There is always potential: The tale of the two mice
Sitting into the uncertain and the unknown is part of our practice. But it is not always easy, because this can create feelings of fear - we want to know and be certain.
Yet in the knowing and the certainty, we sacrifice a certain freedom, a potentiality, a possibility. We can easily limit ourselves.
We have to be careful too not to make our fears manifest because of our fear of the unknown and the uncertainty of our fears manifesting in the first place. Sometimes people will take radical action to eradicate their fear by living the fear itself.
We might be mindful too of the stories we tell ourselves, the Vikalpa (more on this another time), that keep us trapped in our interpretation of the past or our imaginings of the future.
There’s this wonderful folktale which goes…
Once upon a time two mice were in search of substance and fell into a vat of milk. They swam about desperately, but could not get out as there was nowhere for them to find any purchase for their little feet and claws on the smooth sides of the vat. Forlornly, one mouse said to the other, “it’s no use; can’t you see? There is clearly no way out of this!’ And he sank beneath the surface and drowned in the milk.
The other mouse could see no way out either, but he swam and swam and swam, wondering if there was a way he could not see. Finally, as he was getting very tired, his swimming began churning the milk into butter, and he found purchase and just managed to leap out before his final breath.
The American version of this folktale is about never giving up. But from a yogic perspective, there is an element of the first mouse dying of a Vikalpa, a story he had told himself that there was no way out. Many humans die of Vikalpas too, not knowing the way out of a situation and telling themselves that the story too, before making it so, often violently.
The second mouse stayed in the unknowing and trusting the unknown was really his salvation. When you know you don’t know, you remain open. When you know you don’t know, anything is possible. This is the yogic moral to the story.
So maybe we throw caution to the wind and approach our life, never really knowing.
If there is one gift my soul friend Em gave in her passing (and there were many) was a moment to moment awareness. The life I knew, the life I thought was certain and known with Em in it dropped away and all of a sudden instead presented this void as the family were called to find a new way that demanded a moment to moment existence, and a moment to moment existence for me in the role that she left me to play.
For me this folktale is rich. Never give up. There is always a way. But it is not known and certain so we just have to keep on keeping on.
Love Emma x
