Flightiness & flakiness are different.
There are flighty folks and flakes in every area of our lives. Sadly, it is often these people who speak particularly loudly about religious and transcendental topics. To avoid their guff we must learn to distinguish these two types:
Flighty folks are always fleeing, trying to escape. Their energy refuses to settle down. It looks for “reasons” to leap away from the current situation. They turn endlessly from one path to another, always excited about some new secret that will let them flee from their last secret. We should call them rootless, ungrounded. Even if they wish to do serious inner work… they cannot sit still. The pressure of steadiness is too great. They only respond to the promise of new shortcuts and the seduction of new “sincerity”. But in truth one must often simply practice STAYING PUT. Many of the old Yogic exercises are just about developing persistence. Steady posture. Steady breathing. Do not readjust yourself. The need is to tolerate the inner urgency that demands “moving on to the next thing.” Tolerate it rather than act on it.
Flakes (on the other hand) may be just fine at staying with things — but their ideas lack solidity. They overflow with meaningless plans and empty assertions that drift like flakes upon the wind. Their “spiritual ideas” are mostly sentimental, colorful and probably a little paranoid. Flakey folks feel they are entitled to believe whatever they like. Such people reject the weight of ideas and they treat impressive-sounding as if it meant true. Hard physical work and professional training should suppress flakiness but often it does not work. The flakey mind simply waits until it is off duty and resumes its gush of pleasing fantasies and immoderate assertions. Many great yogis, warriors, healers and experts of all kinds are still flakes. In fact their ability to “do” things is often their excuse for not bothering to critique their private ideas. The only real solution to flakiness is the effort of wrestling with thoughts, testing them against each other and probing for contradictions. Pondering and reasoning.
Just as the flighty person must learn to tolerate the impulse to escape, the flake must tolerate the feelings of “impossible” and “necessary.” Only by discovering the mind’s solid walls can we become reliable navigators of that inner labyrinth. We do not escape limitation by fleeing it and asserting our freedom against it. We escape limitation by accepting it and incorporating it into our essential freedom.
Thanks, I’ve been: Layman Pascal.
Lemon Harangue Pie 