My yoke is easy…

What does it mean from a spiritual perspective to take on an easy yoke, a light burden?

I used to gravitate toward the teachings of Dr. David Hawkins that were about “surrendering” as a way of achieving enlightenment. Echoing many teachers of mysticism, the practice encourages not being attached to the content that flows through your mind, but rather noting it and releasing it, letting it continue without getting caught up in it.

There is definitely something appealing about this! You don’t have take personally the thoughts and emotions that pass through you. You can rest secure in developing your capacity to Witness.

But this it not where I’ve landed.

Your thoughts and emotions are yours for a reason. While it’s valuable to not be crushed by them, or to be welded to them, they are yours.

The easy yoke for me now is not surrendering, but seeking to understand. I strive to receive whatever arises in me as if it were a dream, an intimate, attuned, personal message from the Collective Unconscious, from the Source of me and all others, from God.

Why this thought now? Why this emotion? What is this sensation in my body telling me? What’s the fantasy of the moment?

These can all be explored using the language of dreams, the language of symbolism.