Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic Read online

  The law of karma is really quite simple. It is the law of cause and effect. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” [11] The law of Karma when properly understood is quite liberating because it puts the physical universe in our hands to mold and shape. Our lives become a canvas where we can paint whatever we like, but the key is to do this consciously.

  Most of us react to life. We respond to each situation with a behavior or pattern that we learned in the past. This is why history always seems to repeat itself and why we seem to hit the same blocks over and over again in relationships, work and personal growth. Working through karma is the process of letting go of old patterns in behavior and thinking and allowing our spirit to replace that pattern with something more suited to our evolution.

  Remember that yoga is a science. And as such the laws that guide it are universal and unconditional. Karma is one such law. We cannot stop this law, or find a place in all of time and space where it is not present, any more than we can stop the wind from blowing. But through the practice of yoga we can learn to use karma to sail through life, and when we get really talented, we can learn to use yoga to sail against the force of karma in much the same way a sailor can tack against the wind.

  The urban mystic needs to develop a working understanding of Karma if he or she is to really evolve. If every cause has an effect and every action has a reaction, then learning how to use the law of Karma is essential. The first step in this process is changing our behavior to create a life that will support our spiritual growth.

  All action begins at the level of the mind. It is the mind that tells the mouth to speak words of venom or words of kindness. It is the mind that tells the arms to strike or to embrace, and it is the mind that tells the legs to run in fear, or to dance with joy. The good news is that we can change our minds at any point. We can explore the areas where we are stuck and then learn a new way of thinking that will free us up to experience our divine nature more fully.

  When I first stopped drinking and using drugs, I was a very bitter young man. I unconsciously blamed God for everything that was wrong with my life. I was unable to see that most of my difficulties in this world were the direct result of my own thoughts and actions. Until that point, I did not really understand the law of Karma that governs this physical universe. I thought the universe owed me something and that I was being cheated because I had been dealt such a difficult hand in life.

  In time I changed my mind, and my behavior followed. I began to see that my thoughts and behaviors were my greatest enemies in life, and with that awareness I began to change. Prior to that I would blame my teachers for my failing grades or my parents for my ‘difficult’ home life. This, of course, served no purpose except to project my responsibility outward, and to keep me stuck in patterns of behavior that were killing me.

  Before we can explore each of the five yamas, we need to clarify one more thing. An urban mystic tries to let go of the idea that observing a moral code will make a person ‘good’ and not observing a moral code will make a person ‘bad’. Every being is Atman and as such, no thought or behavior can make you more than what you are and no thought or behavior can diminish your innate value. The divine spark in Hitler was just as bright and full of potential as it was in Mother Theresa. The difference is that she was aware of it. She experienced that joy in her life and inspired it in others.

  You are a complete spark of the divine. Living a more moral life will not change this one basic Truth. It will, however, make it much easier to realize this divine nature more fully, and that is where we begin to feel whole and complete.

  I once heard a saying that resonated deeply for me. “We are not punished for our sins; we are punished by our sins.” This sums up the yogic take on morality. A yogi doesn’t practice the restraints to win God’s favor or to avoid punishment in a future life. He cleans up his or her behavior to create space for deeper spiritual seeking.

  Now, let’s turn our awareness to the five moral restraints that make up the first limb of yoga.

  Nonviolence (Ahimsa)

  Being firmly grounded in non-violence creates an atmosphere in which others can let go of their hostility.

  —The Yoga Sutras 2:35

  The world can be a very violent place. So often I pick up the paper and feel the sensation of molten lead beginning to fill my heart and belly. My initial response is to judge the people who have behaved deviantly enough to make the front page of the paper. But the real reason for my heavy heart and judgmental attitude is because I am much more like the deviants making the front page than I am like one of the great yogis.

  Granted, my ego boundaries will not allow me to commit some of the extremely violent acts that bombard our consciousness on a daily basis via the media, but I do harbor a deep-rooted violence at the subconscious level. Practicing Ahimsa brings this violence into the light of awareness so that it can be neutralized.

  Just as I finished college, I thought it would be a great idea to go on a meditation retreat. I chose what I thought would be a doable ten-day retreat. Upon entering this retreat, I agreed to maintain silence, to meditate for ten hours a day, and to abstain from reading, writing, and any contact with the outside world.

  At this point in my life I had done a lot of meditation, and I knew that this would not be easy. But I was not expecting the barrage of violent thoughts that surfaced. It felt like there was a werewolf living inside me that was looking for any excuse to come out and rip me (and anyone else in his path) to shreds.

  In the months that followed, I contemplated what had happened. Ironically, the experience of facing my violent nature allowed me to transcend some of it and to live a more peaceful life. But a question haunted me: Why did experiencing such violence seem to free me from it? It was quite some time before I really understood the answer. I have come to realize that the reason why I don’t experience this violence in my day-to-day life is because my ego has become very capable of projecting this violence outward onto others. Rather than look at it and let it go, I continually project it onto other people or institutions and thus skirt any responsibility for this rage.

