The Niyamas Week 1 - Shaucha: Purity and the Power of Association
The Niyamas
So last week
we completed the yamas,
and now we move into
the five niyamas.
Personally,
I’ve never really considered these
to be separate disciplines —
Yama essentially means
restraint —
it means to not do something.
And niyama means observance —
to do something.
I’ve never found
that the command
to not do something
is very effective.
It just stokes
the inner rebel, doesn’t it?
Even if you’ve grown out
of your teenage years —
don’t worry —
it’s still there.
We all have an issue
with authority
to varying degrees.
And rightly so —
because the authority
we’re seeking
is actually within,
and that’s the one that counts.
An external authority
that’s not simply pointing you
back to your inner authority —
Is a dodgy kind of authority.
They are taking your power away.
Whether it’s a guru figure,
or a politician,
or anything —
the moment we stop
trusting the inner authority,
we’re at the hands
of all sorts of other powers.
It doesn’t mean
we can’t take advice and counsel —
but that has to be verified
inwardly.
So for that reason,
I don’t really do
the do-nots.
For me,
they’re all niyamas.
The first niyama:
Shaucha.
Shaucha means purity.
A term which most of us probably have some kind of issue with.
Purity.
The guru would look directly at you
and tell you —
You are a pure soul.
You are blemishless.
You are untainted.
You are white snow.
You are clean sheets
on your bed.
That is your inner nature.
Your innermost Self
has never been touched
by anything.
Never been tainted by anything.
Ever.
And never can be.
It rests in its own
innate purity
and splendour —
always
and forever.
Yes.
That’s the truth of you.
But this pure Self,
this pure soul,
unblemished
and untainted —
has to work out
with its light.
Its purity
has to come through
the mechanism
of our outer sheaths —
our body sheath,
our mind sheath,
our energy sheath,
our emotional sheath,
our intellectual sheath.
Now these sheaths
tend to be
somewhat conditioned.
They have colouring in them —
prejudice,
trauma,
memory of pain.
So it’s become
somewhat of a contracted field
of energy —
that this innate purity,
is trying to express itself through.
This gathering of muck
that we’ve all accumulated
into ourselves —
has occurred
because we’ve turned away
from ourSelves.
We’ve turned away
from the One,
and we’ve looked out —
and then
we’ve started to psychologically mingle ourselves
with what’s around us.
We’ve turned away from,
the innate purity.
Please understand:
the innate purity
is always there.
It’s just a turning away
of attention.
‘Turning away’ is more accurate than saying
“disconnected” —
because being disconnected is impossible.
You are always connected to your source,
your centre,
your innermost being,
it’s just —
we’ve turned our attention
outwardly —
and then we’ve accumulated
stuff into ourselves
that hasn’t been fully digested
through that pure centre.
So —
To be initiated into sadhana,
to be initiated into a yogic practice,
a yogic process —
is really
a process of purification
of our outer sheaths.
Because the innermost self
cannot be purified
any more than it already is.
You cannot improve on the Self.
No matter what development programmes
you go on,
no matter how much you try
to create the “best version of yourself” —
you cannot match the Self.
So the yogic process
is one of cleaning out
the outermost sheaths.
Now…
let me explain something that has been
game-changing for me.
you've got the practice of asana —
that’s very purifying
for your body,
the physical sheath.
You’ve got all the breathwork —
that’s very purifying
on your energetic level,
in your energy body.
You've got meditation,
which is incredibly cleansing
on a certain level
for the mental sphere —
in that we shift our attention
away from being identified with thoughts
and that allows a lot of our identities
to start to slip away.
Being in satsang,
like this,
is incredibly purifying
for your intellectual body.
It clears away
all kinds of misconceptions
and misunderstandings,
and replaces them
with pristine truth.
That’s the power of the teachings.
But…
All of this,
when it’s done
as a separate self
trying to improve itself —
is limited.
It’s the ego
working on the ego.
Because I'm coming at it
from a separate self,
trying to purify my separate self —
I'm still locked
in my separate selfness.
Don’t get me wrong,
the practices will never be bad
and effort is never wasted,
because the physical body is cleansed,
and the energy body is cleansed
to a certain degree.
But it’s still
locked in a separate self.
And the separate self
is the cause
of all misery.
It is
the impurity itself.
It is the impure idea:
“I am a separate self.
I have my own autonomy.”
That is the great stain.
