Allegory of the Palms

According to yoga philosophy, one of the obstacles to peace is aversion to pain. In our attempts to keep sorrow, grief, anger, physical and psychic discomfort at a distance, to seek pleasure in all that we do, we paradoxically stay held in suffering. In running from the pain that arises in all human life we run from ourselves, the wounded parts that need the most love and connection. We forget our wholeness and the gifts of allowing life to unfold as it is.

To my mind, the story of Jesus' return to Jerusalem to throngs of palm waving worshipers and the captors who would crucify tells the same story as this yoga sutra. Rather than taking the easy way out, perhaps going into hiding or absconding to Syria, Jesus returns to Jerusalem to worshipers hungry for his love and teachings and also to captors who would torture and crucify him.

In my reading of this story, the worshipers are like the Soul calling out to us from deep within to return and return again to the eternal source of love and affection and wisdom. But the path to the soul is not always clear, easy, painfree. There are demons, those voices that detest us, judge, shame, crucify again and again. We must enter in relationship, deeply, profoundly, and with great attention to both our angels and devils. Only through crucifixion, death of all that is unreal, do we find eternal and everlasting life.