The Vortex

Vortex:  Any activity, situation, or state of affairs that resembles a whirl or eddy in its rush, absorbing effect, irresistible and catastrophic power, etc.


I've been marching through the first sections of our main text again.  I've been reading a page or so at night, but not more than this.  If I keep it to a page or less, then I find I pay attention to what I'm reading.  More than that I start to lose focus.  I can daydream when I'm reading, believe it or not, or I start to skim ahead when I'm on a familiar passage, thinking: "Yeah, yeah, I know this."  Like I know anything.


I am constantly amazed at how often our founders boil The Program down to "Find god, serve others."  I believe that this is the essence of all religions and spiritual pursuits, despite the billions of pages of instructions that man has written.  I think I could make a pretty good go of it down here if I could just remember those two thoughts.


I read lines like this: "We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped."  Then in the next paragraph: "Were we thinking of what we could do for others?"  Are you getting the point?  No?  Next paragraph, then: "We ask god to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest, or self-seeking motives."  Is the implication here that there are motives that aren't self-seeking?  I mean, are you kidding me?  Are you %#!! kidding me?


On one of my recent hikes I was following a mountain river swollen with melting snow pack.  There were a few spots where whirlpools had formed.  I could see bits of river junk drift into the eddy, circling lazily at first, then getting sucked down into the vortex, where all was lost.  This is how I feel about my ego when I try to meditate.  I'm way down in the vortex, spinning wildly, trying to get out, to get into a position where I can let other people and maybe even god Gasp! in to my thought process.


I was going to use a toilet bowl vortex analogy but thought better of it.