How Portable Is Your Life?

In recent summers and particularly in the last few years, extreme heat and dried brush have caused many wildfires in Northern California. Due to this, many people in nearby towns, have had to evacuate their homes at very short notice. This natural occurrence, has prompted Nayaswami Dharmadas to ask himself the question, ‘How Portable is Your Life?’

So, in this talk, he asks that we pose the same question to ourselves - ‘How Portable is Your Life?’ What if we were confronted by tornadoes like the ones that strike in the Midwest, or sudden floods like the one in New York? How easy would it be for us to leave our surroundings, and move at very short notice, in order to survive? Could we do it? He goes on to discuss, how we get so attached to the trappings of our immediate surroundings, that this question could cause us great anxiety and make us think that our lives would break were such a thing to happen. He suggests that what we’re being asked to do, is loosen our hold on the physical. Nayaswami Dharmadas goes on to mention native cultures, where people seldom build elaborate structures, instead they choose to live in simple dwellings that could be rebuilt fairly quickly lest the worst were to happen. He gently nudges us to ponder the possibility, and ask ourselves that were such a thing to happen, would we be able to disentangle ourselves and move, in order to respond to the need of the moment? Would we be okay?’ In closing, he suggests that it would serve us to consider the possibility of living more simply, so that in case the need arose, we could answer the question in the affirmative, by saying, ‘Yes, my life is portable’, and further ask ourselves, ‘How can I make it more portable?’

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