Tag Archives: Yoga sutras

Think Happy | Be Happy

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THINK HAPPY

BE HAPPY

A t-shirt on a young girl shouted at me in bold, bright letters. I forgot that sometimes the answer is so simple.

“The…true you reflects in the mind which is your mirror… If the mind has a lot of waves like the surface of a lake, you will be seeing a distorted reflection.”

-Thinking negative thoughts distorts your natural peace.

“To see the true reflection, see that the water is clean and calm and without any ripples.” (Swami Satchidananda, Book 1 Sutra 3*)

-To feel our true self, our self at peace, we must remove disturbing thoughts.

Think Peace

Be Peace

How?

I have had many negative thoughts this year in particular and at times have felt I hit bottom. I keep waiting to not feel crushed, but have realized that I myself am keeping myself down by allowing – feeding on – negative thoughts. Now I try to be vigilantly conscious of their appearance and with great struggle stop a thought and replace it with something else.

I remind myself that negativity only hurts me. The world doesn’t change – only my experience of it can change.

I remind myself to nurture gratitude and list a few things I am grateful for in my head.

I remind myself to replace a negative with a positive (or at least a neutral).

I remind myself to breathe.

Frustrated the other day because my 3-year-old refused to listen to me (as is perfectly normal for his age and an everyday occurrence) – I laid on my bed and covered my face with a pillow. He clambered in after me asking what was wrong. “Mommy, take a deep breath.” After I complied, I told him I felt better.

I guess he does listen…

* Quotes from Satchidanada, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990.

Overwhelming love

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I waited in a long snaking line in a cavernous Starbucks deciding which caffeinated elixir to shock my body with when I noticed how amazingly different each person in line looked from each other. Sure, it’s New York City – I expect diversity, I’m used to diversity. But what really struck me was feeling in an instant the vastness of each person as an individual with deep and complicated lives that fill up massive amounts of space and time in the world.

And that we all exist in that massiveness at the same time.  I imagined standing amongst dense brush, the city of insects, covered in spider webs as thick as cotton, each web with one little spider in the center. The webs overlapped but were created and existed separately. We are all the centers of our own webs of contacts, connections, conversations, a greater network.

Nearly everyone in line had their head bent down, eyes glued to their hand held device, tapping or scrolling. Only the one family, the one couple, and one older gentleman were not mentally in another place.

As I looked at everyone not connecting to those around them I suddenly felt connected to all of them and a sudden swelling of love, a great acceptance and empathy, overwhelmed me. All these beautiful souls walking, or texting, or surfing through the world. My heart went out to all of them and everyone around us.

Tears came to my eyes at the strength of the love, my heart pounded, I felt shaky.

It didn’t matter that not one person looked up at me or noticed me in any way. We were all there together and in the world together. We are all just little bits of the same big mass, the same big network of humans in a larger network of energy that embraces us all.

We are all the same. If only we could feel that all the time. I knew being tapped into that love would be a fleeting experience so I let myself swim around in it while it was there. I looked at each person and loved them.

The love was an inner vibration, a humming, an echo of the feeling produced by chanting “Om.” Om is the infinite vibration that is always around us and within us; it is the sound of the Divine; it is the energy of love. Chanting Om brings us into harmony with the infinite. Beyond the sounds of Om is the unstruck sound – anahata – a sound that exists without anything producing it. (Book 1 Sutra 27)* In the chakra system anahata is the heart chakra. Its inner state is compassion and love. This love is the kind of love felt without attachment or self.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to feel love’s immensity for a moment, maybe longer. It’s important to nurture the glimpses we get of the greater reality – of the Divine – and remember the experience when we feel lost or disconnected. Love is always there.

 

*Swami Satchidananda discusses the four stages of Om in this sutra in his translation and commentary of the Yoga Sutras.

Replace the negative with the positive

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Pratipaksha bhavana (Book 2 Sutra 33) is the practice of replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. Negative thoughts are a kind of blame game – we can use them as an excuse, a justification, a defense against letting in anything unknown, challenging, or scary. “This happened because she is a terrible person. I can’t do this because the system is evil. It’s not my fault, this culture is too unfair.”

Feeding negative thoughts feeds hatred and builds a wall against interaction and exchange. We do this with ourselves as well, focusing on what’s wrong with us and feeding those insecurities and fears.