  For me, this comes out most clearly when I am behind the wheel of a car. Granted that I have managed to refrain from running someone off the road, but the words that come out of my mouth and the occasional hand gestures that fly outward from my mind are anything but nonviolent. In many ways it is the perfect place to project my violence outward with few repercussions on a social level.

  The practice of Ahimsa is not about denial of violence, but rather the transcending of it. On the one hand the urban mystic seeks to modify his or her behavior in order to create less violent situations in his or her life. But this is only the beginning of the practice. By simultaneously refraining from violent acts and looking at the unconscious thought patterns that inspire them, we become more peaceful, and our natural reaction to adversity will be peace rather than attack.

  Truthfulness (Satya)

  For those grounded in truthfulness, every action and its consequences are imbued with truth.

  —The Yoga Sutras 2:36

  Satya is the practice of truthfulness. In its most basic form it is “not lying,” but like Ahimsa, it is a much greater practice for the dedicated urban mystic. The practice of Satya involves an ever-deepening awareness of what Truth is. And so, before we can really explore what truthfulness is, we need to define Truth. This is no easy task, because you will rarely find two people who agree on exactly what Truth is. There are ideals, however, and that is what we will explore.

  Any discussion on Truth needs to be preceded by a discussion on perception, for it is our perceptions that tell us what we believe to be true. Perception is the filter that exists between our senses and our mind. It’s like a stained glass window that bends the light of Truth into many colors, but never lets in the complete light.

  The colored glass of our perception is made up of our past experiences and our future projections. It is always false in the sense th
at some of the light will not make it through, and always partially true in the sense that some of the light will shine through. Learning to see the beauty of the glass, while at the same time recognizing that there is a limit to what we are seeing, is what Satya is all about.

  Yoga is largely the practice of healing our perceptions. Many of us have a very warped view of the world. As our senses scan our surroundings, we see shadows of our past experience everywhere. These shadows prevent us from seeing the joy and ecstasy present in every situation.

  As we have stated numerous times, Atman is the Truth about who we are. In fact Atman is the Truth about all living things. When we let our perceptions define truth for us, we deny ourselves the opportunity to experience joy and ecstasy because we are denying our Self. This is why it is so important to heal our perceptions first and then begin to move beyond them.

  There are two kinds of truth. The first is the most familiar. It is the kind we hear about when we are in a court of law. When you are asked to put your hand on a Bible and “tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” you are being asked to recount facts in an honest way. This is truth with a small ‘t’. It is truth that is filtered through perception, but it is not outwardly deceptive.

  The other kind of truth has a capital ‘T’. This is the ultimate Truth that exists beyond our perceptions of time and space. It is this Truth that we seek to arrive at through our spiritual practice, and it is this experience of Truth in which we seek to ground ourselves.

  To practice Satya there are two things we need to consider. First, we need to practice truthfulness within the illusion. As we walk through our lives, we need to keep examining our communication with others. We need to ask ourselves, “Is this the most truthful way I can use my words?”

  There is a wide spectrum to communication. On one extreme we find the outright lie; on the other end we find the complete and unabridged truth. In between these two points we find varying degrees of evasiveness. As yogis, we do not merely seek to live in the middle, because that would result in misleading people whenever things got uncomfortable. Rather, we seek to speak our truth and demonstrate it in our actions. This is not always easy, but it ultimately liberates us from the bondage of living under even the subtlest of false pretenses.

  When practicing this form of truthfulness, we refrain from lying, gossiping, and using our words, gestures and facial expressions to deceive people or to convince someone that they are something they are not. It means using our words mindfully and doing our best not to cloud the truth.

  I was in Kinko’s the other day, and a delivery truck was there delivering reams of paper. The truck was parked in such a way that it blocked the neighbor’s driveway. She came into the store and politely asked him to move the truck, explaining that she was in a real hurry.

  Both the deliveryman and the manager at Kinko’s ignored her. It was as if she had not even spoken. She asked again this time polite, but with a bit more urgency in her tone. Still, she got no response. After her third request, the deliveryman stormed out of the store and the manager yelled after the woman, “Thanks for your patience!” with a snooty and sarcastic attitude.

  From my point of view as a casual observer, the whole scene was so surreal. There was no doubt that the delivery man had illegally parked, and was inconveniencing someone greatly as a result. Yet rather than use their words to heal the situation they projected their discomfort back onto her by the way they moved and spoke.

  A more yogic way to respond to this woman might be to acknowledge her. By using a look or a word or gesture at least to acknowledge the woman, these men would in essence be saying, “You are important and worth noticing.” Further, they could have been more expeditious in their moving the truck. In this way they would convey the message that she had a voice and that her voice meant something. Lastly, the manager’s words could have been delivered with sincerity and compassion rather than used to slap her in the face.

