Adultery

SITTING in the lotus position, with incense burning and elevator music playing, I begin my “meditation.” People have been advising me to try it for ages. That was when they thought I was just “stressed.” (I was stressed, but at least that was better than feeling completely indifferent about life.)

“Thoughts will come into your mind. Don’t worry. Accept those thoughts, don’t try to get rid of them.”

Perfect, that’s what I’m doing. I drive away toxic emotions like pride, disillusion, jealousy, ingratitude, futility. I fill that space with humility, gratitude, understanding, consciousness, and grace.

I think I’ve been eating too much sugar, which is bad for your health and for the spiritual body.

I leave aside darkness and despair and invoke the forces of good and of light.

I remember every detail of my lunch with Jacob.

I chant a mantra along with the other pupils.

I wonder if my boss is right. Is Jacob being unfaithful to his wife? Is he being blackmailed?

The teacher asks us to imagine ourselves surrounded by an armor made of light.

“We should live each and every day with the certainty that this armor will protect us from danger, and then we will no longer be bound to the duality of existence. We have to find a middle path, where there is neither joy nor suffering, only profound peace.”

I’m beginning to understand why I keep skipping my yoga classes. Duality of existence? A middle path? That sounds as unnatural as keeping my cholesterol level at seventy like my doctor is always telling me I should.

The image of the armor lasts only a few seconds before it’s shattered into a thousand pieces and replaced by the absolute certainty that Jacob likes any pretty woman who comes anywhere near him. So why am I bothering with him at all?

The exercises continue. We change posture, and the teacher insists, as she does during every class, that we should try, at least for a few seconds, to “empty our minds.”

Emptiness is precisely the thing I fear most and the thing that troubles me most. If she knew what she was asking … But then who am I to judge a technique that has lasted for centuries?

What am I doing here?

I know: “De-stressing.”