When I was a little girl, I used to play a game. I had a pretty vivid imagination and always seemed to think up these amazing things with visual maps and images, and in the midst my racing thoughts, all of a sudden I would realize that I was thinking of something entirely different. And I would wonder how I’d gotten there. So my game was to backtrack my thoughts; to learn how I could jump so freely from one to the next; to discover how the hint of a feeling or a simple distraction could take me into a completely new world.
I still play that game.
It’s been a good teacher, though sometimes with hard lessons and consequences involved, in the art of communication. How what we end up saying can be very different from the original intention. And so often as I discover my heart’s truest intention in regards to my thoughts and words AND actions, I think of “ahimsa,” one of the ethical guidelines in the philosophy and practice of Yoga. In fact, last weekend in our Sunday morning yoga class, I brought in the precept of ahimsa, or non-violence, into our practice. How we can easily make sense of being non-violent towards others, by speaking kindly, acting kindly, being appropriate in non-harming attitudes outward, but what about inward? How do we fare when an overwhelming (and sometimes stupid, really, although I don’t really like that word) sense of competitiveness comes in and we put our bodies, ourselves in the way of harm? When we say derogatory things to ourselves that no ones else hears, like “You’ll never be good enough,” or “I can’t do that as well as that person over there”? Or even, “It doesn’t matter that this is painful in a very compromising way, I have to do this.”
Here it is in practical terms. After I had my third child and knew my lower back was not ready, I practiced very strenuous forward bends and pushed into full backbends anyway. I hurt my back badly. Now, almost a year-and-a-half later and after a lot of chiropractic care and core strengthening, I can finally approach those poses again with no pain and good alignment. I had no business doing them then. I didn’t listen to my body, I listened to my desire.
Then there’s the other side of the coin. The one where competitiveness can be just what we need to open more fully, to accept more openly, and to become more in tune to that which we already are. The “leaping of faith.” The peeling away of layers so that we can bloom right open, and be vulnerable, and come up gulping this new found confidence and freedom that we never knew tasted so sweet and felt so thrilling.
Judith Lasater wrote regarding ahimsa in Yoga Journal:
“There is a famous story about ahimsa told in the Vedas, the vast collection of ancient philosophical teachings from India. A certain sadhu, or wandering monk, would make a yearly circuit of villages in order to teach. One day as he entered a village he saw a large and menacing snake who was terrorizing the people. The sadhu spoke to the snake and taught him about ahimsa. The following year when the sadhu made his visit to the village, he again saw the snake. How changed he was. This once magnificent creature was skinny and bruised. The sadhu asked the snake what had happened. He replied that he had taken the teaching of ahimsa to heart and had stopped terrorizing the village. But because he was no longer menacing, the children now threw rocks and taunted him, and he was afraid to leave his hiding place to hunt. The sadhu shook his head. “I did advise against violence,” he said to the snake, “but I never told you not to hiss.”
Protecting ourselves and others does not violate ahimsa. Practicing ahimsa means we take responsibility for our own harmful behavior and attempt to stop the harm caused by others. Being neutral is not the point. Practicing true ahimsa springs from the clear intention to act with clarity and love.”
Yoga is such an interesting teacher. In all things, there is pose and repose. It’s the constant struggle of balance. Sometimes, it’s our constant struggle against balance. Think of our warrior poses, fierce and mighty, and the stories behind them that tell of battle and righting great wrongs. And now think of the quiet introspection of child’s pose, a full prostration and receipt of quiet and calm.
I encourage you to practice ahimsa. Chew on it, read about it (Yoga Sutras, second chapter), digest it, spit it out even. Practice does not make perfect. Practice, makes practice.
