"What's the best feeling in the world?" my friend asked, her eyes steady over white mango tea.
My brow furrowed as a laundry list ran through my head: love,
sadness, melancholy, exuberance. No, no, no, and…no, not right.
“You?” I asked, ever the deflector.
“Love,” she said, almost rolling her eyes in exasperation.
Like it was obvious. Like everyone’s choice should be the same. “And you?” she
pushed.
“Hmmm…” I stalled. Love, sadness, melancholy, exuberance. Hope.
Hopefulness. The feeling that all will be good, okay, better
than expected.
But is hope a yogi’s emotion? By definition, hope leaps out
of the present moment. Transports us to a different place. Another time. Asks
us for an active forward glance, or, at the very least, a passive longing and
wanting—be it ephemeral or eternal.
Hope is anticipatory. Dreaming. Wishing. Reaching. An escape
that seems to lift us from the deepest and darkest sufferings. Improves our
mood. Gives us reason to rise anew each day. But, if the eight limbs of yoga
ask us to surrender to what is—ishvara-pranidhana—is
hopefulness really all well and good? Or is it just a fresh coat of lacquer over
tired furniture?
When I started writing this, I wished—I had hoped—that the answers lived clearly within me. That they
would bubble up, like a spring, by the time these last words found their way to paper. That I would finish this post with something profound and uplifting.
Is it irony that disappointment, hope’s opposition, is welling up instead?
Ishvara-pranidhana.
Not hope. Not disappointment. What is.
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