"The moment you accept the troubles you have been given, the door will open." - Rumi
A show I’ve been watching features a young man who is struggling in a relationship with his partner. The couple is miserable when they are together but terribly unhappy when they are apart. After several months of emotional turmoil and desperate for direction, the man asks the pastor of his church for guidance. He pleads with the pastor to offer some insight, asking “Father, what do I need to do to be happy? That’s all I want! I’ve tried everything and nothing seems to work!” The pastor replies, “You’ll find happiness when you look for it in the life you have, not in the one you think you should have.” Although it was not the magic bullet the young man was hoping for, this simple reflection summarizes the lessons learned by practicing the niyamas of svadhyaya (self-study) and Ishvara Pranidhana (surrender).
A good start to understanding Patanjali’s final two niyamas can be found by revisiting tapas, the fire that is stoked through disciplined concentration. As we discussed in our practice on 4/15, tapas is our ability to stay centered in the heat of transformation, to sit with unpleasantness, and even pain, instead of running from the discomfort. Stoking tapas teaches us to be fearless in the face of adversity while remaining open to change. Our culture is enamored with the spirit of tapas. We love the stories of people who face adversity and persevere, moving on from hardship to achieve greatness. That is, after all, the American dream. Many of us are quite willing to accept the challenge of transformation, we may even welcome it. But there is a catch to our willingness to suffer. We’ll do so only when we are sure of the outcome, confident that ours will be a rags-to-riches story. We don’t want to be Icarus, soaring to great heights but flying too close to the sun, melting our wings and crashing back to earth. We are reluctant to endure the heat of transformation if the result is something unexpected or undesirable. Can we accept what arises from the ashes of transformation when it is not what we wanted?
Svadhyaya, the fourth niyama, teaches us that every challenge in life is an invitation for self-discovery, an opportunity to learn a truth about who we are. We all move through life following our own personal narratives. These are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. They make sense of the world around us, serving as filters through which we sort and store our experiences. Over time, these narratives become our mental representation of reality, directing our choices and guiding our actions. These stories are not necessarily right or wrong, but they can cause disharmony when reality rubs up against them, leading us to question their veracity. Svadhyaya invites us to look at our experiences openly, to “fact check” our representation of the world, continuously editing and rewriting our narratives to be sure our version of events is as close to the truth as possible. When narratives become deeply ingrained, we lose our sense of wonder about life and its possibilities. We no longer examine or question our reality. This rigidity is what throws us off balance and gets in the way of growth. Svadhyaya encourages us to adopt the mind of a beginner, to approach our lives with a presumption that perhaps what we think we know, we don’t really know. We can use mindfulness as a way of witnessing oneself in the present moment, finding the courage to watch as each moment unfolds with a willingness to look at reality with fresh eyes, ready to reshape our stories. Mindfulness is such an essential ingredient of svadhyaya that, in many ways, the two are synonymous. Mindfulness is the art of watching, done with humility, wonder, and curiosity. Learning to see ourselves as we are, with absolute clarity and honesty, is the essence of self-study, svadhyaya. By doing one, we are automatically engaging in the other. We tend to blame life when we are unhappy. Negative emotions such as frustration, disappointment, and anger arise not because life doesn’t give us what we want, but because we are unwilling to accept what it offers. We keep thinking that happiness will come once life follows our narrative--when other people act a certain way, we get that job, the weather is better, the pandemic ends, etc. We lose sight of how each moment in life simply unfolds; it is we who give these moments their meaning and emotional charge. Contentment in life comes when we are willing to accept life as it is, when we loosen our rigidity and let go of our need to control the outcome.
We experience joy when we engage in life as it comes to us through the process of surrender, which we develop through the final niyama of Ishvara Pranidhana. It is fitting that Ishvara Pranidhana is the final jewel in Patanjali’s yamas and niyamas. The yamas guide us how to be with the world whereas the niyamas guide us how to be with ourselves. The final jewel in this strand of behavioral restraints and observances invites us to be willing to accept what is, to give ourselves up to what the situation demands. We can only be aware of what the universe is asking of us when we stop fighting life, demanding that it gives us what we want. Ishvara Pranidhana asks us to take a long exhale, let go of the reins, and surrender to what is being asked of us.
The concept of surrendering is uncomfortable for some as we are a goal-oriented society that values being in control of our destiny. The American myth is based on the belief that life satisfaction comes to those who dream big, work hard, and persevere. Ishvara Pranidhana challenges this belief, reminding us that we can never be sure of the outcomes of our actions, so it is wise to release our attachment to the anticipated fruits of our labor. It is the ego that creates the false belief that we control life. The niyama of surrender isn’t a process of giving up, it is the practice of letting go of the ego, trusting that we are part of a universe that is greater than our personal desires, and that the beauty of life lies in the surprises it offers. Ishvara Pranidhana helps us to get out of our own way so that we can experience the joy in all that life offers. As the pastor told the young man, we find happiness in the life we have, not the one we think we should have.
Every yoga practice is an opportunity to practice self-study. It starts by bringing our full attention to what is happening on the mat, tuning into the body and the breath. However, some poses, due to the energetic effect they have on our tissues and joints, are more effective at creating mindfulness than others. In general, forward bends are deeply calming poses that, when completed slowly and in rhythm with the breath, naturally lend themselves to present minded awareness. The action of folding forward lengthens the entire back of the body, an area in which many of us hold a significant amount of tension. A full release into a forward bend requires the relaxation of an entire chain of muscles, starting at the bottom of the feet, moving up the back and the sides of the legs, the glutes, the lower back, the large and small muscles across the entire back, and all the small muscles that support the spine. Releasing the back side of the body is a deliberate and gradual process, requiring a great deal of patience—exactly what the niyama of svadhyaya asks of us. Ishvara Pranidhana is experienced at the end of our practice in, of course, the final pose of shavasana, which, in Sanskrit, translates as “corpse pose”. Although we think of shavasana as a “nap” or our final relaxation, it is of great significance in our practice. Signifying the death of the activity in which we just participated, shavasana can be one of our most challenging poses. Like Ishvara Pranidhana, it requires absolute surrender, the ability to be still, the skill of purposefully not doing anything. How well we tolerate this pose offers us a glimpse of how well we can let go and surrender to what life offers.
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