The Niyamas Week 3 - Tapas: From Change to Transformation

 Are you ready

for the eighth initiation, friends?

Oh yes.

So—
our eighth initiation is into:
Tapas.

The willingness to burn
for transformation.

The willingness
for self-sacrifice,
for something greater.

The willingness
to be with what’s uncomfortable—
in order to break
the boundaries
that hold us in.

To accept, that hardship
is how Life grows us.

That discomfort,
is the sacred means
of expansion.

---

Because Life
is for you.
Not against you.

But in order for it to take you
into greater capacity,
we have to break through
the unwillingness to feel certain things.

Tapas asks:
Can we go beyond that edgy bit—
where it gets uncomfortable?

This is tapas.
The willingness to burn
for something greater.

A mother does it for her child.
She burns.
Sleepless, sore, tired—
because there’s something greater to burn for. 

Then can we even call it hardship?
Or maybe—
a gift?

---

I want to give you something
that will last forever…

Change is inevitable,
but transformation is optional.

Life is constant change.
Right now,
your cells are changing continuously.
Nothing you can do
will stop change.

It’s impossible not to change.

Change is happening anyway.

Transformation
is change embraced.

When you embrace
the inevitability of change,
when you voluntarily participate in it—
then you transform.

Because your resistance—
futile, as it is—
won’t transform you.
It’ll just tire you out.

We’re not transformed
by being forced to change.

We’re transformed
by agreeing to change.

That’s tapas.

---

Now you have that line:

Change is inevitable,
transformation is optional.

You can carry it with you
for the rest of your life.

If you want to transform,
you’ll have to get on board
with change.

You’ll have to accept
what’s happening in your system—
at any time.

Whatever you’re experiencing
is change.

And yes,
it’s uncomfortable.

Because Life
is always renewing itself
through us.
You’re always
being reborn.

The you
from a few seconds ago?
Gone.

Inside you right now
there is a change process occurring.

And when you’re being challenged—
pushed out of what you knew—
and it’s hard—
you can still say:

Yes.
I will feel my way through this.
I will move through this..

Not because it’s easy.
But because I’m a willing participant.

You’d have been changed anyway.
But now—
you’ll be transformed.

But nothing happens without Sukha—

The opposite?
Dukkha—
the misery of resistance.

Still, change will happen.
But you won’t learn
what you could’ve learned.
You won’t experience
what you could’ve experienced.

---

Now this is big…

Tapas is everywhere.

Anything even slightly difficult
or uncomfortable to be with?
That’s tapas.

If you’re willing
to stay with that feeling,
you’ll find transformation
waiting in it.

Grief.
Loneliness.
Confusion.
Hopelessness.

All these—
tapas.
Moments of potential.
Opportunities to transform.

But we suppress.
We avoid.
We distract ourselves.
We play all kinds of games
to not feel discomfort. 

But that very discomfort
is transformation
already underway—
if we would just allow it.

You know emptiness?
Feeling down?
Feeling totally lost?
Hopeless?

Yep.
Tapas.
Transformational moments happening inside your system.
  Something burning its way through.

Even things like…
Criticism.

What if I just tore into you right now?
Could you stay with it?
Let it drop into the river inside?

Transformation.

Praise can be just as hard.
I tell you,
“God is within you”—
and your eyes drop.
You squirm.
Can you stay with that?

Tapas.

---

Everywhere in your life
there are these invitations.

Your life
is nothing but tapas.

Feelings slightly uncomfortable—
if you’re willing to relax,
to absorb—
they become power.

That which we resist
masters us.
What we embrace,
we become the masters of.

So it’s like —
“I’m not going to let these feelings
master me.

I’m not going to jump to conclusions
or make up stories
about why I feel this way.

I’m just going to feel it”

---

Sometimes we say:

“Oh, I feel like I’m on a plateau.”
“I feel stuck.”

Great.
Nice.
The feeling of being stuck
  is the doorway to something new.
But you’ve got to go through the doorway.

Otherwise you stay stuck,
on this side of the door.
Rearrange the furniture.
Move the lampshade.
Pretend something changed.

Nothing wrong with that.
Sometimes it’s lovely.

But you haven’t really transformed.

The transformation doorway
is always
what’s happening in you
right now.

---

Krishna said…

You’ve been given a map.

It’s built
into your physiology.

If you follow that map,
it will lead you home.
To your divine centre.
To oneness.

But that map
unveils itself in you through feelings
to be felt in your body.

Not romanticised.
Not avoided.

Felt through.

All this is going on inside you.

Everything you are ever experiencing
is happening inside your body. 

Nothing has ever happened outside of you. 

Things happen outside of you
that trigger an internal experience. 

---

Life deals each of us
a hand of cards.

In fact it is always dealing cards.

