Atah Kim

Atah Kim; 

here's a mantra for consideration, atah kim in Sanskrit, with the English translation being nothing more than "so what" an almost flippant reply we've sometimes offered to others, only now it's turned back towards ourselves in a task to not take everything quite so seriously. While this isn't an actual mantra given by yogic master or great seer for us to meditate upon, it is a useful reminder that, indeed, life from the ego's vantage point looks upon almost everything as a serious affront to its lofty position, and will always take umbrage with even the slightest provocation.

but so what?

I'm reminded of a great line from Herman Melville in Moby Dick, that "so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of a half-known life." There is is, the ego in all of it's serious and specialness, reality barely witnessed and never truly realized due to failure to laugh and smile at our own mis-identification. The ego is the "half-known life" and keeps us trapped within a world of its perceptions.

there's something more though,

joyous,

and it's who we really are. 

our own insular Tahiti.

the mantra atah kim, so what, leads us there, helps us navigate what Melville calls the "appalling ocean" of the ego's perceived world. We simply don't take everything we think so seriously, allowing ourselves just a slight smile at the ego's expense. This the mantra of our surrender, maybe for just a moment...

but so what? 

a moment is all that's sometimes needed. 

~

Peace, Eric

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Thank you.