George Inness American, 1825-1894 The Coming Storm, 1878

I’ve been having a difficult time with the various balancing positions in my yoga exercises, but the Universe itself certainly knows to keep its balance. If balancing is defined as a state of equilibrium where all forces are cancelled by equal opposing forces, then the Universe is a master of the art of balancing. There are countless forces at work in the cosmos, but they all seem to cancel each other out perfectly. There’s sadness, but there’s an equal amount of happiness. There’s the sorrow of death everywhere we turn, but life is always there too, flourishing and indomitable. There’s sickness, but health enduringly moves forward all around it. For every gloomy nightfall there’s an inspiring sunrise. What all this means is that the Universe is perfectly balanced, flawlessly poised, unconquerably steady and stable. What this, in turn, means is that there is actually no discord, no turmoil, no evil in the world. There seems to be plenty of evil in the world, but if we pay close attention, we see that good always annuls it with its own powerful pull. All that really exists, at the end of the day, are perfectly balanced forces cancelling each other out, thereby maintaining the eternal harmony of things. If the Universe were doing yoga exercises with me each morning, it could unquestionably teach me a few things about balancing.