So the ultimate stain remover
the cosmic Aerial —
is actually:
To take our idea of ourselves being
a body,
a separate energy,
our own mental fabric,
our own psychology —
and to dip that
into the pure waters
of the Soul.
That
is the only thing
that takes us beyond
the limited field
of a separate self
trying to improve itself.
If it's not in the Heart,
connected to something bigger than itself,
it's always locked in itself.
It can’t escape
its own thing.
It has to acknowledge
something greater than itself
in order to open a doorway —
where you can let go,
and be purified
in the great Aerial of the cosmos.
So —
honouring and recognising
a power greater than ourselves
is the great purifier.
Even in just simply recognising —
within me,
in the Heart of me,
is nothing but beauty,
love,
and light.
At the core of me —
I am full of goodness.
This is so.
I confirm it in myself.
When I just drop my mind —
my natural place to land
is goodness.
Now —
if I just keep dropping
my body and mind,
my psycho-physiology,
into these deep waters —
it gets cleansed.
Deeply, deeply cleansed.
And that
is what true sadhana is.
So — it’s interesting —
that until we invite this,
until we acknowledge this,
it won’t happen.
That is —
we are our own limitation.
So if I will not acknowledge,
the possibility
of the greater power —
I can’t access it.
The moment I acknowledge
it's there —
then a whole new domain opens up for me.
A whole new spiritual ground
opens up —
So we are limiting ourselves.
We are still limiting ourselves.
Can we be that humble?
We are
in our own way...
Because we won’t dream
fucking big enough.
And that’s good to say that.
Because now something —
in us wants it,
Because just like we don’t like authority,
we don’t like limitations, do we?
So now something in us says —
“Oh, I want to go beyond my blockages.”
So Yoga is not a self-improvement effort.
It never was.
It’s been condoned
to these fiery realms of helldom
since its transition to the West.
But originally this was just taken for granted.
It was simply understood.
It just never got transferred across
so well.
Because —
well, in the west —
we manage to make anything materialistic,
don’t we?
Including the spiritual path.
Spiritual materialism.
So we’ve covered —
how the purification process
really works.
What purity really is.
And how to even purify
the spiritual process itself.
When you do your postures —
if you do them in connection with your heart,
letting something bigger into yourself,
releasing deeper out of yourself —
it’s a totally different experience.
It transcends
the mind.
It includes something bigger
than yourself.
A bigger energy.
That energy is in a constant flow inside.
Around that energy you've got the container that's feels relatively solid
and you've probably got thoughts in there occasionally.
Ideas about what you think you’re experiencing,
judging and evaluating your own experience.
But the energy inside of you that's flowing, is unimpeded.
It is a flow of pure Life energy.
That energy will rub up against all kinds of blockages in the system.
Everything it comes into contact with, it purifies.
So…
Why not choose to identify with the flow
rather than what the flow hits up against?
You are your breath.
You are your pulse.
You are the free flowing energy inside your system.
That energy is unimpeded.
A pure flow of Life.
Everything it touches—it purifies.
And you get to choose:
Do you identify with the dirt being rubbed…
or with the flow doing the rubbing?
Big shift.
That was a big moment for me
when I realised:
I can identify with the solution to all things rather than the problems.
That energy has no limits.
Even in a prison cell—
it’s free.
As long as you associate with the flow—
there is no problem
Try and find one!
But the moment you go back to thinking “I’m the one doing it”—
you're full of problems.
That separate self?
It’s very limited.
And it thinks it can decide you and the whole universe.
That’s scary.
No wonder we get tainted.
But you can identify with what’s flowing.
This is graft guys.
If you do the graft and enquire into yourself—
you may realise:
“It’s all association.
And I am that pure flow.
I am given to that.”
The flow is never not there.
This pure source—
unlearned, enlightened.
Blessing everything it touches.
It is so good that you recognise your connection to it.
Meditation, breath, asana—
I practise these to connect to something bigger than myself.
They link the outer Life to the inner Life.
And when I relax into the place inside me,
I can go anywhere—
the pub, the park, a shop—
and I’m still connected.
If it blesses me inside,
it blesses everything outside.
Doesn’t make me a saint.
Doesn’t make me special.
Just means I’m not blocking it.
And that’s what’s happening behind all our conversations.
The words mean nothing—
if they don’t carry the current.
Behind the hug.
Behind the words.
That’s the God current.
If it blesses you, it must bless everyone.
Namaste.
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