Totally unrelated to my former posts in this thread, finally being able to manage the necessary equanimity, I reflect to the title of this thread, hoping that I can show it in a new light.
Yama niyama indeed can be seen as means for social harmony, but we need to realize, that without social harmony in our lives, there is no inner harmony either. Until there exists a single person whom we do not understand, love, whom we hate or feel enmity towards, we can gain no real insight and we cannot walk the path of the spiritual discipline. How many times, during meditation, the thought and the related feelings towards a person came up, aquiring our full attention ?
We need to realize, that by forcefully removing such thoughts, brooming it under the thick carpet of our consciusness, we just postpone what must be done, to harmonize our relatationship with that person. Otherwise, this unconscious debt will block the necessary amount of psychic energy, or better said of our soul’s life force. Through these, we steal from our wholeness, and withhold the actions what needed for the sake of the society, for the sake of the world.
It is also important to realize, that it is always possible to have a harmonius relationship with someone. If our harmony depends on others, than what value it has ?
Yoga starts with yama and niyama. Yet, few give it the necessary attention. Than they try to meditate, and have difficulties in concentration. Only a content, peaceful, balanced, and strong soul is able to practice the higher stages of meditation. And the best school to aquire these traits, is not the yoga studio, but everyday life. Satya must be observed in our personal relationships. We need to be honest with our partner, our parents, our neighbour. Same with ahimsa. We must train our souls to not allow any agressive thoughts towards our fellow human being.
Those, who are married or have stable relationships, know, how hard is to honestly live according to yama and niyama in a relationship. In a relationship, love must be strong enough to bear the weight of truth. Ahimsa is not only non-violence. My attention was attracted to the fact, that this translation is not a very good one. While the sanskrit ahimsa if translated literally, means non-violence, it’s meaning is deeper and more encompassing. The correct translation would be “to wish for all sentient being’s happiness”. Surley, if we withheld the aid of our love from someone, something, that person, that thing will lack it, it will be less than it could have been. It is, in a way, hurt. You know, it hurts much more to be unnoticed, or neglected by those who we percieve stronger, better than we are. We cherish their strenght, and their goodness, and we desire that through their attention, the golden rays of love are cast on our little selves. Indeed is great the sorrow of a child, of and old man, of a sick man, of a man struggling with a great addiction, when he/she is ignored. This is much greater a suffering than to be physically hurt. And how can we alleviate the pain caused by this indifference ? A few honest words, a true interest in our gaze, our attentive, loving presence … this makes all the difference.
One who just does this once, will feel that his/her soul came alive, and hope, joy and light are born in it. A debt is payed, the world has been made a little better. An obstacle has been surmounted.
Yama and niyama are not neglected by chance. They are neglected, because they deal with the soul. In today’s materialist world, many are not convinced of the very existence of the soul. They say, they are agnostics, but they admit that yoga can adress the material body of man, balancing it, strenghtening it, making it more healthy. And they are right, all these they can reap from a certain part of yoga practice. Only, that the real purpose of yoga is not that, and it never was. Yoga was the means for an uplink to the spiritual realities of the world, right through them, up to the highest power, to the unmanifested God, Isvara.
Yoga, and belief in a spiritual world, cannot be separated. Yoga is the means to ascend to that world. For an agnostic, or materialist person, yoga is meaningless, because such person does not beleive in a spiritual world, or power.
Why do I say belief ? Today, there are those, who only know what they learn or expereince through their senses. Than there are those, who also expereince the suprasensorial. Between these, there are those, whose souls are no longer satisfied with the sensorial world and what it can provide for their souls, and long for answers to basic questions of human existence. Remember, to these questions, no honest, proven answers can be gained by materialist science, only plausible theories of the kind what some people’s soul cannot accept as truth. These people feel homeless in this world, and try to find something eternal, something what is not ever changing and ultimately dead, like the material world. These people are the spiritual seekers, believers that such reality exists.
Yoga is one path for such seekers, but to think, that only true some books, or mental comprehension of some thoughts, following some methods, this path can be walked, is wrong. When the striving for truth is earnest, and relentless, than the aspirants karma will lead to him/her the right books, the right knowledge, the right teacher. When one is ready than one will meet a seer, someone, who is able to expereince the spiritual just as we expereince the sensorial. Such people exist, they always existed. They are not those, who are well known. Those are just their pupils, who have been given the tasks to spread some truths, in ways and means what surpass our ordinary intellect.
Yama and niyama are the best ways to prepare ourselves for a meaningful encounter with a seer. It surely is life changing, so we must prepare for it. Think of the first date with a person whom you have fallen in love with … were’nt you trying to show what is best in you ?
Without similar respect, anguish, and without so strong a longing, this encounter can never happen, or it if happens we will walk by it blindly.
We need to meditate, not some meditation we do not even know what it is. In the beginning we need to meditate on who we are, what kind of personal traits do we have, what we see as lacking in us, what would we desire to be like, how can we be fuller, better human beings in our everyday lives. When sitting down to meditate, trust your fate. The most important problem to meditate on will show itself very soon. Than, we must turn our attention toward it, realize what it is, whence it comes from, what can be done. To try to practice the higher, toughless stages of meditation while we still have other thoughts with strong emotional charge, is actually harmful. It is like a man saying, ok, there rings the firealarm, but I do not get out of my house. It is all an illusion anyway. Than he is struck by the burning down house, and gets seriosuly injured. Than he will be in great pain. I wonder, if the thought of “this is an illusion” will comfort him much.
If he’d follow common sense, he’d get out, than watching his house burning down, he might even had a fruitful meditation on how every material posession is passing, and how valueless is to cling to it. Instead of it, he managed to put himself into a state of which he needs a great amount of time to escape. Indeed, we often cling to our ideas like they are our posession. But most of the time, the cause is not because we really know it’s truth, but because unonsciously, we want it to be true. Here starts real self knowledge … when we start to ask ourselves. Why do I like this thought, why it is so dear to me ? Why can’t I accept the possibility of it being erroneus ? Because if we were to think objectivley, we must admit, that we need to be equally prepared for anything. When thinking has preferences, than it is not objective, it is biased.
Thus, instead of letting thoughts alone in a trial to escape from them, why not we take the courage and analyze them objectivley, and unbiased ? Isn’t this the real svadhyaya ?
