The Practice

I hope that you engage in practice with a good heart and from that motivation contribute something good to western society.  That is my prayer and wish.
-Dalai Lama

What is this practice anyway?  The practice we are all to undertake for the betterment of the Self, the human experience and the  world?

The practice we partake is a spiritual one...one where we come in realignment with the true Self and God. Yoga practice constitutes three things, according to Patanjali: accepting pain as help for purification, study of spiritual books and surrender to the supreme Being.

Hmm! are you focusing on those things in your practice?

The Real Practice

Many of us think of a spiritual practice as based around prayer and meditation.  These things are indeed important but what is even more important is learning to practice out there in the ever changing, unpredictable physical world without falling into ego reaction and unconsciousness. We need to learn to work our way through the mental 'discomfort' that the mind perceives.

Accepting Pain as Purification

I am learning to accept pain as part of the purification process though I am not sure what purification means to others. To me it simply means a letting go of attachments to ideas and  things I used to define" me" and to hide "Me". It is the practice of self- discipline or mind control. Things out there will seemingly cause pain, "discomfort," and as we spoke about yesterday, the natural inclination is to run and hide from such discomfort. We react.  If we want to purify the mind of its mental modifications, however, we need to learn to accept discomfort and pain and work our way through it. So every experience of discomfort that comes to us either by circumstance or other people is actually an opportunity to learn, to grow and to evolve. Instead of running from such experiences, we need to welcome them into our daily practice.

Facing Uncomfortable Challenges

Michael Singer, in the untethered soul, teaches that we do this by learning to Be here with every experience be it painful or not.  We witness, observe  and watch from the deeper Self the reactions and tendencies of the little self. Instead of slipping into unconscious reaction and egoic melodrama ...we learn to realize that Who we really are is not effected at all by what is happening out there.  This is being centered and clear.  This is being here and it is an eternal, never-ending  practice necessary if we want to gain this self-discipline and mind control so we can transcend.

The practice of facing that which isn't comfortable can be uncomfortable, facing challenges is challenging,g  but it is better than the alternative in the long run.  We suffer much more pain when we allow the mind to run out of control.

Self-Discipline: Taking the Wheel or the Reins

Singer uses the example of driving a car when we do not know how to drive, to describe the experience of not being in control of our mind as we go through life.  I love this description offered by Satchidananda:

Normally the mind is like a wild horse tied to a chariot.  Imagine the body is the chariot; the intelligence is the charioteer; the mind is the reins;. and the horses are the senses.  The self, or true you, is a passenger.  If the horses are allowed to gallop without reins and charioteer, the journey will not be safe for the passenger.  Although control of the senses and organs often bring pain in the beginning, it eventually ends in happiness. ( page 75)

 

 

 

The best way to master the mind is through awareness.  By being aware of what is triggering it, how we are reacting and behaving because of it ...we learn to see the difference between the little "me's' reaction and the Greater Self's unflinching response.  We realize that the more we respond to Life in a clear centered way, the more peace we experience, the more connected to the Ultimate we know we are. It is then an important part of spiritual practice.

 

 

Study

 

Studying scripture

 

 

The next Tapa to help keep us successful in our practice is study.  As we learned from above,  a big part of that is studying our own individual minds.  The other part is studying scripture or the guiding words of masters. Now the chosen 'scriptures' read will be different for all of us.  If you are purely Christian in your approach to spirituality, you will of course, focus on the Bible.  If you are devotedly Muslim, you will study the Koran.  If you are Buddhist, you may study the Buddhist sutras, Hindu...the Gita, the Vedanta's, the Upanishads etc.   If you are like me, convinced that there is one underlying truth in all scripture you will dig into all of it. Anything that elevates the mind and reminds you of your true Self should be studied. (Satchidananda, pg 77)  The more we read, the more we expand our minds so we are eventually prepped to understand that which can not be understood by the mind.

 

Remember it is only a pointing finger

 

Tolle, in the Power of Now reminds us that though study of scripture can aid us in our spiritual development, it can't be our spiritual development.  The words read are just fingers pointing us in the direction we need to go to fully understand Self and therefore God. We will never truly know who we Really are and who God is with thoughts, names, labels or concepts.  God cannot be understood by books alone. (Satchidananda, 77) and The self cannot be known by theory alone (Satchidnanda, pg 78). 

 

Unlike modern psychology, which proposes that understanding everything involves the mind,  Yoga offers s different approach to understanding.  It teaches that we cannot truly understand what is truly important with the mind.  We must transcend it. Einstein said the same thing : The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. (Goodreads)

 

Satchidanada suggests that we limit our reading and our quoting from scripture (oops!) and simply put into practice what we learn.  Gain an understanding of the theory and move on to the practicum. I have always liked the theory in my learning. It was safer for me.   I realize I need more practical experience.

 

 

Surrender to God

 

Mine binds; Thine liberates

 

Our spiritual practice is never just for the little me.  As the Dalai Lama quotes above, our practice is meant to be done with a compassionate heart that wants to provide a good service to all. When we surrender to God, we let go of any selfishness, any  desire for ego gains and any struggle to understand with the mind.  We also dedicate all our practice to God which also means to each other.  We remove the "me" ness from it and we serve.

 

Everything we do, then,  in this practice is ultimately for God.  We let go and surrender  to God's will. "I am Thine. All is Thine. Thy will be done." (page 79)  That is ultimately what frees us.

 

How cool is that?

 

 

All is well in my world.

 

References

 

 

Sri Swami Satchidananda ( 2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville: Integral Yoga Publications

Singer, Michael (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger Publications

 

Tolle, Eckhart. (2004) The Power of Now. Novato: New World Publications