I’ve had many conversations with friends over the last few weeks and they have all touched on experiences of unkindness, selfishness or intolerance. These conversations have led onto the consequences of lockdown, living in isolation and lack of contact with friends and family. Have the last 18 months meant we have detached ourselves so much that we have perhaps forgotten the first Yama of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra’s, Ahimsa: non-violence, compassion, kindness?
Many of these conversations have been with other yoga practitioners and yoga teachers, those seeking to live and embody yoga philosophy. However not all of these conversations have been with other yogis and the common thread of experiences of many back out in everyday life has been ‘self-serving’. With this theme speaking so loudly in recent conversations it has encouraged me to contemplate my personal mantra which I share at the end of my classes: Kind Thoughts, Kind Words, Kind Actions.
There are many texts you may study as you delve deeper into yoga practice. As part of my 500 hour Yoga Teacher Training with Yoga Scotland, we studied Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra’s, The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads and finally the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The Bhagavad Gita teaches us that to embody yoga as a practice, we are on a journey to uncover the infinite consciousness that is concealed by the mind and ego. As we become conscious of our ego we are able to train the mind and overcome the attachments it has.
Ego refers to the “me” we carry around in our minds. The sense or understanding we have of ourselves. In our everyday lives, our ego is attached to our feelings. How we feel affects how we act; how we might feel affects how we act; how we once felt affects how we act.
I first read the Bhagavad Gita in my late teens and one of the first aspects I felt able to understand and practice was to act without personal attachment to the fruits of one’s actions. This simply means carrying out our duties and actions for their own sake, with no agenda to benefit ourselves. As we begin to act and live in the present moment, the flaw of our ego can be re-aligned through purposeful living. It is a quiet mindful awareness. When the ego acts without expectations, false identities and false premise fade away.
BKS Iyengar explains Karma Yoga as written in The Bhagavad Gita ‘Never let the fruits of action be your motive; and never cease to work….Be not affected by success or failure. This equipoise is Yoga’
In the Yoga Sutra’s (2.8), Patanjali describes Dvesa, which is a dislike for something or someone. Edwin F Bryant interprets this in his translation of the text ‘When we resist or resent something, or are angry or frustrated over something, it is because of a rememberance that this thing caused us pain in the past.’ The initial pandemic restrictions affected our everyday lives, and current restrictions still do. Many of us are now hankering after pleasurable experiences after an incredibly challenging 18 months. Our memories of pre-pandemic happy times are still with us and we are drawn to the past. However, our desires can deepen into greed and blind our view. Our sense of right and wrong, compassion and kindness may be forgotten in our endeavour to obtain the objects of our desire. We have been yearning for the things that once brought light and happiness into our lives, the attachment of these past experiences have the potential to lead us to anger, frustration and our egos becoming prominent.
Samskara is the conditioning of the mind to think or do the same again and again. By repeating our samskara we reinforce them, we create a viscous circle. We are creatures of habit and through the pandemic we have created ways of living to help ourselves cope with a different way of life. For the vast majority of us this has been an upsetting and frustrating time. The pandemic can be described as a Collective Trauma. It has been a traumatic experience that has affected the entire world, entire groups of people, communities and societies. We’ve done and acted for our own survival and self preservation which was necessary. Our minds have wandered as they naturally do and created memories of truth and untruth.
A quote I am often drawn from Eknath Easwaran ‘Just as the body is made of food, the mind is made of the sense impressions it takes in. And just as there is junk food, there are junk experiences and junk thoughts – attractively packaged, but most debilitating for the mind. Training the senses means that we need to be discriminating about what shows we watch, what music we listen to, what kinds of books and magazines we read, what kind of conversation we listen to. Every day the senses give the mind a ten-course dinner, and we can add to our prana, our health and vitality, by not serving it junk thoughts’ When I first came across this quote five years ago, I made the decision to not listen to or watch the news. That ended at the start of the pandemic and the overwhelm of the changing situation was exacerbated by the constant flow of information. I soon stepped back and refrained once again from allowing myself to be drawn into listening or watching the headlines.
We can change our samskara through our breath. In Light on Yoga, BKS Iyengar explained ‘The chitta (mind, reason and ego) is like a chariot yoked to a team of powerful horses. One of them is prana (breath), the other is vasana (desire). The chariot moves in the direction of the more powerful animal. If the breath prevails, the desires are controlled, the senses are held in check and the mind is stilled. If desire prevails, breath is in disarray and mind is agitated and troubled. Therefore, the [yoga practitioner] masters the science of breath and by the regulation and control of breath, he controls the mind and stills its constant movement.’
Pranayama is the first step to living in the present moment and acting selflessly. The more we practice conscious breathing the more it pervades our everyday lives and influences our actions. There are days where I’m quick to become agitated with the mess my three boys have left behind them, and yet yoga teaches me to step back, detach, breathe and take a moment of reflection. Calling to mind my mantra and to react in a manner that will promote wellbeing for myself and for them!
I endeavour to use invitational language in all my classes to ensure they are trauma aware and one of the first invitations I offer at the start of each class is ‘you may like to close your eyes or soften your gaze’. As we focus on our breath and practice pranayama, conscious breathing and/or breathing exercises, closing our eyes enables us to stop one of our senses leading our minds astray, encouraging the mind to remain present.
In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Brian Dana Atkers, interprets verse 2 of chapter 2 as ‘When the breath is unsteady, the mind is unsteady. When the breath is steady, the mind is steady, and the yogi becomes steady. Therefore one should restrain the breath.’
Anchoring our minds to our breath can bring stillness. It can bring a sense of peace, ease, balance and help us to detach from our desires; encouraging the I, me, mine of our desires to take a back seat and for us to see the world with a different lens perhaps as a whole.
As Nachiketas, the young hero of the Katha Upanishad teaches us, our yoga journey and learning will continue throughout our lives, it is a life practice. Donna Farhi resonates in her book Bringing Yoga To Life ‘Over two decades of teaching I have witnessed again and again the power that Yoga has to shift seemingly intransigent negative patterns and ti awaked the body, mind and heart to other possibilities. No matter who we are or how long we have been in self defeating behavious, through daily Yoga practice we can become present to our own fundamental goodness and the goodness of others.’
We are all connected, interconnected, and whilst our individual lives over the last 18 months may have created a personal island, as we re-emerge it will take time for us to remember that prana, life force or breath can re-connect us and this connection is what we have with each other as human beings.
In the words of Donna Farhi ‘ When we slow down we create a conducive environment for kindness and thoughtfulness to flourish…..When we find ourselves hurrying or pressing others out of our way, we might ask ourselves exactly where we are going in such a rush. What are we running away from, and what are we running toward? Pause for moment….Sit down and relax. Smell the air. Look around you. Take a deep breath in and out. This state of mind called Yoga can’t be found anywhere else but here. The moment opens itself for you. Will you step in?’
Let us remember to have Kind Thoughts, Kind Words and Kind Actions.
If you would like guided breathing practices please visit
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLno4256Qpl94cGJNdDNDVVzFmvs8VvXMS