“What you had yesterday is only memories; what you will have tomorrow is your dreams and what you will do today, let it be love.”
~ Santosh Kalwar
Good morning friends and happy Monday! I hope this is going to be a start to a great week for everyone.
Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring the first 2 limbs of Yoga: The Yamas and Niyamas, or the yogic code of ethics. Much like the 10 Commandments of Christianity, the 10 Yamas and Niyamas of Yoga are there to remind us how to be a better person. The better able we are to navigate all the landmines of life, with these ideals in mind, the happier we will be in the long run.
I think every human being alive can recall a slip of the tongue that, after said, we wish we could take back. We see the look of hurt we’ve caused spread across the face of the person we intentionally, or unintentionally, hurt. We then too suffer, don’t we ?? We’ll play this scene over and over in our mind, wishing we could change it. But we can’t. Sure, we can apologize, but we can never take the words back.
As yogis on our mats, it is these types of scenarios that will come up for us as we spend our quiet time between asana poses. On the mat, we can’t run from our problems. We can’t bury ourselves in paperwork or television to distract the mind. We learn to face our problems head on. And we learn to let them go. Yoga asks us to learn from our mistakes. Yoga asks that we try to skillfully navigate the world such that we do not add to the suffering of ourselves or others.
The very first Yama of Yoga is non-violence or Ahimsa. It is said to be the highest law. As with the first commandment “Thou shalt not kill”, the first Yama of Ahimsa asks that we “Do no harm”.
Deborah Adele writes: “Killing and doing physical harm are grosser forms of violence that are easily seen and understood. However, nonviolence has many subtle implications as well.”
“When we feel hurried, afraid, powerless, out of balance, and harsh with ourselves, we may find ourselves speaking words of unkindness or even exploding with a violent outburst. As our awareness of these nuances grows, we learn that our ability to be nonviolent to others is directly related to our ability to be nonviolent within ourselves. Our inner strength and character determine our ability to be a person of peace at home and in the world.”
The following is an excerpt from Deborah Adele’s book The Yama’s and Niyamas: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice, along with some very helpful tips for exploration.
You can find her book available for free download here:http://mandhataglobal.com/wp-content/custom/articles/Yamas-Niyamas.pdf
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Our capacity to be rooted in Ahimsa and nonviolence depends on 4 things:
1. Our proactive practice of courage in overcoming fear
2. Our ability to maintain a balanced life
3. Our finding love of self, and
4. Our compassion for others.
1. Being Courageous
If we look closely, we can trace all of our acts of greed, control, and insecurity back to their root: fear. Fear creates violence.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to be afraid without being paralyzed. Courage is found by facing our fears – the small ones, the fat ones, the embarrassing ones, and the really big, scary ones.
The unfamiliar can become an abundant place for our exploration once we realize this fear lives only in our imagination.
One of the biggest challenges to maintaining balance is feeling powerless. Nonviolence invites us to question the feeling of powerlessness rather than accept it. Use feelings of powerlessness as opportunities to become competent rather than violent.
Get out this week, and do something you’ve never done. Work to overcome your fear in any situation where you feel powerless.
2. Getting in Balance & Overcoming Feelings of Powerlessness
Courage demands our best self and that is a self in balance. Think about the times you were “short” with others because of too much work to do, or a restless night of sleep. Imbalance in our systems is almost a certainty for violence, as the “dis-ease” we feel within finds its way to expression outwards.
Balance creates harmony within us, and harmony within naturally expresses itself in external actions that are harmonious.
Balance does not look a certain way because it isn’t a set standard to impose upon ourselves; it’s not something we can plan or schedule. Balance instead comes from listening to the guidance and wisdom of the inner voice. Balance will look different in each of us and even different in each of us at different times. To be in tune with ourselves, we must get quiet and listen and then heed this inner voice. This inner wisdom simply knows what we need to be vital, healthy, and in deep harmony.
This week guard your balance as you would your most precious resource. Don’t find your balance from a place in your head of what it should look like. Instead, find guidance from the messages of your body.
3. Finding Self-Love
Our ability to stay balanced and courageous has much to do with how we feel about ourselves. Our inability to love and accept all the pieces of ourselves creates ripples–tiny acts of violence–that have huge and lasting impacts on others.
How we treat ourselves is in truth how we treat those around us. If we are a taskmaster with ourselve, others will feel our whip. If we are critical of ourselve, others will feel our high expectations of themselves as well. If we are light hearted and forgiving with ourselves, others will feel the ease and joy of being with us. If we find laughter and delight in ourselves, others will be healed in our presence.
For this whole week, pretend you are complete. There is no need to expect anything from yourself or to criticize or judge or change anything about you. No need to compete
with anyone, no need to be more than you are (or less than you are). Note your experience. Notice how much pleasure, kindness, and patience you can allow yourself to have with yourself.
4. Refraining from Violence to Others & Finding Compassion
If we cannot find love for our self, it becomes easy to look outward and begin to focus on others, hiding our own sense of failure and fear under our blazing concern for others. Thinking we know what is better for others becomes a subtle way we do violence.
When we take it upon ourselves to “help” the other we whittle away at their sense of autonomy. Nonviolence asks us to trust the other’s ability to find the answer they are
seeking. We can’t save people, or fix them.
It takes courage to offer support, instead of help. Help is a “one up” on the other person. Whereas support meets the other person on equal playing ground with equal ability
and is able to sit with more awe and respect than answers.
Worry is another way violence gets masked as caring. Worry is a lack of faith in the other and cannot exist simultaneously with love. Either we have faith in the other
person to do their best, or we don’t. Worry says I don’t trust you to do your life right.
This week, watch where you are running interference on others’ lives. Are you a worrier? A fixer? Discern the difference between “help” and “support.” Notice
what you might be avoiding in your own life because you are so interested in others’ lives.
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Ahimsa. Non-Violence. It’s a big task to live a life filled with compassion. We learn compassion as we stop trying to change ourselves and others and choose instead to soften the boundaries that keep us separated from what we don’t understand. We learn compassion as we do simple acts of kindness and allow others’ lives to be as important as our own.
Namaste.
If you enjoyed this post, you can find the beginning of this series,
Exploring the Yamas and Niyamas: The Yogic Code of Ethics, here:
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