Yama - admi.lv

<h2> Yama</h2> Yama - the observance of the universal moral commandments (control of one's relations with others):1. Ahimsa - refraining from harming any living being in deed or in thought;2. Satya - truthfulness in word and thought;3. Asteya (Asteyam) - the absence of any wish to possess what belongs to others;4. Aparigraha - the refusal of gifts and other unearned material benefits, non-covetousness, freedom from unnecessary possessions;5. Brahmacharya - control of bodily desires and of sexual activityYama and Niyama - the commandments of yoga   The first yama: Ahimsa Let us list all the “shall nots” first. To fill a bucket you must first mend the holes in it. These five precepts are grouped under the heading yama - control. It may seem strange that these principles are stated in the negative. The reason is that they establish themselves as virtues once the opposite, negative qualities have been removed. In the same way, every rule of yama allows the inner virtues to flower. Figuratively speaking, each yama washes away the dirt that covers the true gold of our being. Once the negative tendency is gone, the reality of the soul remains.The first rule of yama was made widely known by Mahatma Gandhi. It is ahimsa - non-violence, doing no harm. The negative prefix (for the word may also be translated as “benevolence”) is explained by this: as soon as the inclination to oppress others or to wrong them in any way (including by seeking personal gain at their expense) has been driven out of the heart, benevolence opens of itself as the heart's natural quality.The wish to wrong another living being in any way - even to damage the natural world around us, for it too is to some degree alive and conscious - estranges us from the reality of the soul and strengthens the illusion of the ego.Everything that separates us in consciousness from the boundlessness of all life amounts to a denial of that oneness towards which we must strive in meditation.In all the precepts of yama and niyama what matters is not our outward deeds but the inner attitude of the heart. It is not possible, after all, to live in this world of relativities and do no harm at all. Some harm is inevitably caused by our very life. Every breath we draw and release kills myriads of bacteria. Every exhaust from a car brings unintended death to countless insects. Step out into the street and you can hardly avoid crushing a few ants. Nature herself upholds the keeping of one life at the cost of another. Even the fruits we eat are forms of life. The very nature of the tiger tells it to kill: can its way of sustaining life be called sinful? Killing is a sin for man, above all because taking another person's life lowers us at our stage of evolution. Killing is the opposite of an affirmation of life; it is an affirmation of death. Put another way, from a wider point of view death comes inevitably to every one of us. In itself, therefore, it cannot be an evil.There are situations, says the Bhagavad Gita, in which a lesser harm must be done to prevent a greater one, and in which shirking such a duty is itself an act of violence. So there are times when one must fight - in a defensive war, for instance. Again, by the law of karma the more developed species must be protected from the less developed, even if that protection involves killing. In a just war the protection required is not that of higher species from lower ones, but of a higher purpose from lower motives - of innocent people, for example, from an aggressor's wish to destroy.In any case, the important rule of ahimsa, the one that removes the uncertainty relativity brings, is that the spiritual seeker should hold constantly to the attitude of doing no harm.If we wish no evil to any living creature, even when it has to be killed, we are filled with a quiet acceptance of others and of life, no matter how others treat us. And with the benevolence that comes with acceptance, we meet the same attitude from others towards ourselves. When we perfect the quality of non-violence, hostility ceases in our presence.For meditation, non-violence has one further benefit. The wish to harm creates an inner tension in us that conflicts with the serenity we are trying to develop in meditation. The second yama: truthfulness The next “shall not” principle is “refraining from untruth”. And again - why does this precept begin with a negation? Why not simply say: “Be truthful”? Because truthfulness is our natural tendency, as soon as the wish to distort the truth has been overcome.This quality too has both a subtle and a gross aspect. For “fact” and “truth” are not always the same thing. A statement may set out the facts truthfully and yet have nothing to do with higher truths. A man lying in hospital, say, may look exactly as ill as he feels; but if you tell him “You look terrible!” - your words may make his condition considerably worse. If, on the other hand, picturing him in good health, you say with deep conviction “You look wonderful!” - you may hearten him and even heal him.This is what the practice of refraining from untruth rests on. Bear in mind that truth is always beneficial, whereas the statement of a fact may do good or harm. If words are able to cause harm, they cannot be counted as truth in the highest sense. If it is impossible to speak sincerely without risking harm, then it is better to say nothing at all. (Here is one possible reason why some Indian ascetics practise a permanent mauna - silence)Refraining from untruth is an important practice for meditation as well. A mind under the influence of tendencies rising out of the subconscious slips easily into self-deception. One of the obstacles in meditation is hallucination. Hallucinations are not only visual; they can take other deceptive forms as well, such as “intuitive” guidance. Since they come from the subconscious, they draw the mind downwards, away from super-consciousness.The subconscious world of passive pleasures has an attraction of its own. It is very easy to become mired in it instead of rising on the wings of will power into the higher realms of ecstasy. The mystical literature of every religion warns of the danger of subconscious self-deception.How, then, is a hallucination to be recognised? By testing your experience in the cold light of day. First of all, genuine super-conscious experience is accompanied by intense inner awareness and, moreover, brings beneficial and lasting results. Since emotion too can be intense, it should be added that the intensity of a super-conscious experience will also be calm.There is nothing dim or hazy in super-conscious experience. If you see light during the experience, it will be clear, not murky or blurred. Every inspiration that is felt produces clarity in the mind, not vagueness and confusion. On matters where you had no clarity before, this experience will give you distinct insight and understanding, and often such clarity receives outward confirmation as well.Perfection in refraining from untruth develops the powers of the mind to such a degree that a simple word becomes the cause of objective events. It is enough merely to speak of something for it actually to happen.Because of this it becomes extremely important that every word of ours be positive and kindly, at least in intention. (One cannot foresee another person's reaction.) For negative or unkind thoughts are able to do harm. The third yama: non-covetousness Another yama is “non-covetousness”.