If we feed the positive, we feed openness. By feeding our own wonderful qualities we help them grow.

It sounds so simple to stop a thought and either just let it go or replace it with an opposite thought. But in practice it’s very difficult. I don’t even realize where my mind has gone when I am in the middle of an internal rant until I am well invested in the negative emotion. If I’m lucky I realize what I’m doing and then can try to change what’s going on in my head. Then I have to be vigilant about not watering the negative seeds I planted (they will still try to survive) and try to plant positive seeds instead.

If making a 180 isn’t possible, especially in the moment, then change what you are doing or where you are. Look at or listen to something that makes you happy, peaceful, at ease. Remove yourself from the situation or person over which you are filling yourself with negativity.

Try to think of the hurt you are causing, not just in yourself, but in the energy you are putting out into the world, into the situation you are in, or toward the person you are with. These thoughts lead to actions that take the negativity from energy to something tangible. How much hurt are you causing now?

I sometimes have days where I stew in negativity.

I’m taking the subway with my son in a stroller and no one makes room on the train so we can get on, so we have to wait for the next one, or the next one. “Jerks.” Or – my son loves to watch the trains come and go so now we get to watch more than one. Or – instead of rushing, now I have a few extra minutes to breathe and chat with my son and lower my anxiety level.

I’m carrying my son up the subway stairs in a stroller because there is no elevator in the station. “Jerks.” Or – what a great opportunity to use my strength and show my son what fortitude is. Or – the New York city subway system is a monster and the MTA is doing their best to address all the issues, it is a near impossible task with the infrastructure they are working with.

I’m pushing a stroller awkwardly into a building and someone closes the door right into us. “Jerk.” Or – maybe he was just blissfully unaware and had no idea what just happened, it was an accident. Or – maybe he was overwhelmed with something difficult in his life and he didn’t have one ounce of energy left to give and I should feel compassion rather than antipathy for him.

And then my son has an irrational but completely normal toddler melt down. If I had stuck with the “jerks” all day I wouldn’t have any patience or softness left to give my son what he needs. I know this from experience. But when I really try and practice pratipaksha bhavana I feed my inner strength that allows me to keep going with a steady gaze, a calm breath, and a smile. And then I can project that positivity back into the world.

Gently down the stream

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GangaIn The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Swami Satchidananda says, “The entire world is your own projection.”  What a powerful idea. What does he mean? We choose to give meaning to things, to people, to places and we choose what particular meaning to give them. We then react in response to those meanings. I lost an inexpensive ring I had bought for myself – I had given the ring the power of being a reminder to me of the spiritual path. I loved to look at the ring and remember where I was and how I felt when I bought it. Then I lost it. I was upset, it was meaningful to me and irreplaceable.

But, did I lose the spiritual path? Was that reminder in a physical object more powerful than the practice itself? No. I had given that little piece of metal power but it in itself was just a little piece of metal. I let it go and the upset followed.

Being able to control how the world affects you is the key to peace.  Knowing the difference between your true self and your affected self is yoga.

“Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah – The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.” Practicing yoga is practicing letting go. Our minds jump around and react constantly – stilling, restraining the mind, letting go of the reactions, the attachments, and just being brings peace.

How we react to the world around us is what creates the world around us. But it is such a difficult practice to become aware of our reactions, to control them, and to let them go. Peace is not easy to achieve.

My two-year old son seems to have mastered letting go in mid cry and turning his frown upside down and laughing at it all. He sang to me: “Row, row, row your boat gently on the lake. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life’s a piece of cake.” Life’s a piece of cake mommy, why are you making it so hard?

Then he changed it up to: “Row, row, row your boat on a on a mouth. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life’s a piece of mouth.” He thought that was supremely hilarious and laughed heartily. I have to give it to him for being creative and trying to make a joke – but mostly I admire his ability to laugh. He reminds me every day to laugh. Life really can be laughable if you let yourself see it that way.

Row gently and know none of it is real. It’s amazing how hard it can be to laugh, to let go of attachments, to believe it is all just a dream. It’s all a creation of our minds. Everything we hold onto is ultimately unimportant. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have people or things in our lives but we should try to be in control of how our mind reacts, how we attach, how we project meaning and expectations onto them. It must be easier if you become a monk…

But I will row on and practice.

Quotes from Satchidananda, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990.