Contemplations
Cultivate the Oppositeby Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
St Francis of Assisi said, "Where there is hatred, sow love." This important teaching was also a key piece of Patanjali's text approximately 4,000 years earlier: Vitarka-baadhane=pratipaksha-bhaavanam. - Yoga Sutras 2:33 When your mind is disturbed by improper thoughts, remedy it by cultivating the opposite.
The sage Patanjali is saying that you have the ability to choose what your mind i doing.
Aparigraha: Non-Greediness
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
How much do you need? I ask this question while sitting in rural India, seeing the farmers in the surrounding village and seeing how little a person really needs. The average American feels they need significantly more. In addition, your answer varies as you move through the stages of your life: the mother of a newborn needs different things than a senior citizen; a college student needs different things than a teacher. Your answer may vary from day to day; it also changes based on whether or not you've done your yoga today.
Asteya: Non-Stealing
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
Great riches present themselves freely to the one who is firmly established in asteya, non-stealing. If this is not a description of your economic situation, you have to look at your own proclivity for appropriating things that don't belong to you. It's a rigourous standard, described by the ancient sage Patanjali in verse 2.37 of the Yoga Sutras.
Brahmacharya: Celibacy
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
A lifestyle that maximizes your learning capacity, brahmacharya names the span of your first 15-25 years of life, a time when your primary focus was learning. As the fourth of yoga's yamas (lifestyle practices) brahmacharya is celibacy.
Clarity, Integrity & Transparency
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
Clarity is your sense of knowing, completely beyond doubt and even beyond thought. Integrity is the alignment of all the levels of your being and your life, and experience of complete congruency. Transparency is letting what is inside you shine outward. They all come from a single source, but each of the three is a different way of experiencing it.
Ahimsa: Non-Harming
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
You are the light of consciousness, manifested in a unique and individualized form. That light shines through your eyes, fills your heart and sparks your greatest ideas. The light of your own being arises from its source, spills into your life and fills your relationships with light and love and joy.
Satya: Truthfulness
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
The Truth is that you are divine consciousness. Even though you don't know it all the time, your essence is pure, expansive, holy, whole and perfect. Your unhappiness comes from being cut off from the divinity hidden with in you, which is called svaroopa or Self. Anything that takes you farther away form your Self increases your pain. Anything that takes you into your Self gives you bliss. Yoga is dedicated to this principle and promises that you will know your own Self, if you simply do enough yoga.
The Great Vow
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
No exceptions. Always holding yourself to a high standard. Not merely morality, but a yogic lifestyle - the yamas are your beginning point. Yamas are the things you refrain from doing, even things that other people do without concern. Yoga holds you to a higher standard in five ways: non-harming, non-lying, non-stealing, non-licentiousness, and non-greed. These five yamas are not for the purpose of making you an admirable person, though you will be; they are for the purpose of quieting your mind.
Cultivate the Opposite
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
St. Francis of Assisi said, "Where there is hatred, sow love." This important teaching was also a key piece of Patanjali's text approximately 4,000 years earlier: "When your mind is disturbed by improper thoughts, remedy it by cultivating the opposite.
Pure, Purity, Purification
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
Everyone wants pure water, pure food and a pure air quality but not many want a pure mind. You may even be actively working on having a pure body, whether from eating a special diet or doing cleansing treatments, but are you working purifying your mind and emotions?
Practice Contentment
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
Superlative happiness is the fruit of the yogic practice of contentment, according to Patanjali. While you know what happiness is, the ancient sage promises superlative happiness. How is it that contentment is the pathway to this extraordinary state? This is exactly the opposite of what you've been practicing. It's so subversive that it is un-American and could easily undermine he whole world economy. Dare you even consider it?
Tapas: The Hard Stuff
by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
There are easy parts to life, but hard parts come along in spite of your efforts to avoid them. Yoga says you must tackle the hard stuff, not merely handle the tough stuff when it comes up, but to look for the challenges and even create them for yourself. This is called tapas, the third of the niyamas.