It’s a moving hand.
Shuffling. Dealing.
Always new cards.

The question is:
Will you play your cards?

Or wish you had someone else's?

Will you throw them down—
“This isn’t fair!
This is a shit hand!”

 Not for those initiated
into this path.

Not for the tapasvin.

---

For a tapasvin… 

Fair.
Unfair.
Lucky.
Unlucky.
Just.
Unjust.

Gone.

As a tapasvin I simply don’t use those words anymore.
I’ve dropped them.
Forever.

I don’t do blame.
I don’t do victim.

I play cards.
That’s it.

I get a card,
I play the card.
As best I can.

Sometimes I complain.
Then I get over myself.
And play it anyway.

It doesn’t mean
you have to be perfect.
But you catch yourself.

You realise:
I’m not playing my cards.
I’ve been resisting.
I’m stuck.
I’m changing—
but I’m not transforming.

So you get back on board.
Step up.
And play your hand.

Some situations are ludicrously hard.
There is no belittling the challenges
that we inevitably go through in life.

But that is the path.

It is the path to becoming more expansive
as an instrument
for the divine.

Play your cards.

You have the perfect hand
for you.

---

Because here’s the thing…

When we don’t play our cards—
when we reject an experience
we need to have—

it goes back into the loop.
It becomes karma.
It comes around again.
Until we face it again.
And we have another opportunity to feel through it.

There is no punishment in this,
it is just
will you face it now
or later. 

To be a tapasvin
is to be willing to burn.
To self-sacrifice,

To surrender
Through our inner difficulties

They come for a reason.

And somewhere along the road,
you’ll get the message.

You’ll understand why.

We always know,
somewhere down the line—
“I get the message.”
“I see why.”

Hindsight.

A tapasvin always endeavours
to the best of their ability
to have hindsight now. 

Simply saying:
“Okay Lord
you have brought me this
  All right,
it’s not easy,
but I meet it”

You can even ask for help.

That moment when you go,
“This is too much for me.”
“This is overwhelming.”

Then—
ask the bigger power for help.

It brings Sukha
straight back
into the system.

Confidence begins to build.
Faith begins to build.

That we can indeed move through
what we’re experiencing.

Then we become very bright. 

---

Pantanjali says…

The Tapasvin starts to glow,
with a burning radiance that can only come about
because such a one has been through the fire
and has been burnished.

Not from “It’s so hard…”
or “When will it get easier?”

Not from,
“Take me out of this world.”

Not a giving up.

A facing up.

There’s a different glow
in that.

It’s an invitation—
like all the initiations are.

How would my life look if I lived like that?

If I let go of my victim forever?
If I let go of blaming my experiences and instead
used them for growth. 

And you move
with the Christ.

What power you have.

---

Tapas locks into so many important teachings
and I couldn’t dream of covering all of them in one session. 

One of them?

To have a tough skin but a soft centre.

A powerful teaching.
But you have to find peace
with paradox.

You are both.

It’s necessary
to be both.

It’s necessary
in this world
to have a really tough skin.

The world is coming at us with such intensity
and if you’re too porous,
too sensitive on the outside—
you’ll get taken out.
You’ll get bashed around.

So the ability
to not take things personally
is key.

And we all know it.

We’re all generally of a sensitive disposition here,
so we know the importance of a tough skin,
but that doesn’t mean
we have to lose our beautifully soft and compassionate centres.

That can stay perfectly intact behind a crocodile skin.

---

A yogi
does not allow themselves
to be treated poorly.

Because a yogi knows
that what is within
is worthy of respect.

The God within
is worthy of respect.

Being a doormat?
Utterly out of the question.

Being dishonoured and
disrespectful?
No.

Remember—
you get what you accept.

Now…
acceptance is a beautiful thing.
It allows us to relax into our interior.

We accept what’s going on inside,
but it doesn’t stop there.

But often—
there’s a stepping up from there
and possibly corrections to make on the outside.

---

We’ve ended up
in such a pickle as humans
that now,
we’re so oversensitive
We’ve had to build a safety net
around everything.

No one can be challenged anymore.

Otherwise—
we collapse into misery.

“How dare you?”
“You’re not allowed to say that.”
“That made me feel bad.”
“I don’t want to feel bad.”
“You’re not allowed to make me feel…”

Everyone’s become
super jumpy.

We’re headed
for big trouble
with this kind of softness.

Back in the day,
you got talked to hard.
Toughened up.

But often that meant we hardened all the way to our core
and became a defensive unit.

So instead we stay soft in our centre.

But we’ve got to be able to take shit.
Even things we don’t agree with.
We’ve got to be able to take it.

We don’t have to agree with each other to live together.

Crocodile skin, soft centre. 

---

There’s so much more to unpack from tapas.

Stay tuned.

Namaste.