What Do You Worship?

In the words of my favorite writer...

"In the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

"If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough..."

"Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you."

"Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

"But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing."

"And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom."

"The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation."

"This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and effort and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty little unsexy ways every day."

"That is real freedom."

Consider what you worship by default. What do your words, thoughts, and deeds reveal is most important to you? Is this leading you to freedom? If you choose your HIGHEST intention today for your yoga practice on the mat, what will it be? And when you leave the mat...what will your intention be? What will you worship as you go about your day today, with your thoughts, words, and actions?

(To read the rest of David Foster Wallace's speech, see "This is Water," available online or in book form. When the man who is now my husband asked me what I'd suggest to learn about yoga, I didn't tell him to get a book about postures...I told him to read this speech and take a class.)