Yoga sutras, II, 30-31 Yama – Self control for social harmony

[lavina]

II, 30 ahimsa satya asteya brahmacarya aparigraha yamah
II, 31 jati desa kala samaya annavachinnah sarva-bhaumah mata-vatam

Self- control
consists of five principles:
non-violence,
truthfulness,
freedom from stealing,
behaviour that respects
the Divine as omnipresent,
and freedom from greed.

These are called the
great universal vows
when they are extended unconditionally
to nurture everyone,
regardless of status,
place, time or circumstance.

M. Stiles

The five principles of yama are non-violence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), freedom from stealing (asteya), continence or celibacy (bramacharya), and freedom from greed (aparigraha). Iyengar explains that these principles provides guidance for the yoga practioner to live harmoniously within society and are applicable under all circumstances. Swami Shyam describes that “...Yam (yama) reaches its peak when one becomes so established in it that he always acts and thinks for the universe as a whole. Then he thinks beyond the bounds of any kind of species and beyond any space, nation, or time. This yam (yama) is known by the word maha vraat, greatest observance.” (p. 78 )


Iyengar, B.K.S., Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. New Delhi, India: Harper Collins Publications India. 1993

Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Buckingham, VA: Integral Yoga Publications. 2004

Swami Shyam, Patanjali Yog Darshan, India: International Meditation Institute, 2001, 3rd. edition

Stiles, M., Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Boston, MA: Red Wheel/Weiser LLC. 2002

[Hubert]

To be noted that Mukunda does not translate Brahmacharya as continece or celibacy, but:

"behaviour that respects
the Divine as omnipresent"

Wikipedia gives the following etimology:

The word brahmacharya stems literally from two components:

1. Brahma, the word for the absolute, eternal, never-born god-head.
2. Acharya composed of char - "to go" and 'a' - "toward". Together this makes the word 'charya', which is often translated as activity, mode of behaviour, a 'virtuous' way of life. Acharya has meant in practice a teacher, spiritual guide, master etc and

So the word brahmacharya indicates a life lived in conformance with the deeper principles of realisation of Brahma-nature.

To further develop this view, I have written the followings:

Walking with God, having our gaze on God, the divine. God is invisible. The spiritual is invisible. How can than we follow something what we do not see ? Through God's manifestations.
Man expereinces the world through the senses. Man today is left alone to the senses. We percieve only the physical things, things what have a physical body in space, or things what manifest through sound, heat, touch, smell and taste. But not all bodies are the same. We see reigns of minerals, plant life, animal life, and we see our fellow man. In everything what has a structure, we witness a great complexity, a great wisdom, and we guess a higher menaing, reason, wonder behind them. The world, and man in it, is a wonder. Our life is a wonder. We seek knowledge of both ourself and the world. We want a meaning for our life, as we feel there is one. We are clueless. We have science on one part, something what deals with everything measurable, repeatable, describable, where intellect reigns, than we have religion, what is revelations accepted by groups of people and where based on these revelations, personal attempts to reach the divine are made, and we have art emerging from the depths of soul and personal life experience.
One, based on one's nature follows happiness. Happiness is everyone's God. Brahmacharya means finding your own happiness in the world. This is a continuous process, and everyone does this. The sutras were given in a religious culture, what took God, the existence of divinity, a fact. That mindset has changed in our materialist world. But everyone will accept that he/she seeks his/her own happiness. Now, to realize this happiness, we must know who we are, and what the world is. We cannot be happy if we do not know who is the subject of this happiness. We also need to know what the world is because we and the world, are one. Can we live without air to breath, a ground to walk on, food to eat, a father and mother to be born from ? A serious search to answer these questions will lead everyone to the supersensible. Brahmacharya is honesty and determimantion, to go all the way, always have our feet on the path towards this knowledge. We do this through many ways, but this is their essence: the thirst for our true meaning."


On the other hand, Swami Sivananda uses the term as celibacy, refraining from sexual activity. In his teaching, real brahmacharya is performed when the mind is freed of all sexual samskaras, and the disciple is anchored in The Self. Before that stage, according to Raman Maharshi, brahmacharya is forced, it needs a vow to be taken. Celibacy is stated as a requirement for kaya siddhi.

