All By Myself

I'm in a holding pattern today. There are no scheduled events (other than daily yoga sessions) for the last or next few days so I am indulging myself with all kinds of fun activities - sewing, knitting, sunbathing, etc. In my early morning studying I ran across Yoga Sutra 30 about obstacles - and found this thought worth recording: "[obstacles are there] to make us understand and express our own capacities. We all have the strength, but we don't seem to know it. We seem to need to be challenged and tested in order to understand our own capacities. In fact, that is the natural law. If a river just flows easily, the water in the river does not express its power. But once you put an obstacle in the way by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous electrical power." This is not a particularly new thought, but it struck me this morning as one worthy of some contemplation. to make us understand and express our own capacities is what caught my attention. Some of my friends seem to have insurmountable obstacles to peace despite tremendous effort. Does one have to grow old to gain peace? Surely not, although it was so in my case. Forgive me now, I'm getting into my writing mode to understand this. Living alone does give one freedom to choose without making choices that suit a companion. I have chosen to study spirituality, philosophy, religion, from a wide variety of sources in an attempt to find an answer to "Who am I?" None of those subjects were of interest to me earlier. Now I do want to express my own capacities in a new way - from an inner voice rather than from the outer world. I want to be in the world but not of the world. (I LOVE that thought - in Bible and several other sources -but I don't recall where). And, somehow it seems to me I've always felt that way. Do we all have that yearning to be able to disassociate ourselves from worldly issues and desires?
By way of asking forgiveness, let me blame my brother Jim. He's the one who asked me to write a book - and even entitled it - All By Myself. I'll try not to write the whole book on the blog!