(originally posted 1/29/2017)
We live in a paranoid world. Hackers are everywhere, lurking around every corner. Everywhere we turn, we are forced to enter passwords. Yet in the name of security and privacy, we humans are losing our ability to work effectively.
The other day, I looked something up on Google on my IPAD. Lo and behold, a pop-up screen appeared saying “make searching easier with the Google App.” I thought I already had the Google App but given this was the second time this had happened, I figured I must be missing something.
I clicked on the app and got a message to enter my ITUNES password. I put in what I thought was my ITUNES password, and then got another message “enter your apple ID.” At that point, I started to get a little frustrated. Was my apple ID the same as my ITUNES password? I can’t EVER remember that. Of course, all my passwords are locked up in a password-protected spreadsheet on my computer which is also password-protected and which was turned off at that time. Ugh.
I went upstairs to turn on the computer, which took about 5 minutes to boot up. I entered my password, only to be told that it was incorrect. Dang! My husband just changed it recently. Now, what was that new one again?????
Deep breath. Okay. Computer was now on and warmed up, and I could enter the password for the spreadsheet that contains all of our 100s of passwords. And where was my Apple ID? Ah… there it is. And yes, it was the SAME as for ITUNES. Ridiculous. But okay… now I could download the app, but when I tried to do that, it said that the device wasn’t recognized and I needed to get a special code sent to me either through my phone (which was currently turned off) or through email. Email it was, then… and another 5 minute wait because the email server that we use for most of our “unnecessary” accounts is incredibly slow.
Okay –- got the code, now I could download the App. But when I went to open the app, I had to enter my Google password, which uses a different email and wasn’t recognized by that device.
You gotta wonder… is it all worth it? At that point, I simply gave up on the app. Why bother? Do I really need another app on my IPAD? And of course, I couldn’t even remember what the original question was that I had when I logged into Google in the first place.
What’s the point? Why so much privacy and security? What are we gaining and what have we lost? One of the tenets of yoga philosophy is that we are all individualized forms of “Shiva” or “Consciousness”. Yogis maintain that Consciousness contracted to become all the individual things in the Universe and during that contraction, we all forgot where we came from. According to Yogic philosophy, we see ourselves as separate entities, when we are all actually connected. It is the defense of this individuality – the need to separate ourselves from others – that is the root of all suffering.
Through Yoga and Meditation, we strive to re-connect with our deeper self, which is really Consciousness, and it is the same Consciousness as the every other person on this planet –- even the hackers that are trying to steal our identity! It’s kind of crazy when you think about it in those terms, yet maybe we all need to look at our lives from a fresh perspective. How can we function safely as individuals and protect our identity and yet still maintain our connectivity to one another and to Consciousness? You might be surprised to find that a little bit of Yoga each day and a short Meditation will do wonders to help you maintain your sanity in this crazy world of ours!
Do more Yoga… Knot less!
