There is nothing noble about intentionally harming someone. And yet many people do, intentionally, even consciously, not because people are "bad" but because they have lost the connection to their wildness and their connection to all of life. Somehow, we are disillusioned in thinking that we have something to gain by hurting others. Because we have lost our wildness, we deduce other beings to nothing more than things we use for our own gain. We use them for our appetites, money, sex, or control; we use them because we may momentarily feel better; a brief and fleeting satisfaction that buries us deeper in our loss of wildness.
Yesterday, I read this long Facebook post that was widely shared. It caught my attention because it had the vibe of being inspirational, what changemakers do, how a first-world citizen comes to a third world country to do work that matters. It didn't take long for me to see the disconnection. This person wrote about "researching slaughter techniques" and "slaughtering chickens with his own hands" not only in a business-as-usual tone, but in a tone with much pride, that suggested he genuinely felt he was doing valuable work. He mentioned that he had "50 mothers, 50 homes, 200 brothers and sisters". He referred to them as "friends" when he wrote "dear friends, you will feed this country with healthy meat and eggs". I felt a profound disconnection in that post in our relationship with nature. What I consider home is a safe place; a mother someone who does her best to nurture her children; brothers and sisters my equals; friends those whom I care about. Anyone I call a mother or a brother or a sister or a friend is someone I would choose not to harm, someone who I would not, as the post said "slaughter with my own hands". Why is it that a person who seemingly wants to do good ends up inflicting so much pain on others? It's because as we have domesticated others and kept them physically imprisoned, we have ourselves ended up spiritually detached. Let me be clear that being spiritual does not necessarily mean chanting Hare Krishna or having complete attendance at Sunday church or shaking hands with the pope or getting a hug from Amma, to be spiritual means to connect to anyone who breathes as a spirit, and to acknowledge them as such. If we are wild enough to see other beings as spirits with life in them instead of things to be used and exploited, we will lose any motivation to harm them. We will not hold them hostage or give them a false sense of security before killing them or find better ways to exploit them and think of it as noble. We will lose that condescending attitude of "look what I am doing for you" and instead just place ourselves in their position, to have empathy, to have compassion-- to "suffer with". Compassion, not charity. Love, not condescension. In a world ridden with wars of all kinds, it is time we become wildly connected. It is time that we wildly provoke ourselves to feel as others feel. In the process, we will get to reclaim our own wildness, having a deep understanding that in order to be free, we must let other beings be free. There is nothing noble about intentionally harming someone, but there is something brave about acknowledging our distorted perceptions and taking action to right our wrongs. May ALL BEINGS everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that freedom and to that happiness for all.
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We look at the world around us and see so much chaos, so much suffering, so much fighting. We see power struggles and the endless need for vengeance. It doesn't stop because everyone feels justified to protect their own. That is why yoga is very important, because yoga teaches us to redefine what "own" is, who "we" are, what "territory" we are protecting.
The state of yoga is a state of wildness. It is a state of recognizing no "other", because all "others" are me, regardless of sex, race, religion, regardless of merits done or mistakes committed. There are no "sides" to take in yoga. Contrary to popular assumption, to be wild is not to be chaotic and exploitative. If we truly observe nature in its wildness, to be wild is to peacefully co-exist, to live amongst our differences as one unit. A wild yogi is someone so connected to their true nature that no laws or politics or ideologies can take away that deeply-ingrained inclination for peace. It is easy for us to point fingers and make commentaries about what others- people and nations- should do. This is what normal people already do. What wild yogis do is to look at our own lives and see where we may unknowingly contribute to the violence that we see. If we say we do not approve of senseless killing, do our actions match our declared beliefs? If we still eat animals, we ourselves are part of the cycle of killing. If we say vengeance is pointless, have we ourselves forgiven those who have hurt us? If we are still holding on to resentment, we still think and act from a place of hurt wanting to hurt others. If we say discrimination is wrong, do we ourselves afford others their rights regardless of how different they are from us? Or do we pick and choose who we value, do we categorize and label and stereotype and box in other beings? To be wild is to break free from the restraints of racism, nationalism, sexism, speciesism. To be wild is to see the other as I am. To be wild is to live in peace. To be wild is to be aligned in thought, word, and action for the happiness and freedom of all beings. There is a prevailing mindset in our present culture that to be civilized and to be a useful member of the society, it means that we must be in control of our lives, we must take charge of our future, and we must ensure the predictability of the consequences of our actions. Because of this dominant mindset, we tend to think of whatever is wild as a danger. The unpredictable is risky. The unknown threatens our safety.
We have built so much fear around uncertainty that we no longer allow ourselves and others to be wild. We repress our heart's desires while dominating others for what we perceive to be our gain. We use our time and energy around blindly acquiring to no satisfaction three things in the name of our refusal to be wild: money, sex, and power. It's a trap. Many people are stuck in these lower chakras and do not get to move up. In our obsession to be in control of others, we've lost the wildness that exists within ourselves. The first three chakras, muladhara, swadhisthana, and manipura chakras, are energy centers that address our relationship with money, sex, and power. When we do standing, hip opening, and twisting asanas respectively, we address these issues. As yogis, it is our goal to be happy, to be free, to be wild, and to give others and allow others the same. The mantra "Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu" in a way is a pledge to wildness. "May all beings everywhere be happy and free" acknowledges that it is not in the interest of anyone for us to dominate others or use others or control others. The mantra is a promise to ourselves that we are going to break free from the traps of misusing money, sex, and power. The mantra is an ongoing practice of keeping our wildness and that of others'. The mantra reminds us that if we wish others well, then we must wildly let go of controlling others. The focus of the month is Wildness. First, let us get the biggest perception-- or more accurately misconception-- out of the way. When we say wild nowadays, we think of someone who goes out to party all the time, someone who throws caution into the wind, someone with loose morals perhaps, someone who does what he or she feels like without a care of what the consequences of his or her actions may be. And yet, these actions result to a numbing of the senses and emotions and spirit, and are complete opposite to what it means for a yogi to be wild.
So what does it mean for a yogi to be wild? In the yoga sutras, atha yoga-anusasanam means: Now this is yoga as I have observed it in the natural world. It is a reference to the wildness that belongs to nature, wildness in seeing things in their natural state, wildness in being connected to each other and all of life. Wildness is to be like a forest untamed, its growth unrestrained, its beauty unplanned. Wildness is to be like a child unconcerned with the approval of others. Wildness is to be uninhibited and un-self-conscious. It is an un-learning of the shyness and hesitation to come as we are. As a yogi, to be wild means to be free-spirited, unrestrained by materialistic or even societal conventions, uninhibited in the expression of the Self. Wildness, instead of being an escape, is a homecoming. It is returning to a sense of familiarity, knowing who we are always meant to be. In that space of complete acceptance, we feel the wildness that is complete freedom. Let us be wild in our asana practice-- not in throwing caution to the wind, but in knowing we have the freedom of choose, to express where we are today, to let go of self-conscious tendencies, and to let our bodies move in a way that feels natural. Let us be wild in our practice of life-- not in reckless abandon, but in being able to intuitively sense what we need to do and where we need to be, to be able to hold captive in our gaze what is truly important and let everything else go. Let us be wild in our relationships with ourselves and those around us-- not in fragmenting what is whole, not in compartmentalizing others according to how we will benefit from them, but in re-wilding ourselves and those relationships, seeing ourselves and others as we are, with complete acceptance, with a surrendering to love, and with an abandonment of all of our expectations. |
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