Some use the term as freeing oneself from the authority of sexual instinct, gaining self control regarding this activity, and not total continence.
From all desires, the sexual desire is the hardest to conquer. To accopmlish this, there is no doubt, that is a true measure of self control. It cannot be a requirement on all yogis, and it is advisable only if the right karma is there to make it possible, otherwise it migh become a form of purposless ascetism with unpleasant karmic consequences.

[lavina]

Dear Hubert,

I would agree that your interpretation is consistent with Mukunda's phrasing. I choses to use celibacy and continence because for economy of words and because it is the usual interpretation.

There are an infinite number of ways to Spirit or God -- and each finds their own way and their own interpretations. A later sutra specifically focuses on brahmacharya and perhaps we can expand this discussion further then.

With respect and love

[Hubert]

I find yama and niyama to be of utmost importance for a yogi, the base of any spiritual journey. This, I think cannot be said too many times.
Thank you for the Swami shyam quote ... maha vraat, I did not know this term, and it is a wonderful (though far) goal to aspire to.
I am looking forward on discussions on brahmacharya as celibacy, as I still have an important (at least to me) thought to share.

[Mirjana]

I think it is important to relate also to previous sutras that advice us how to purify our mind, so that our thoughts and emotions become harmonized with our actions. Otherwise it can happen that we perform our actions according to Yamas, but we repress our thoughts and emotions.

[Hubert]

Certain emotions and thoughts must be repressed. There is no easy way.

Sometimes I become angry, frustrated, as someone harms me, or my ego. Adrenalin rushes through my veins, and the thought/picture of me giving him a healthy slap on his face flashes through my mind. You must agree, this must be repressed.
I see a young woman, half dressed, as it is summertime, she puts her breasts into this tiny bra, they almost spill out. Instantly I have a dirty thought. I am not consciously creating the thought, but I can't help having it. The conditioning, they say. Instinct they say. Karmic seed of lust, awakening, I say. Should I not repress this thought ? Should I indulge myself in a sexual fantasy ? We all know where that leads ... to adultery. I love my wife, and I do not want to cheat. So I must nip such things in the bud. Marriage is in fact, a form of celibacy.
Only hypocrites pretend that they do not face such temptations. They think, that's OK, I am strong, until an occasion rises. Than they say, it would not hurt her to try this, once (if they think at all of the poor wife or pratner, at all). Than when it feels so great, it becomes a habit. It is just sex. I love my wife. I am a good provider. What she does not know, can't harm her. What does she want anyway ? I have my needs.
This is just a glimpse of how untruthfulness, lack of self control, self deception, a materialist, insensitive thinking turns a decent husband and father into a victim. Did he follow any form of spiritual discipline, he would not be there.

It did not happen to me. My karma was slightly better. Under other circumstances, I might have turned just as bad. It was just enought to comprehend this phenomenon. I learnt that in fact, no error is alien to me. Under the right circumstances, I'd be tempted to kill, to dominate people, to harm people. These things do not happen consciously, or having a clear mind. These things happen through deception, ignorance, and an uncontrolled vital nature. Temptations must be identified, and dealt with. This is the purpose of yama.

Materialist people underestimate Mara. They think: it is some kind of illusion, hallucination, I am free from those. Well, Mara is a being. It exists just as rape, murder, injustice, famine, exploatation exists. Does it help to say it is an illusion, when somone is raped, tortured, killed ? Mara's minions are there in every soul. They become illusion only after we conquer them, one by one. Until that, they are realities we neglect ... lurking in the darkness, waiting for the right opportunity.

I do not want to correct or argue what Mirjana says, just to make it complete by adding: unconscious repression of emotions and thouughts is what is lacking. Conscious repressal is real self control. Most people refuse to see the importance of yama, or any other moral law, just because they are far from realizing their benefits in their personal life. What they see is that those seem to opress their natural desires. That must be wrong ... but is it wrong, really ?

[Mirjana]

Quote:
"Sometimes I become angry, frustrated, as someone harms me, or my ego. Adrenalin rushes through my veins, and the thought/picture of me giving him a healthy slap on his face flashes through my mind. You must agree, this must be repressed."

Yes I certainly agree But hopefully in time we will manage to transform the source of such impulses.

Quote:
"Marriage is in fact, a form of celibacy."

You really can cheer me up!

Quote:
"Temptations must be identified, and dealt with."

Very true. The purpose of Yamas and other limbs as well.

