The Niyamas Week 4 - Swadhyaya: The Courage to See
So here we are.
The ninth initiation.
We climbed the mountain.
Sat in the cave.
Showed up again.
Nine times.
And the master says,
“Well, you’re back. Again.
This one’s big.
The most important, maybe.
In fact,
this one alone
could be enough
for your whole life.
Because all the others
support this initiation.”
(but he says this about all of them of course)
The yogis call it:
Swadhyaya.
Self-study.
Study yourself.
Learn about yourself.
Understand yourself.
Because the more you understand you,
the more you’ll understand everything.
Because you're a microcosm
of the macrocosm.
A tiny version
of the whole thing.
Even a grain of sand
contains the whole universe.
Because everything
contains everything else.
Want to go deeper?
“Swa” means self.
And for convenience
(though you’re not two beings),
we talk about
Self with a big S —
your true nature.
The divinity within.
That place beneath the mind,
beneath the personality,
beneath everything.
The ground of your being.
Your true essential Self.
And then there’s self with a little “s.”
The version we make up
when we forget that ground.
A persona.
A projection.
A fabricated “me.”
We build it
when we turn away
from our essential nature.
And it is a creation —
an invention.
A version of “me”
that’s actually
a workaround
for not resting
in who I already am.
A projection.
A performance.
A placeholder.
And the more we ignore
our depth,
the louder and more elaborate
that surface self becomes.
But no matter how fancy it gets,
it’s never the real deal.
The self is actually a weird attempt
to imitate the Self.
But you can’t be your true Self
by trying to be it.
You can only
drop the trying.
Just be it.
By being.
That’s it.
The whole yogic business
is one of withdrawing prana —
withdrawing our life force,
from the ridiculous amount of effort
that is required
to sustain and maintain
a false projection of ourselves.
We say:
“Fuck it
I’m done.”
And then all the prana withdraws
and comes back to rest
in the glory
of one’s true Self.
It shines out.
No longer through a hue of our own fabrication.
There.
That’s the whole game.
What a wonderful game.
Now —
Dhyaya means, one:
to recollect,
and two:
to study.
To recollect the true Self —
and to study
the projection.
To study and examine
the little self.
We have a saying,
amongst the students
of this lineage —
it says:
In order to be a servant of the light,
you will have to be a student of the darkness.
That is—
In order to serve the light
you will have to study
that in you
which obscures the light.
Because this light —
is always here.
It can’t go anywhere.
You are it.
Nothing can exist
but through this light.
But what is it
that obscures and clouds
this light?
Study that.
Understand that.
That’s the greatest study
there is.
Because once you start to understand it,
you begin to see through it.
You catch it, mid-pattern,
and something in you goes—
“Wait… what is that?”
“Wow.”
You realise—
“That’s not just something happening to me…
That’s an activity I’m doing.”
A habit.
A strategy.
An old reflex.
You begin to notice:
“Oh… that’s me doing that.”
“Why do I do it?”
“How do I do it?”
“Can I stop doing that?”
And so the study begins.
That’s what the yogis mean
when they say:
Swadhyaya.
It’s two things:
One — to spend more time
recollecting your true nature.
Falling back.
Coming home.
And two —
to study what seems
to obscure that light.
That which clouds,
contracts,
or distracts from it.
You know the one.
To study the darkness
means, largely,
to begin observing
our thinking.
Because that’s where
most of the obscuring happens.
So we ask:
How am I thinking?
And is it helping the light
shine through?
Or not?
Is this way of thinking
bringing nourishment?
Clarity?
Life?
Or is it,
subtly or not-so-subtly,
poisoning me?
Our thoughts have power.
They can bring out the light
in the system —
or they can dim it,
drain it and create poison.
So we begin to watch.
To really look.
That’s the beginning of freedom —
just seeing.
Seeing clearly:
“Oh wow…
I do that.
I think like that.”
And that alone is massive.
Because you can’t change
what you can’t see.
So you're essentially —
getting enlightened.
You’re starting to see things
about yourself
you haven’t seen before.
“Oh God… I never saw that about myself.”
“Really? I do that?”
And then comes the ache —
you feel the pain
of seeing the thing
you’ve been doing all along.
You realise you’ve been making yourself miserable.
But here's the key:
thought isn’t the issue.
The mind isn’t the enemy.
But thought transforms our experience.
It’s the way we think
that shapes our inner experience.
So the yogis said:
Start paying attention.
Be brave.
Because if you engage in Swadhyaya,
you’re going to see a lot.
This is the ultimate study.
The ultimate seeing.
Don’t worry —
you’ll only see what you’re ready to see.
And you'll see it at the right time.
It won’t be too much.
You won’t be drowned in it.
But the question is:
Are you willing to look?
Can you relax around what you find
and ask:
“Does this serve me?”
“Or is this quietly killing me on the inside?”
And so through this seeing
comes a choice.
That is what it is to have an inner life.
The power —
is within you.
All power is within you.
Your life doesn’t come from the outside in.
It moves from the inside out.
I am currently creating my experience
— largely —
based on what I’m doing
inside myself.
Let me choose this experience,
let me mould it so it serves the light
rather than the darkness.
But I have to be willing
to look at the dark.
To sit with it.
Not run.
Not bypass.
Maybe I even need to co-exist with it for a while.
Because let’s be honest —
I might be addicted to it.
I might be so used to thinking this way
I can’t even imagine life without it.
It’s so habitual,
so familiar,
so woven into my identity —
that I’ve never known myself
without it.
And that’s why courage is so needed.
Just the willingness
to move toward the light
instead of away from it.
One gentle step at a time.
There is a sadhana you can take on for just one week.
But it’s a lifetime Sadhana, really.
To say:
“I am no longer going to put negativity on myself
or anyone else”
That’s a full-time job.
