Yoga Sutra 1.12 Abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah
Translation: Thought-waves cease through the continual practice of non-attachment.
I had a Psychosomatic Bodywork session this morning with the awesome Chris. We talked about what’s been going on for me most recently – a whole lot of stuff to do with my relationship with myself and how that then expresses in how I relate to the external world – and he made a comment that cut through all the crap that was swirling round my head: “You need to stop fucking around.”
For me, it meant: Say ‘no’ when the best thing for you is ‘no’ – even if it’s a LOT. Say ‘yes’ when the best thing for you is ‘yes’. Stay home if the best thing for you is to stay home. Go if the best thing for you is to go. Leave if the best thing for you is to be elsewhere. Relax into your spiritual practices when the best thing for you is to practice. Stop compromising your Self according to the delusional ideas in your head about what the external world expects of you.
Sutra 1.12 is about finding freedom through a balance of effort and effortlessness. Put in the effort, but within your effort, rest in effortlessness, in non-attachment. For me today, this means putting in the effort to ask my Self, ‘What is the best decision for me right now?’ and listening to it and taking action according to the response, even if it’s challenging. Effortlessness and non-attachment is surrendering up the need to know why that course of action is best for me and also surrendering up my desire to control the outcome or results of that course of action.So I take action….and then watch.
This balance comes into play in every moment, in every action, but can be clearly and tangibly practised in activities like yoga and meditation. In these practices, effort is getting yourself on the mat or on your cushion and consciously going through your practice. Surrender in a yoga pose is finding easefulness in the pose. Surrender in meditation, is releasing expectation about what your practice ‘should’ be and relaxing back into your Self, who knows exactly what it needs to be each time.
So there is challenge and effort is required to face it. But then there is grace within the action of facing the challenge – surrender to greater wisdom, to the loving power that holds me in existence. And thus there is the sweetness of becoming my Self, first in moments and then, gradually, all the time.
I go through phases in relation to how much effort and what kind of effort I put into my life and my practices. As I go through different phases of evolution, the challenges change and, therefore, the effort required to meet those challenges also change. But in an honest moment, I have to admit that my effort has become sporadic and, quite simply, not enough lately. And because there has been a lack of effort, there has also been a lack of opportunities to surrender, to find effortlessness. Today was a sweet wake up call: I’m going to stop fucking around and I’m going to meet the challenges that are currently before me and embrace all those beautiful opportunities to find effortlessness.
I feel better already. Thank you GRACE!
Om Namah Shivayah
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