Yoga and the School of Life

When you look at each day from the perspective of a yogi, then events are no longer disconnected without a meaning. Events do not occur without a rhyme or reason. Each event of significance that occurs in our daily life calls to us to make a decision to our response. One day it is one way and another our response is different. We do not always know how we will respond until the decision moment occurs.

When there is no thought about the response then one may say it is an unconscious response, but that does not take away from the significance of the action. It is an action without thought, but it mayhave grave implication for yourself or others. Let us say that you drink alcohol without a thought. The alcohol is there and you just do it. One would say it is an automatic response, and to some extent it is. However, this does not preclude the modification of this behavior by the action of free will. Habitual responses are not responses without consequences. We are responsible for every action we do. We are responsible for its effect on others and ourselves.

So a spiritual aspirant, a yogi who wants to yoke himself with the great, will cultivate the habit of looking at each thought and action in a deep way, not a surface manner. For each thought and action has the potential to bring them closer to their cherished goal, or to move them away. That is why the practice of Yoga is not a Sunday practice, it is not to be done only at meditation time, it is part and parcel of the daily life. Ones thoughts words and deeds are all scrutinized to see if certain actions can be done to make them more helpful to yourself and others.

To a yogi, pains and discomforts are not ignored either, for they are the harbingers of something inside now coming out for expression. Denial of pain is denial of self knowledge. One does not pursue pain, but also one does not deny it. Look at the very source of pain for the information and guidance that it gives. Something is calling for attention, something wants some balance. Being out of balance is characteristic of an unrealized being, denial of those imbalances is to ignore addressing the cause of the imbalance. Look in, shine light and give love. These are the cures for the imbalanced state.

The road to healing the self is the road to learning to love and accept the self, the imperfections the pain and the inherent beauty. You are a resplendent radiant source of light, so any place where the effulgence is blocked in expression is a point of pain. The journey to health is the journey to regain the natural radiance of equilibrium. Each challenge brings another opportunity to do more clearing and each clearing brings more light, erasing the darkness of ignorance and fear. This is the path of the Yogi in the school of life.

Marc Nevas

Acarya Madhusudan

©Marc Nevas