Forever Changes

Someone recently used the term, “Spiritual Peter Pan Syndrome”: the belief that yoga, meditation, etc. will somehow make you “born again” or “eternally youthful.” The author correctly pointed out that this attitude could exist only in the West, where youth is worshipped.

In Asian countries, for example, people don’t see rebirth as a good thing at all. They see it as a form of ignorance, a repetition of mistakes and compulsions, a failure to learn the right lessons.

In America, we rarely talk honestly about aging. We discuss gray hairs and sagging skin, but we avoid the most profound part of getting older, which is no longer being able to recognize a lot of the world around you. Aging means coming to terms with the fact that culture wasn’t designed for you.

Don’t understand TikTok? Have to google new slang constantly? That’s because these things weren’t meant for you. You’re no longer the kid at the dinner table, with the conversation of adults focused on you and your future potential. And if you’re wise, you won’t keep trying to be.

There’s a spiritual lesson in this. As the years pass, life calls us to be observers, not actors in the drama. It asks us to center ourselves less and to open up more to an aspect of eternity. That eternity isn’t found in becoming some immortal baby cherub. It’s found in being the gnarled old tree who sees the surrounding village change and change from its fixed vantage point.

There’s great happiness here. There’s great happiness in just being the observer, in letting life unfold, in letting go. A mirror facing a candle shines just as brightly as the flame itself. And as you reflect on the endless change around you and within you — without trying to be it or keep up with it — you too will shine.