“I’m never going to do that again.”
Well — of course you are.
All the time.
I do it.
You do it.
But still —
what if I was willing
to explore that possibility?
What if I said:
I am willing to explore
not putting negativity on myself or others.
That’s bold.
That’s audacious.
Because the moment you say that
— and mean it —
you’re going to start seeing things.
A lot of things.
It becomes a lifetime’s work.
But not a burden —
a liberation.
Each time you catch it,
and soften it,
and let it go —
that’s freedom.
Because you know,
if you say that to yourself —
and really mean it —
you’re going to start seeing —
and feeling.
Every time I catch myself
spiralling into something dark —
resentment, judgment,
wishing things were different —
and I pause…
and ask:
“OK. How does this feel to me?”
“What is this doing
to my body right now?”
We can probably even track it,
scientifically.
“When I think this way,
this chemical gets released.
This tension floods in.”
It’s that real.
So what if —
in a single moment,
we drop
one tiny negative judgment —
against someone else,
or against myself?
In that moment we open up a new trajectory.
A different road forward.
Even if I can only hold it
for a few moments —
Those moments matter.
Because in that space,
something clears.
And I’m no longer walking
the old path of darkness.
And sure,
another pattern will come.
And I’ll clear that too.
And another.
That’s the path:
just keep gently
clearing the way.
It means
I’m not judging.
And then,
not judging myself
for judging.
Because you’ll try that one too.
Of course you will.
You’ll notice a judgment arise —
and then think,
“Oh no, I’m judging again!”
“I shouldn’t be doing that!”
And there it is —
judging the judgment.
So what do we do?
Just drop it.
Put it down.
That’s all.
“Oh, but it keeps coming back…”
Yeah, what do you know?
You've had that one
for a while now.
It’s still got some life in it.
But it's being unplugged.
Bit by bit.
And that’s what studentship is.
Swadhyaya —
self-study —
has always been part of your practice.
You’ve been, in some way,
initiated into all the yamas and niyamas
from the very beginning.
Because it’s all integrated
within the sadhana itself.
And you’ve probably noticed —
so much of what I say
throughout the practice
is always linked back
to the yamas and niyamas.
Why?
Because they’re the basis
of a yogic life.
A brilliant new way to live.
So really…
what else is there to talk about?
But —
when we’re initiated into something,
when we wake up to the process itself,
when we begin to understand it
and take ownership of it for ourselves —
that’s different.
That’s an upgrade.
It means to actually observe the thinking process
and make changes where necessary.
I’ve taken the power of choice back.
That’s huge.
But as always —
our blessing
is that we’ve found
a place within ourselves
that’s deeper than the mind.
When you’re flowing in your body,
you’re flowing with a free energy.
An energy in the breath
that moves around,
that isn’t the tension,
that isn’t the thinking.
It just moves.
Washes through.
And because you’re not trying to control it —
you’re simply participating with it —
you feel it.
You’re in a relationship with it.
A feeling relationship.
And because of that —
it flows perfectly.
Through your body.
It knows how to heal you.
It knows how to love you.
It knows how to guide you.
How to show you.
To realise there’s a deeper intelligence
that can actually
run your life —
that’s no small discovery.
Many of us, over time,
choose to surrender to that.
Not just,
“Oh, I like this feeling.”
But:
“My life belongs to this.”
“It’s my greatest joy to surrender myself
to this intelligent flow of Life within me.”
I listen to it.
I speak to it.
I try to abide with it
as much as I can.
Because I’ve discovered —
it’s freaking amazing.
To live from the heart,
from the truth,
from the joy —
that’s so good.
What a discovery.
Praise the Lord!
Hallelujah!
It’s unbelievable
that you’ve made the discovery
of God within yourself.
And I’m saying this —
because even that
can become a casual thing, no?
“Oh, God...”
Yawn.
Our minds
even have the capacity
to make even that
feel ordinary.
We’ve been handed the holy grail.
The gift of gifts.
Of knowing.
Of receiving the divine —
within.
And that’s really the first aspect
of Swadhyaya:
“I am a disciple
of the Divine within myself.”
“I’m learning
direct
from the intelligence
of Life.”
That is some tutelage!
I’m learning how to be with it.
With a sense of awe.
And at the same time —
I’m becoming more and more aware
of when I interfere with it.
When I try to control it.
When I start to panic.
Fear.
Worry.
That light, that intelligence —
it gets stifled
behind the projection again.
Behind the little self.
And I can feel it:
It’s not as good.
Not as clear.
Not as accurate.
It's not what I thought it was
So I choose
to fall back again.
And that’s the whole journey.
Sometimes I need to look —
at a particular tendency,
a way of thinking,
a resentment,
a grudge,
a little hate
I’m still holding on to.
Why?
Why am I holding that?
Can I let it go?
What’s behind it?
But I don’t analyse.
I don’t dissect.
I feel.
That’s the difference.
We study through feeling —
not through analysis.
What is it in me
that still wants to hold on?
Who’s not ready to let go?
That’s Swadhyaya.
Your capacity to see
is going to become so immense.
So much so
that you’re going to start
to look…
wise.
Why?
Because you’re not trying to be “the one who knows.”
You’re just falling back —
abiding in the intelligence itself.
And it’s starting to speak
through you,
tell you what’s what,
more and more.
It’s starting to guide you.
And you’ll look wise.
Remember that our egos
are ever willing to take credit
and armour themselves.
But it was only great because
they weren’t doing anything!
That is why the third refuge in the sharanam
is so essential.
I praise this higher power
not myself.
Because I know
that I am only a reflection of it.
instead of myself
it does amazing things.
Be careful with your wisdom,
because it isn’t yours.
Namaste.
Comments
Post a Comment