Dave Chappelle and Yoga Sutra IV.33

Dave Chappelle once commented: “Initial reactions as we all learn as we get older are often wrong or more often, incomplete. They call this phenomenon “standing too close to the elephant”. The analogy being that if you stand too close to the elephant, all you see is its penis-like skin. You gotta step back and take a better look. And on stepping back and thinking about it for a few moments we may come to different realizations. Time goes on and after time, you can kinda see the whole elephant. And it’s humbling.” (Source: Equinimity and the Bird Revelation, Netflix).

Patanjali offers us up Sutra 4.33: The sequence of uninterrupted succession of moments which can be recognized at the end of their transformations.

Loosely translated, forces that give rise to change exist before change becomes visible. Speaking to change in the sense that it wasn’t foreseen and we couldn’t have anticipated it. We become more of what we already are. And it’s only at the end of the transformation that the succession of moments can be truly recognized.

Does that trusting we are already well into our perfect unfolding change where we place our attention, our hopes, our dreams? Does that trust give space or rather, permission for the freedom to take space? To take some of the pressure off, to let some air out of the ball?

Is there the possibility that humans judge our actions on what we perceive we need, based on our past measured results and the scale we individually created to measure it? And is the scale in constant evolution, shape shifting, impermanent as we gather deeper understanding?

Is the idea of what we think we are permanent?

Is it juvenile to believe that human’s are constantly operating from their highest iOS system presently available?

Mark Nepo says: “For the flower, it is fully open at each stop of its blossoming. We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination. This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something: the stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for. So where we are - though closer all the time - is never quite enough.”

Final note and just to play along the foul line a bit: Theologians have known that our soul suffers from what Greek Philosophers termed “Akrasia”. The perplexing tendency to know what we should do combined with a persistent reluctance to actually do it, whether through weakness of will or absentmindedness.