In this podcast I will be talking briefly about the classical codes of conduct prescribed by the Yoga Sutras and then we will delve into more modern lifestyle practices that are greatly needed in our world today.

In Classical Yoga, we study the Yoga Sutras and the eight limbs of Patanjali’s yoga or Raja yoga, the royal yoga!

These are:

Yamas – codes of social conduct

Niyamas – codes of personal conduct

Asanas – the poses of yoga

Pranayama – the breathing practices that enhance our life force

Pratyahara – withdrawing the awareness from the sensorial world

Dharana – being able to concentrate and focus

Dhyana – the state of meditation whereby the concentration is extended

Samadhi – merging of the individual consciousness with the universal consciousness

The idea here is that we must first work on ourselves through the practice of the codes of conduct or we will continue to have disturbing mental turmoil that will prevent us from moving into the internal practices. In other words, the mind will always be thinking about every little detail of our external life – all of the feelings, the conversations, the play of our ego, our likes and dislikes – it will remain unsettled and unable to tap into the internal sense of peace and wholeness that exists in each of us.

The five yamas ask us to avoid harming others or ourselves, lying, stealing, wasting energy, and possessiveness. The five niyamas ask us to live a clean life, to value contentment, to know our needs and not exceed them, to engage in self-study and connect with inspiration, and to surrender to something greater than ourselves.

These are all quite lofty goals, but it is said that if you can embody even one of them fully it will lead you into the rest. Just one. But in modern yoga practice we actually see that most people concentrate on the physical practices, the asanas. Maybe some engage in some breathing and meditation practices, but it seems to me that most are looking to yoga as something to be done on the mat or the meditation cushion for a specific period of time and hoping it will improve their daily lives. And it does to a certain extent. Practitioners may feel better in their bodies, have more energy and feel calmer after practicing – these are all good things.  Don’t get me wrong. This spectrum of yoga participation serves its purpose.

But if you want to be less reactive to life’s challenges, to feel more connected to the world around you, to evolve your consciousness and be the best version of you that you can be in this lifetime, then you will need to take yoga off the mat and into your life more. You will need to make yoga your lifestyle.

Over the last few years, the Bihar School of Yoga in India has been emphasizing a set of six Lifestyle Yamas and Niyamas to support bringing yoga more fully into daily life.

Given the worldwide pandemic and the political upheaval within the US, today I will be discussing the lifestyle yama and niyama of forgiveness and respect. This pair is especially useful in dealing with anger and there seems to be an epidemic of anger. Not just political anger, but anger that our lives have been turned upside down by the pandemic. Anger that we can’t do everything we want to do.

Let’s start with forgiveness. How forgiving are you? Give yourself a ranking of 0-5 whereby 5 is the most forgiving. Now can you bring to mind some time in the past when you needed to practice forgiveness. Can you do it? Even as you recall it now, what feeling comes up inside of you? Sadness, hurt, anger? And as you recall this, how do you feel about the other person? Are your thoughts negative?

To truly forgive means to let go of feelings of resentment, anger or hurt. Are you still holding on to those feelings?

Sometimes we are masochistic about forgiveness. We are stuck in our pattern of suffering. It seems to be a pattern of human behavior that we are more likely to dwell on the negative in our lives than the positive. Think about your daily conversations. Don’t most people share more about their negative experiences than their positive? It’s more entertaining to talk about something bad that happened.

It is easy to say we forgive but hard to truly release the negative feelings and experience freedom from them. To release the resentment in your heart is the true challenge. It takes strength and courage.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Mahatma Gandhi

So we need to make it a yoga practice of forgiveness. Not so much for the benefit of the other person, but for our own benefit!

Let’s go back to our forgiveness exercise-the one where you remembered an interaction that needed you to forgive. Once again think about it and see what feeling arises again. It can be the same feeling. And then think about the other person in the interaction, but this time, instead of a negative feeling about that person from that particular interaction, can you think of a positive quality about that person? Everyone has some positive quality after all. Is it hard or easy?

Now from your heart, offer forgiveness again. It can just be a mental process, not in person. How do you feel now? Has the feeling changed from the beginning of the process when you first recalled the situation? Can you smile? Keep practicing this sequence until you can smile and then you can let go of that interaction and start working on another. After all, most of us need to do this work and can benefit greatly from it. We usually have more than one. We may become more conscious of the intricacies of our interactions and are more likely to forgive and move forward without having to pin fault on either participant.

In yoga you may have heard people use the word namaste. The lifestyle niyama in this pair is namaskara. They both have similar meanings. Namaste means salutations to you. Namaskara means salutations to you with respect. It’s a more formal greeting. Both greetings are done by placing the palms of the hands together in front of the heart and bowing the head.

Namaskara is a way of connecting and honoring someone while understanding that this person contains inherent goodness that is also a reflection of you. Some will say it means the divine in me sees the divine in you, or the light in me connects to the light in you.

It is an expression of humility. It is an acknowledgment of the value of others. Therefore, it can be an act of ego management.

Too often we greet others as a social norm, but not with sincerity. “Hi, how are you?” is expressed and the person may not even look at the other in the eyes, may keep moving without even waiting for an answer or they wait briefly expecting “Fine, how about you?”

But what happens to you when someone looks you in the eyes, smiles and sincerely asks, “how are you?” It touches your heart, doesn’t it? Even if the interaction is just for a minute or less? It is my feeling that we need this now more than ever. We need to connect in this time of social distancing, isolation and insecurity of “the other” and their politics.

It is the time to practice Namaskara. It doesn’t mean you actually have to use that word but use the essence of what it means. Say hello with feeling and sincerity, with humility and respect and let that feeling reach from your heart to the heart of each person you greet. See each person as a reflection of you. It doesn’t take a huge commitment or very much time at all to make someone smile by reaching out to them with a sincere greeting and inquiry. It takes just practice. And one way to keep up this practice is to keep track at the end of each day, how many people did you greet in this fashion?

Through the recognition and acknowledgement of our negativity we provide the basis for developing positivity. See your strength in being able to look at your weaknesses and let your strengths grow.

As we live through this pandemic and the political landscape of divisiveness, these two practices, forgiveness and namaskara, will support the best parts in you.

Make a resolve to “thin out” your negative nature. As my guru says, “Be sincere, serious and committed.”

Over time, it will become easier to develop new neural pathways to a more positive nature.

The world needs a positive you!