Sutras for the win

    If someone’s leg was fractured, would they try to walk to the hospital? No. If they received a cancer diagnosis, would they seek to explore the causes of disease and change their lifestyle as well as seek treatment? Maybe, and ideally. If someone’s participating in daily risky behavior, like driving in a car, riding a bike or crossing the street, should they learn the rules of the road? Obviously. Wear a seat belt or helmet? Yup. Look both ways? Definitely. 

    In context to the managing our mental health in a world in which current events are so jarring, cultivating a spiritual foundation is on par with all of those examples. I often joke that Yoga is the best secret club – anyone can join the club but you only get the secrets if you practice. Practice, in this example certainly can include the postures and breath work, however, for our mental state and as change makers in the world, must include studying and integrating the concepts in the texts, like Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. 

   When I scroll social media or chat with most people lately, it’s glaringly obvious to me that their suffering at the whim of the world is tenfold because they have no foundation to understand suffering, and no effective practices to minimize it. Patanjali’s Sutra 1.16 translates to “The suffering that could come, should be avoided.” Listed are also the causes of suffering. Not understanding the causes is like having cancer and seeing it as random or only genetic rather than understanding that environmental, lifestyle, nutrition, and mental factors are causalities and ought to be addressed with as much vigor as treatment of the symptoms which are a manifestation of the disease which is a manifestation of the root causes. Root causes can be very difficult to discern, but looking beyond conventional western medicine can certainly be illuminating. 

   When we witness acts of violence in society, we’re witnessing the symptoms. However, discerning the roots of those violent acts is far more complicated than even detecting the roots of cancer because of deeper and vastly more complicated history that we’re unaware of. This is why I turn to the spiritual philosophy – there in are the nuggets of wisdom that illustrate why systemic cultural problems exist. So I can veer away from blame, criticizim and vitriol (emotions that produce  chemicals in the body that, btw, deplete our health) and towards compassion. Sutra 1.33 observes that when a person’s yoga practice is in good order they will naturally develop a state of, and should cultivate, happiness for the joyful, compassion for unhappy, delight for the virtuous and neutrality towards the wrong doers. 

   How different would the mental health of so many people I know be right now if that was the attitude?! Sadly, what I’m witnessing is many people with fractured spirits, walking around in deep pain not even realizing they’re spirit has long since been neglected and injured. If your leg was broken, wouldn’t you seek to set it? Why not the spirit then?

  Sutra 1.13 encourages us to regular practice (the methods of which are listed after) because with regular practice, it says, steadiness of the mind is thusly attained. The steady mind has a chance at becoming lucid, and free from the causes of suffering, and then in a state of peace. 

   Each of us lives in our own experiences internally, and contributes to our collective experiences externally. If peace is what is wanted externally, doesn’t it seem rational to understand it must be developed internally by the individual (s) first? How can a delicious nourishing soup be made with spoiled, rotten ingredients? Or even ingredients that appear good, but are actually propped up with harmful chemicals and not derived from good soil or healthy animals. It can not. 

   A driver must exhibit adequate understanding of the rules of the road in order to receive a driver’s license. Even children quickly learn red means stop, green means go. Why is so much less expected of us spiritually? Especially now that we’re even more entangled thanks to media, the internet, social media and so on? Every social media post full of vitriol, even if well meaning, is like putting our rotten moldy spiritual garbage and defecation on our neighbor’s lawns. Not only does it not help the problems, but it’s spiritually and psychologically unsanitary. 

  The architect designs the foundation  of a building from many perspectives; the perspective of what is being built upon, the use of the building, the types of materials that are best, the aesthetics, the climate, and so on. Yoga gives us shifts in perspectives by the sheer effect of the practice (just show up, do the practice and the technology will work on you, at least a bit) but double down by learning and integrating the teachings and suddenly one’s ability to hold multiple perspectives at once amplifies. This is mental agility, a necessary component for creating peace.  

  In college my roommate had a bumper sticker that said “You can’t teach people not to kill people by killing people.” The same is true about everything. You can’t defend the rights of people by canceling people. You can’t teach love and acceptance by hate and rejection. Our messy and inconsistent emotional  responses are usually well intended, but lacking in spiritual foundation, and being cooked up with poor ingredients. Pointing fingers at the mess in your neighbor’s lawn isn’t going to work. Neither the laws of psychology nor of energy show that to be helpful, in a real or meaningful sustained change sort of way. Fixing one broken bone when there are dozens of weak bones subject to the impact of the next fall is a poor way for humanity to exist. We must strengthen the bones of our species – spiritual development is the way.

   So my curiosity is this: Why? Why the disregard to the state of the spirit? Why the diminishment to the importance of the faculty of the ineffable but irrefutable state of our pyschospiritual nature? The ancients gave us the technologies – why not use them? 

   This is me making a case for the state of the planet, the state of our American culture, the state of my family members and of my friends - Please lean in. If not to the brilliance and universality of the yogic wisdoms, than find your medicine and learn it, read it, practice it, integrate it. Please, bring the best of yourself to the table for, I promise you, there are so many of us that are cooking up something nourishing, healed and potent. You will be adding to the best stone soup the world ever knew. 

(But how? How do I lean in? What do I read? What class do I take?

Fair questions.

I am available for coaching and consultation. But you needn’t spend so much money to tap in – change your algorithm – seek the work of illuminating change makers like The Heart Math Institute, Gregg Bradon, Dr Joe Dispenza, Dr Bruce Lipton. Read Autobiography of a Yogi, Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani, My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Light on Life by B.K.S. Iyengar. The Secret Power of Yoga by Nischala Joy Devi, to name just a few. Grab any copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Look into ancient traditional texts. There’s so much good available, happening and being created - use your social media search engines to seek sources of learning about self/spiritual development and change your algorithm to become more nourishing. Remember what I always say, you are worth your own labor of love. Endeavor. I will help.)