The Yamas Week 1 - Ahimsa and Love

 The Yamas

So—
in our Yoga Sutras last season,
we got pretty much all the way
through the eight limbs of yoga.

And then we said—
“Okay, we’ll come back to the first two limbs
for this season.”

Alright.

And those first two limbs
are the Yamas and the Niyamas

So for the next five or six weeks,
we’ll be doing the Yamas.

The five Yamas.
These are the first two limbs.
And on the most classical level,
these would be the beginning
of the yogic path.

And there’s a reason for this.
And there’s also a reason
why we don’t tend to do it this way anymore.

These five Yamas—
they are initiations
into a new life.

Traditionally, when someone was coming
for spiritual training,
they were leaving their old life behind.
They understood this.

They might still go home—
to their family, go to work—
but something was shifting.

It’s a bit more difficult for us these days,
because we don’t have the same background.
But they knew—
they were stepping out of their old life
and into a new way of living.

So they approached the spiritual master
to open up to being trained
in a new way of seeing,
perceiving,
and experiencing.

It was a big deal
to be initiated into the Yamas.

And I thought—
what if we felt like this?

What if we all felt:
“I’m being initiated
into ancient ways of seeing and living.”

That fires me up.

---

But another reason they came first—
is because they also laid out
the purpose of the path.

So the five Yamas
are pretty much this:

A life lived in love.
A life lived with truth.
A life lived in integrity.
A life lived with commitment.
And a life lived with generosity.

Those are the five.

So this was a way the master would use with the student—
to say:

“If you’re coming for anything else…
this is not the place to come."
What’s going to happen for you
is not necessarily a big bang. You’re not going to get enlightened. You’re going to disappear. And the light will emerge in your place.

So if you’re trying to add enlightenment
to yourself—
good luck, sonny Jim.

Because one replaces the other.

What’s going to happen
is that you’re going to become
more selfless.

You’re going to become more loving.
You’re going to become more honest—
whether you like it or not.

You’re not going to be able to lie to yourself or anyone else
as well as you used to—
until you can’t lie at all.

You’re going to be
an individual of integrity.
That means: what you say is what you do, and what you do is what you are.

You’re going to become
incredibly committed.
Almost to the point
that everyone will think you’re mad—
how utterly given you are
to your pursuit in life.

And you’re going to become so generous
that you’ll forget
you even own anything at all.
It will all feel like its flowing through you
because you’re going to possess nothing .

If so—
you can take the first initiation.
You can take the first vow.

---

Now—
the first vow,
and all the vows that follow,
are actually what you already are.

They’re the essential qualities
deep in the human Heart.

When we’re rested inside ourselves,
and we’re at peace—
these are our perfume.

These are just simply what we emanate—
like a flower releasing its fragrance.

But at the same time that it’s inherent to you,
you’ll also have to choose it.
You have to want it.

Because what you are,
and what you have become,
are unlikely to be in accordance.

That means—
what you are currently
is going to have to turn,
and favour the love,
the truth,
the Life,
the generosity,
the commitment.

So it is major to say:

“I want to live for love.”

“I want to live in accordance with what I know to be true,
And as that changes, I’m ready to change”

Ahimsa

So—
I could sit with you for a week on this principle
In fact, it would take a lifetime
to work out the details of this first principle

The idea is—
you take it away,
and Life gives you the details around it.

Life teaches you how it works in each situation.

It allows you to enquire:
“Is it just wishful thinking?
Or can I apply this principle?”

So the first invitation—
the first vow—
is Ahimsa,
which means:
an initiation into non-violence.

To take a vow
to become as harmless as I can in this moment
according to my current level of consciousness.

“I no longer wish to harm another being
I wish to be a force of love, kindness and compassion”

"I don’t want to hurt
I want to heal”

---

The Master would have told you—
this is already your nature.

Your nature
is already exquisitely non-violent.
Your nature is already love.
It already looks for healing,
rather than harm.

When you are rested in yourSelf—
and you’re not out in your seeker,
when I’m not trying to get my own way,
not trying to inflict my opinion, judgement or agenda
on the world outside of me;
when I’m rested in contentment and Sukha
in my own Heart
I am Ahimsa
I am a harmless, loving being.

You do it in the Sharanam.
When you rest in your Heart
and you are not trying to be someone in the world
by inflicting your will on other people
you are simply at peace with everyone.

---

The master would tell you:
“In that state,
  You can do no harm” 

However—
when we centre ourselves
in our own personal I, me and mine,
my own psychology,
seeking my own apraisal,
demanding from Life—

Then—
I can only do harm.

And this is a tough one.

This is hard, hard teaching.

But you’ve only ever done harm from that space.

Now—don’t be down about it.
because you've also done loads from your heart.

The psychology that’s centered around the me
is separate from everything else.

If there’s a me,
there’s a you.

And as long as there’s separateness,
I cannot feel you.

So if I’m in my Heart—
I can feel you.
Therefore—
I can do you no harm.

I will simply sense
what’s needed in that situation.

If I’m separate from you—
I cannot feel you.

And therefore—
almost anything’s possible.
So I’m bound to accidentally hurt you.
Consciously or unconsciously.
Deliberately or unintentionally.

But still—
the psychology
that’s based around the me,
is only ever doing harm.

