When we started out our yoga practice, most likely the reason is it is because of ourselves. We may have thought "I want to be physically fit" or "I want to find a way to exercise" or "I want to find peace of mind". Hardly is it that we started our yoga practice because we wanted world peace. And that's okay. That is how we start. But did you notice how much that may have already changed? Starting from the "me" mentality that brought us to yoga, our practice has evolved so much that the natural effect is that our relationship with others has changed as well.
In yoga philosophy, we speak about 5 ethical precepts or what are called yamas. Although it is often thought of as a code of conduct in which to guide how we treat others, another way to look at the yamas is to see that these precepts naturally become our default as we progress in our practice. In effect, it is not necessarily that we have these "yoga commandments" to follow; rather, our own evolution makes us become the kind of individuals who would not have the desire to hurt others, or steal from others, or speak of lies, or sexually exploit others, or take more than what we need. Evolution is our natural progression to be better than we were before. We can use the yamas as a guide, as indicators to check how deep our yoga practice has become. Maybe we find that we no longer have the desire to eat animals, not because we were forced to by the yoga police (or the vegan police), but because it makes sense to us to not harm others. Maybe we find that we want to be more on time when we keep our appointments, not just for the sake of discipline, but also because we realize being late is one way that we steal from others-- we steal the time they can no longer take back. Maybe we find we have less and less desire to gossip, because we'd rather speak not only of truth but truth that lifts others up. Maybe we no longer want to eat eggs, because we realize that eggs are the end-products of exploiting the sexuality of females-- even if they belong to another species. Maybe we have curbed our addiction to shopping, because we realize we do not need excessive things. As we evolve, our interests change, our priorities shift, and we start to gravitate towards living the yamas. Our yoga practice transforms from being about us to becoming a practice of how to live peacefully with others. We evolve from being selfish to being selfless, and we find that world peace is no longer just a catch phrase we throw around; it becomes our way of living through our own choices-- our own thoughts, words, and actions. We evolve to become the embodiment and the living example of Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.
0 Comments
Sit in hero pose and allow me to tell you a hero story. But first, what-- or who-- is a hero anyway? It's someone who rose up against odds, someone who defended others, someone who transformed and changed and evolved, someone who made himself better.
The hero of our story today is an ordinary man. My guess is many of you may not have even heard of him. His name is Howard Lyman. Like many people, he did what his parents told him to do, and he ran the business his parents did. He was a cattle rancher. He was very familiar with raising animals and using them and killing them-- it was his job. It seemed he was bound to continue to do the same thing all of his life until he was diagnosed with spinal cancer. He thought his chances of survival were slim. On top of that, he had high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and was overweight. And as it happens with twists of fate, we can either fall victim to our circumstances or we can take responsibility. Howard Lyman at first decided to be a vegetarian. His health improved slightly. Then he became vegan, lost 130 pounds, his blood pressure and cholesterol levels became normal. It was not just his physical health that changed though. He sold his business. He stopped killing for a living. Somehow somewhere he made the connection. It is time to stop using others and harming others and killing others. It is time to include animals in our circle of consideration. And so he changed. Howard Lyman is now an organic farmer, and he farms only plants, and he is also a vegan activist. When he went on the Oprah show to speak about what happens in the animal industry, it caused so much of a stir that he was sued by those who wish to silence him to protect their profits. He became a hero because he stood by his truth and his conscience and his compassion. Howard Lyman is a hero, and a living testament that evolution is not something that we need to wait to happen to us. As long as we are alive, we can change. As long as we are willing, we can transform. As long as we are grounded, we can grow and think and feel and evolve. Have you ever been to a planetarium and looked at giant telescopes to see the stars and even planets in space? I go whenever I have the opportunity, and the experience always amazes me. To look into space and see the expansive of existence is very humbling. Suddenly, my so-called worries and challenges take a back seat and do not seem so significant anymore.
Evolution is an intelligent plan. If we think of existence on Earth through a similarly wide telescope (a metaphorical one), we will see not only life as it is now, but life as it was before, and life as it will be in the future. It is not static. It is constantly changing. And this evolution is not separate from us. We are a participant in this evolution, and our existence, however brief, is necessary in forming what is to come. In today's practice, let us focus on the exercise of "zooming out", to detach from the obsession of the self or the ego, and to look at ourselves as part of the whole, even if for today we refer to the whole simply as the yoga practice room. We practice evolving moving not just as an individual, but an individual moving amongst a unit, being aware that our mood, our actions, our decisions, ultimately affect those around us. Let our egos take a step back and allow conscious evolution to shine forth. Biological evolution is defined as "descent with modification". On a small scale, that means that one generation moving on to the next would have some changes in genes, maybe not completely but in terms of dominance of certain traits, an example could be skin color or eye color. On a larger scale spanning many generations, that means different species could come from one ancestor, an example being primates and human beings sharing the same genetic source.
What qualifies as evolution-- is it just any change? The concept of evolution from a biological perspective is that all living beings share the same ancestor. We share the same ancestor as a redwood tree, as do a dolphin with a giraffe, as do a pig with a cow, as do a chicken with a buffalo. If we want to visualize it, imagine a giant tree where we are all branches, and our ancestor is the trunk or even root of the tree. We may have branched apart-- but we all came from the same source. Evolution is an intelligent plan. It is not random that we look the way we look now, that we have the genetic disposition that we do now. We are where we are in this evolutionary path because of previous generations, because of the environments that made it possible to be so, because we have adapted for it to be so. But just as important as understanding that our differences come from an intelligent plan is the acceptance that our source is one and the same. Perhaps more important, if we want not just our bodies but our souls to evolve that is, is to acknowledge that every living creature is our distant relative, and we are all one big family. |
Archives
March 2020
|