To cut my golden locks or allow them to flourish?
That was the question after letting it grow and be enjoyed by myself and others for years.
🧝🏼♂️ Long hair promotes mastery of the senses.
Luscious Samson and the native Americans tapped into the wisdom of long hair promoting strength and coherence in the mind, senses and brain (tarpaka kapha).
Cutting the hair may cause the senses to become a bit unsteady in a subtle way, compared to the grounded stability subtly provided by long hair.
✂️ On the other hand, monks shave their heads to promote cleanliness and surrender parts of their ego so they can focus attention on greater things than how they look.
But some of them still keep a “śikhā“ (like a little rats tail) to maintain a certain mastery of the senses (hṛṣīkeśa हृषीकेश).
Similarly, Sādhus never cut their hair, but let it mat into dreadlocks and basically never look into the mirror because they also don’t want to waste their energy towards superficial looks.
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However, these ascetic ways are mostly irrelevant for most people reading this.
In my life, as a householder, although I appreciated and enjoyed the support of long hair – inner strength to masterfully navigate situations and enliven certain aspects of prāṇa in me, there is one huge benefit of having a shaved head (or short hair), and for me, identifying as a male, this certainly overruled all benefits of having even slightly long hair…
👴🏼 The freedom and hassle-free opportunity to everyday generously oleate my head.
This means pouring oil, a medicated Ayurvedic massage oil specific for the brain and mind (can also use coconut oil in summer & sesame oil), on my head and massaging it in well. Daily.
Plus the benefits of not having to wash my hair with shampoo, quicker drying time, my head being less attractive to ticks and more.
What has been your experience with long hair / short hair? Comment 👇
ps. watch this great video by @gaurgopaldas “Watch this to know what baldness taught me”