(This word is often, but superficially, translated as “non-stealing”. It is quite reasonable to require a thief to stop stealing, but to include such a demand among the “commandments” for those on the spiritual path seems to me absurd. Rare indeed must be the meditator for whom stealing is a serious problem!)In fact “covetousness”, denoting the desire for worldly gain (usually money, or something measured by it), is not quite the right word. The yama of non-covetousness means something deeper.The spiritual seeker must give up the wish to have anything he has not earned. The point is that if he does not deserve it, there is no need to fear that he will fail to attract it. Even if he has to work hard in order to attract something, he should not worry about the results, but leave them entirely to God's will. “Let come what comes of itself” - that is his motto. Such is the “recipe” for peace of mind even in the midst of intense activity.We do not often receive anything without making some effort. So the precept of non-covetousness does not consist in ceasing to make efforts, but in making them without becoming attached to the results.The secret of inner peace lies in giving up desires. During meditation, a desire for anything outside oneself draws the mind out of the true Self, and any desire that draws the mind outward stands in the way of success in meditation.During meditation tell yourself that you need nothing: you are sufficient in yourself. You feel perfect inner peace. Say to yourself: “I own nothing - I am free! I own no one - I am free! I am eternally perfect, eternally free in my own Self!”The quality of non-covetousness, developed to perfection, produces a subtle magnetism that allows the one who possesses it to attract effortlessly the things he needs. He therefore never worries that he will not receive what he needs, whatever it may be. He will certainly receive what he requires. The fourth yama: non-acceptance A natural consequence of the yama of non-covetousness is “non-acceptance”. Some authorities understand this word (aparigraha) as the non-acceptance of gifts, explaining that accepting them may incur a karmic debt. Such an explanation, however, is unsatisfactory, as becomes clear when one considers the faculty said to develop as this principle is perfected. Non-acceptance brought to perfection allows one to remember one's past incarnations.To remember one's past lives, consciousness and energy must be withdrawn from the body and one must enter the state of super-consciousness. Only by not identifying itself with its present body does the soul remember its former personalities.“Non-acceptance” forms a natural pair with “non-covetousness”. Non-covetousness means non-attachment to what does not belong to us; non-acceptance means non-attachment to what we usually consider our own property. The fact is that nothing really belongs to us. Everything - our bodies, our deeds and even our thoughts - belongs to the Lord.If in meditation you give yourself to God so completely that you realise everything belongs to Him, you will reach results quickly.The precept I have given here as the fourth comes fifth in the order of Patanjali, the authority in this field. I have changed his order only in order to show clearly the natural difference between non-covetousness and non-acceptance. Much confusion surrounds these two concepts, and it is explained in part by their separation in the traditional order. Most likely Patanjali placed non-acceptance at the end of this list for another reason: it leads naturally into the next category of precepts - niyama. The fifth yama: brahmacharya The last yama, which comes fourth in Patanjali's “Aphorisms”, is brahmacharya - self-control, or more literally, “being filled with Brahma (the Supreme Spirit)”. This precept is usually associated with the practice of sexual continence, but its meaning is wider. Brahmacharya means control of all the natural appetites, of which the sexual urge is the strongest but not the only one.The ideal this teaching sets out is to live in identification with the Spirit, knowing oneself to be a soul living through a body, and no longer wishing to regard oneself as an ego centred in body consciousness. We should live so as to master our urges rather than let them master us.What is recommended here is not extreme abstinence, although complete sexual continence is by no means ruled out. What matters is to achieve self-control above all through moderation and by degrees, directing one's efforts towards perfection in this.To attain self-control the seeker learns, even at the height of pleasure, to direct the sensation of that pleasure upward into the brain. He should try to feel how this sensory pleasure feeds his inner joy at its source in the Self.There is a delightful story about the playwright George Bernard Shaw, who unintentionally gave a vivid illustration of this principle. At a reception one day, as he sat apart from everyone else, his hostess came up and asked: “Are you enjoying yourself?” “It is the only thing I am enjoying!” he replied.(In ordinary usage the hostess's question “Are you enjoying yourself?” means simply “Are you having a good time?”. Shaw took the words literally - as enjoying his own Self - and that literal sense is precisely the point of this principle. - translator's note)In the same way, behind every outward experience we should try to discern the joy of our own being.During meditation especially, try to feel the flow of pure joy in the spine. This is the true river of baptism, whose outward symbol in many religions is an ordinary river. In reality it is felt as a powerful current deep within the spine. Only in it, and nowhere else, is the seeker's consciousness made clean.Many saints of different faiths have looked with irony on the human need to replace inner truths with outward symbols. One Indian saint remarked with a smile: “Oh, it is certainly true that your sins leave you when you bathe in the sacred river Ganga: they sit in the trees along the bank, but the moment you step out of the water they cling to you again!” So bathe in the stillness of meditation and above all in the river of the spine. That is where you will receive a truly spiritual baptism.Complete control over all one's natural inclinations gives us inexhaustible energy. For our energy, and indeed everything we are able to express in creative enthusiasm, pours out the more abundantly the wider we open the sources of life within ourselves.