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Yamas PDF
Yamas PDF
Yamas PDF
! Electricity - don’t touch the live wire because it will shock you
! “Thou shall not touch the light wire”
! Provide both
! The possibilities of human existence
! Practical guidance of the choices in our daily lives
! Translated as “observances”
! Saucha - Purity
! Santosha - Contentment
! Tapas - Self Discipline
! Svadhyaya - Self Study
! Ishvara Pranidhana - Surrender
Ahimsa – Non Violence
! In eastern thought, nonviolence is so valued that it stands as
the very core and foundation of all yoga philosophy and
practice
! The Jains
! Gauze over their mouth, to avoid swallowing insects accidentally
! Monks may walk on all fours, with a small
brush to not step on insects
! Won’t swat flies and mosquitoes
! Not eat vegetables from the ground as you
may kill an insect
Krishna and Arjuna
! On the other extreme is the Bhagavad Gita
! Between extremes and it’s really difficult to say where the limit is
! What is non violence?
! So how to hold ahimsa and still survive?
Dilemma
! There is a tiger amongst a herd of cattle, and you have a gun in your
house that you do not touch because of your oath of nonviolence
! You know you can kill the tiger and save the herd.
! Detachment
Mental
! Frustration
! Repression
! Imagination
! “If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, if we are
trampled over every day, don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate
them. We must use the weapon of love. We must have compassion and
understanding for those who hate us.”
! Reverend Martin Luther King Jr
Perfection
! “When non-violence is established, hostility recoils in its presence”
! Many stories of yogis going into the forest to practice, and cobras
and tigers don’t harm them
! What to say
! Humans are the only species with articulated speech and with
reflexive consciousness
! Correlation between consciousness and the ability to speak
! Arjuna the hero comes home happy and he enters the door,
and he says, “Mother, guess what I have won!”
! And his mother, without turning even the face to him, throws
the first word which spontaneously comes to her
! “Whatever you have won, you will have to share it with your
brothers.”
! “What has been said has been said. I have said the word. I
cannot take it back.”
Perfection
! Vak Siddhi – the capacity for whatever you say will happen
! “Being firmly established in satya, the results of actions will be achieved,
depending entirely on our own will”
! Yoga Sutras 2:36
! 'If ye have faith even as a grain of mustard seed, ye will say to this
mountain, move from that place, and it will move, and nothing shall be
impossible for you’
! Matthew 17:20
! Lifetime of work
! Understanding power of speech
! Understanding vibrations of mantra and sound
! Working on vishuddha chakra
Practice
! Observe the difference between “nice” and “real.”
! Does this aff ect whether you act from your “niceness” or your
“realness”?
Asteya – Non Theft
! Steya means theft, and therefore A-steya means no theft.
! The Yogis would say if you steal something equal will be stolen
from you sooner or later
Desire
! The yogis consider that theft originates from envy
! You have something that I don’t have, and I want
what is yours
! If the desire is there, as much as you get, you will never get
enough
! Once again desire is at the heart of this Yama
! But look at the patterns that form (Valjean stole silverware from a
priest afterwards, then a child)
! Gets easier to come up with reasons and harder to resist
! Over-consumption
! Rape of the land
! Conscious use of resources and energy
! Downloading
! Faith
! If you trust that you really are Self as inexhaustible Spirit, then it
leaves nothing to be desired
Practice
! Notice when and how you steal from others
! Time
! Attention
! One-upmanship
! Power
! Confidence
! Not being able to celebrate others’ successes
! Literal Translation
! Brahma is the name of a deity (The Creative Universal Force)
! char means "to walk,”
! ya means "actively,”
! Walking With God
! Broad Translation
! Conduct that leads to the realisation of the Self, or Brahman
! Study of the Vedas and scriptures,
! Contemplation on Brahman
! Spiritual one-pointedness
Continence
! Classical translation
! acharya = to lay foundation, to be firm,
! Stable in Brahma (The Creative Force)
! The creative force can be seen to have a correspondence with
sexual energy
! "celibacy,” or “continence”
! The problem is not with sex, but rather with the loss of sexual
energy
! Men lose Ojas in the form of sperm, and women lose it with
explosive orgasms and menstruation
! Implosive vs Explosive
! Pari
! All around
! Formulated to suggest
! Not accepting favors
! Not being attached to objects you possess
! Not accumulating material property
! “Everything? My father worked his life for me, this, I can’t just
give it all up” and leaves
! Has forgotten what life is made for
Rudyard Kipling, IF
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
…yours is the world
! It’s like Buddha said 2500 years ago – life is suffering, and it’s
suffering because of attachment
! Yoga is telling you that until you learn to let everything go,
live purely in love and respect and worship, you will not be
free of this misery, you will not have mastered aparigraha
! Do these things make you feel free and light or do they have a
hold on you and make you feel heavy?