  Satya begins with our words, but it doesn’t end there. It is in the way we walk and the tone of our voice. It is in our facial expression and in our gestures. If Atman is the Truth about what each of us is, then Satya is striving to bring that Truth closer and closer to our awareness. The beautiful gift of Satya is that when we begin to be more truthful in our communications with others, we begin to be more truthful with ourselves, for Satya is as much about the words we say to ourselves as the words we say to each other.

  When I first started practicing Satya, I was overwhelmed with self-judgment, because I realized that my words were so harsh. But in doing that I was defeating the whole purpose. You should try not to condemn yourself if your words are less than loving. Simply look at these words and smile, and then do your best to clean them up. Never forget that yoga is a practice.

  As we clean up our words and practice Satya in the world, we begin to realize Truth in the spiritual sense of the word. This in turn makes it easier and easier to speak words that heal, rather than build up walls between our minds.

  Nonstealing (Asteya)

  For those who have no inclination to steal, the truly precious is at hand.

  —The Yoga Sutras 2:37

  When we practice Ahimsa, our life becomes more peaceful because we take responsibility for violent thoughts. Likewise, when we practice Satya (monitoring our thoughts, words and actions to see when we are expressing things that are less than truthful), we begin to realize our true nature as Atman. My hope is that you will have noticed a pattern developing, and as we will see, Asteya is going to follow in the same vein.

  Asteya is the practice of nonstealing. Like the previous yamas, it is much more than a black and white decree. It is a practice that needs to be lived in order for it to be deepened and cultivated. It is a practice that offers us a doorway out of scarcity.

  Before we can really explore the practice of nonstealing, we need to look at the principles of abundance and scarcity. There are two approaches to living life. One approach is the belief that something is lacking, and the other is that life, by its very nature, is abundant.

  The ego, or the part of our mind that believes that it is separate, small and finite, holds the scarcity principle as one of its chief tenets. To the ego, there is never enough. The ego is always feeling lack and projecting that experience of lack onto the outside world. We hear this all the time in statements like, “There just isn’t enough money,” or, “If I only had more time.” Most of us have lived under scarcity for so long that we don’t know any other way to be.

  As a result, the ego is always trying to get more. Even when the economy is good and we have paychecks that are sizable, the ego ups our list of ‘needs’. Have you ever stopped to notice that the bigger your paycheck gets, the bigger seem your bills? The new TV that you just can’t live without feels like such a priority because the ego has convinced you once again that something outside yourself can satisfy that insatiable spiritual hunger that we want so desperately to go away.

  When we approach life from the belief in scarcity, life mirrors that back to us. In that reflection we see a world that demands that we do things we hate in order to survive. For some, that is robbing the liquor store; for others, it is working as the CEO of a big company. But in either case, their actions are motivated by a belief that there is not enough, and that to survive in this world you need to fight to get ahead.

  The practice of Asteya asks us to avoid this type of thinking and to adjust our behavior accordingly. When we rob the bank or step on others to get ahead, our minds affirm the scarcity principle, and we sentence ourselves to a life of fear. Even if we surpass Bill Gates in wealth and power, we will live in fear of losing what we have.

  This is true for the heart as well. Our popular culture demands that we hoard our love and affection. Love, if you believe everything you read on a greeting card, is a very limited resource. It is only to be given out when we are getting certain behaviors in return, and it must be given only to a choice few. This is, of course, completely untrue. The
only lack of love in the world is the belief that the well of our hearts can ever run dry.

  Our Spirit sees things in a very different way. There is no need to steal, because there is no need of anything on the spiritual level, except perhaps to extend. To the Spirit that dwells within each of us, the things in this physical world which seem to be needs are not needs at all. There will always be enough food and water and cellular telephones. We, as a community, need to move beyond the idea of lack and start trusting in the idea of abundance.

  Mother Theresa was once asked how she could take a pro-life stand on abortion when she could so clearly see all the children in the world who were suffering. Without thinking, she quickly replied, “The problem is not the children. The problem has never been the children. The problem is that people refuse to feed the children.”

  I don’t share Mother Theresa’s views on abortion, but I do agree that the problem of lack in this world is created by our belief in scarcity. There is plenty of food. There are plenty of hearts to love, and there is plenty of money to make it all happen. The problem is that we feel on a very deep level that if we were simply to give, we would not have enough for ourselves.

  This false belief not only grinds national economies to a halt, it also inspires an experience of primal fear. Just as consumer confidence is one of the leading factors in a healthy economy, a personal sense of confidence that there will be enough of all that is needed (be it time, money or love) is the factor that creates space for the growth necessary if we want to realize our divine nature fully.