Subtle or gross.
Big or small.
War, or just some emotional harm.

Not because I intended to—
but because of where I was positioned.
Positioned in separateness.

Because at the very least,
I am re-enforcing the illusion of seperateness,
Which is the cause of all suffering. 

For me,
This kind of hard-hitting teaching really works.
it makes me want to shift out of my psychology
and into my Heart.

It tells me where I want to be,
at home

And I fail all the time
but I still want it.

And so—
I choose, more and more,
to go into Sukha,
and rest back,
and wait for instructions,
rather than me and my will,
inflicted on everyone around me—
including myself.

Because if I’m harming you,
I’m also harming me.

It’s the truth of oneness.

So this for me,
as an initiation—
is just about the best news
I could ever get.

It’s like
“wow, I have a choice.
to be love
or to act out of fear.”

If I’m acting out worry
If I’m acting out of a personal agenda
If I’m acting out of fear
I’m harming myself and I’m harming everything around me.

The idea is that we discover this intimately inside ourselves.

Still today—
I’ve found nothing more powerful
than the Yoga postures
not just to get flexible, fit and healthy,
but to actually discover
the harm we can do to ourselves—
and the love that we can do to ourselves
on the subtlest of levels.

How am I approaching this breath?
One after the other,
the moment-to-moment choices we make.

So we start to see
how the psychology wants to interfere
in the Life process.

It wants to put its demands on things.
It starts to seek after something.

And that’s harm.

Rein it back in.

Non-violence returns.
Compassion returns.
Love returns.
Life flows.

And then—
we forget again,
“Oh—grumble, trouble…”

Mostly not really bad, really, is it?
It’s just subtle trouble

So you say: “Look at me, after something for myself again. What am I doing? That’s not where my joy is!”

Return.
Rest in.

“Oh—I've become.
Already.
Happy.
Everything’s fine.” 

And so we do this incredible training—

It’s an apprenticeship for life.

Its the greatest apprenticeship there is
Because it's an apprenticeship to the God and the masters.

I’d call it the greatest attainment,
but its not an attainment.

It’s the end of attainments
the end of seeking.

Everything is here—
and Life will tell you exactly what needs doing
in the moment.

Don’t panic.
Don’t worry.
Don’t be in a rush.
Don’t concern yourself with your life.

Sit back.
Be present.
Wait.
Watch.
Listen.
Feel.
Follow your energy.

That’s the idea.

---

We could now go into endless detail
about how Ahimsa looks in the world.

But I would suggest—
no detail at all.
No ideas about how it looks.

Because it all boils down to this:

We’re either resting in our Heart,
In peace in ourSelf—
and that’s what we give out.

Or—
we’re outside of ourselves,
seeking for something for ourselves
on the outside.

And that creates stress and harm.

So—
from the Heart,
you can do no harm.

From the mind,
you can do nothing but harm.

And I would use “psychology” more—
because “mind” is innocent.
It’s just when we have our own mind.

Mind is like infinite space—
it’s universal.

But our individualised little thinking—
that’s what I’m talking about.

---

  Here’s to a life of love.

Of course,
you will have to practice a lot of ahimsa towards yourself;
towards your seeker.

Because our seeker will be running amok,
all over the show. 

And we will have to remind ourselves:

Settle back
Settle back

Love the seeker back.

Be compassionate towards the seeker,
It’s been doing it for a long time,
and it has a reason for doing it.

It is scared out of its wits.
So you are training your child
to not be scared anymore.  

It requires a lot of training and patience 

---

Love—
doesn’t have to act
according to our ideas,
to be love.

Love can be a slap,
and so can Ahimsa.

Just to do your head in,
in case it’s gone to your head.

Love can be a smooth stroke.
Love can be a slap.

It depends where it's coming out of.

If it’s coming out of a personal psychology
because I’m not getting my way,
that’s a different slap.

If it came out the Heart,
and it was needed for a wake up,
and I didn’t even think about it,
I just slapped,
it could be full of Ahimsa.

Just in case you have any idea
about how love looks.

One of the first things to throw away
is the pink fluffy, always yummy, Love.

“Oh, it needs to feel like this…”

Because love can be hard,
and tough,
and very, very demanding.

It depends on where the action is coming from. 

This is deeper than deep.
Because it will take you all the way
to your deep.

The Final Reminder
When we rest back into our hearts—
and we’re not going out with our seeker
it means we’re also not going out to heal,
to make better,
to sort everybody out.

We’re resting
in a heart-space
that will act
according to inner prompting—

Which often means—
it won’t act at all.

It will simply rest
in support of.

The Heart is not a big,
“Hey, look at me!”

The Heart is a quiet,
silent,
almost invisible power
that does nothing for our ego,
but does everything for love.

So it means that a lot of our training
is to be able to sit with discomfort—
the kind that would normally cause us
to react and act.

And that compulsion, of course, isn’t from our deep.
It is from our conditioning.
Probably not bad, but not necessarily love.

So learning to sit and not do,
is often a bigger part of the journey
than giving.

In fact,
it will turn out—
in the end—
that you are not doing anything at all.

Love has replaced you.
It is doing everything.

But we have to learn to sit on our dynamite,
and sometimes feel the pain and discomfort,
and rather than try and alleviate it or stick a plaster over it,
stay in the feeling. 

I love you so much.

Namaste.