By Deepak
When you first let a top go, it’s chaos. It wobbles, it rattles, it skids across the floor like it’s about to fly off. But if you spun it well, after a few seconds something strange happens. It finds its center, and it seems to stop. It looks completely still, standing upright on its point, almost humming.
Kids have a name for that. They call it “sleeping.”
What I didn’t understand back then is that the sleeping top isn’t slow. It’s still spinning hard. All that energy hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just perfectly gathered around its center. The wobble wasn’t too much energy; it was energy that hadn’t found its axis yet.
There’s a story Sadhguru tells about Adiyogi, the first yogi. He danced wildly in the Himalayas, until his energy went beyond what movement could hold, and he became utterly still.
I think most of us arrive at the cushion as the wobbling top. The day is still rattling around: emails, worries, conversations we’re replaying. And our instinct is to grab the top and force it still.
But a top held in your fist isn’t sleeping. It’s just stopped. All that energy is trapped, pushing against your hand.
Zazen asks for something different. We don’t grab. We sit upright, let the breath drop low, and trust the axis. The wobble isn’t failure. It’s the top finding its center, finding its axis. And if we stop fighting it, it finds it.
Laozi said this beautifully, 2,500 years ago, in the Tao Te Ching: “Who can make the muddy water clear? Let it be still, and it will gradually become clear.”
Notice he doesn’t say make it still. He says let it be still. The clearing happens by itself.
So tonight, if your mind is skidding across the floor, let it. Sit tall, breathe out slowly, and wait.
We’re not trying to stop the spin. We’re letting it come to rest around its center.
Let’s sit.
