a new day. I remember sitting in the Pizza Hut dining room as a kid in Atlanta, listening to Aquemini on CD in 1998, and how much that music moved me. There is only evolution.