Quote:
"I do not want to correct or argue what Mirjana says, just to make it complete by adding..."

And really thank you for that. It is an interesting reading from you again.

[Hubert]

Please do not let my disillusioned self have negative effects on your souls.
What I say, it is my view, experience, based on my karma. I really do hope others fare much better than me.

[Nichole]

Originally Posted by Hubert

Certain emotions and thoughts must be repressed. There is no easy way.

Sometimes I become angry, frustrated, as someone harms me, or my ego. Adrenalin rushes through my veins, and the thought/picture of me giving him a healthy slap on his face flashes through my mind. You must agree, this must be repressed.

I would like to share something that I am personally working with around my own, numberless thoughts and emotions. I don't agree that emotions and thoughts must be repressed. This is a mistaken continuation that our emotions and thoughts are the what is the valuable experience of our lives and that they MUST be appropriated action. It is a mistake that many of us make; that because we FEEL or THINK something that we MUST DO something, whether that is acting on these thoughts and emotions without right intention or saying to ourselves, "These thoughts and emotions are unworkable=i am unworkable" and then attempting (and failing) to repress them.

They are simply thoughts and emotions. Have you ever had a permanent thought or emotion? Or have you ever had much success actually permanently repressing a disturbing thought or an emotion? My personal answer to both of these questions is no.

When we create this enormous dilemma for ourselves, that we MUST either repress them or act on them, we are most often trying to avoid our own disturbing feelings underneath this dilemma. We create compelling and justifying emotions, that seem to demand us to act, to free us from our initial disturbing feelings. I am just getting to what those are for me--that is a person's own lifelong practice. In an effort to avoid the earliest sensations we experience when being harmed or insulted by another, and the resulting adrenalin through our veins, we dissociated into secondary emotions and thoughts; anger, slapping his face, blaming her for the disturbing feelings that arise when seeing her body, it can go on and on...it does go on and on like a runaway train. But stop, and let's ask ourselves what we are distracting ourselves from. Rather than declaring the underlying feeling that an insult wakes for us as a call to action or something that must be hidden from ourselves and others, stay with it...feel that. This is IT and it is some seriously tender, root-of-our-being stuff here.

I am finding for myself, the only thing we MUST do is be courageous in the face of our tenderest pains and to treat ourselves with loving-kindness when we are experiencing disturbing feelings and thoughts. To witness them, fully witness them, without rushing into action or repression. Obviously this doesn't feel, umm, pleasant...which is why we have always avoided them in the first place, but we are Yogis now and have a new set of tools to transform ourselves.


Highest regards,

[Hubert]

You prove to be as wise as always, dear Nichole. Perhaps this is why I love you so. Wisdom, Sophia, is a feminine aspect of the divinity, as I see it. So when wisdom comes from a woman, I value it doubly, with my intellect, and with my heart. (I do not want to belittle others, but I lack the presence of such a woman in my life ... so you are something like a Mother-figure.)

What I have written was to give a vivid picture of the necessity of self control, through yama, or any other moral tenet. How this is done ... I guess there is no better way to achieve it than the way you have presented it in your answer.

With warm love and deep respect

[lavina]

For myself, I find that when I am able to remember that the the Divine is omnipresent and therefore is present in the person that I am reacting to "negatively" (whether it is myself or someone else), I am granted with a space/distance that allows me to observe the situation from a different perspective.

[Hubert]

Yes, and I'd add this distance does not mean that we do not act, just that we act from a higher awarness, and not from instinctive impulse.

[Prascina]

The 4 bhirangas of yoga is all about reaching this 'higher awareness' the way into prathayhara.

[smstout19]

Originally Posted by Nichole

They are simply thoughts and emotions. Have you ever had a permanent thought or emotion? Or have you ever had much success actually permanently repressing a disturbing thought or an emotion? My personal answer to both of these questions is no.

Hi Nichole. I have not visited this forum for awhile. Glad to be back. Your response above reminded me of a quote which I posted on this site last December while discussing another topic. The quote is: "What you resist persists." I have never had much success in repressing thoughts or emotions either. But, I have always been able to work through such disturbances after letting them in. This gives me an opportunity to ponder, digest and work through whatever it is, trusting my instincts to lead me in the right direction. Thoughts and emotions are usually catalysts – and they are the first step in making changes in ourselves and the world around us.

[Prascina]

Watching with awareness..witnessing with awareness