Our lives and days are filled with moments when we are not exercising humility, when we are not with God, and we're not even aware of it. Even if you asked yourself if you were being humble at the time, you probably would not get the relevance of the question. I mean, what does humility have to do with driving?
Once such moment came to me the other morning while meditating/praying. The night before, I had a slight accident when at night I made a right turn onto a state highway—quickly to avoid an oncoming car—and cut it too tight and the tire hit something embedded in the ground and bent the torsion bar, making the car not drivable. This gave me pause to think about my driving habits in general. I enjoy driving fast, in a sporty fashion. I pay little attention to speed limits.
When I put this all together, I realized that I drove with my ego in control. At the time I did not think I was taking risks, but I was. It's like I was trying to prove that I'm a real man. Beyond that, I was never relaxed; there was always tension when driving. Clearly, I was not driving with humility; I was not with God.
Once several months before, I had realized this and altered my driving habits for maybe a day or two, and then reverted to my previous driving style. This time I saw this accident as a warning. I needed to change the way I related to driving. I needed to turn my will over to God/Buddha/the Universe when driving as with all other things.
And so, when I drove that day, I didn't on purpose drive more slowly, it just happened. And it felt good; I was relaxed and enjoyed driving in a very different way—not as a test of my skill but just being relaxed and at peace. It has been several days now and my driving continues to be divorced from my ego. I am awake and intend to remain in that state. But I will need to remind myself.
Once such moment came to me the other morning while meditating/praying. The night before, I had a slight accident when at night I made a right turn onto a state highway—quickly to avoid an oncoming car—and cut it too tight and the tire hit something embedded in the ground and bent the torsion bar, making the car not drivable. This gave me pause to think about my driving habits in general. I enjoy driving fast, in a sporty fashion. I pay little attention to speed limits.
When I put this all together, I realized that I drove with my ego in control. At the time I did not think I was taking risks, but I was. It's like I was trying to prove that I'm a real man. Beyond that, I was never relaxed; there was always tension when driving. Clearly, I was not driving with humility; I was not with God.
Once several months before, I had realized this and altered my driving habits for maybe a day or two, and then reverted to my previous driving style. This time I saw this accident as a warning. I needed to change the way I related to driving. I needed to turn my will over to God/Buddha/the Universe when driving as with all other things.
And so, when I drove that day, I didn't on purpose drive more slowly, it just happened. And it felt good; I was relaxed and enjoyed driving in a very different way—not as a test of my skill but just being relaxed and at peace. It has been several days now and my driving continues to be divorced from my ego. I am awake and intend to remain in that state. But I will need to remind myself.
RSS Feed
