Have a
Mindful New Year!
“Yoga is
about becoming aware. Yoga is about managing the negative aspects of our
character and developing the positive qualities which uplift our nature, and
with that uplifting others as well. When we are expressing these qualities then
other people are uplifted, and that is yoga!”
-
Paramhamsa Niranjanananda Saraswati
New Year’s Day represents a new
beginning, new possibilities and renewed potential for us. It is a day to consciously release the past
and look forward. Many of us make resolutions for the coming year usually
involving some bad habits we want to overcome, or perhaps some positive goals
we want to achieve. The reality, of
course, is that we tend to fall back into the same old patterns within a short
time. “New Year’s resolutions,” as the
joke goes, “are a to-do list for the first week of January.”
Just because we entered a new
yearly cycle on an arbitrary date doesn’t mean that our habitual thought
patterns, our samskaras in Yogic terms, simply go away. In fact, according to Yoga they can persist
for lifetimes! They persist because we
are mostly unconscious of them. Our conscious
mind is comparable to the tip of iceberg with the vast majority of the mind
submerged in the depths of the unconscious.
Mindfulness does not just mean
living in the present moment. There is
more to it than that. We can “live in
the moment” while still being quite unaware of the unconscious forces that
drive us. We also have to examine our
own thoughts and impulses as objectively as possible. Yoga meditation emphasizes the development of
the “inner witness.” This is the ability
to observe our inner thoughts and emotions without identifying or reacting to
them. Although this capacity is
generally developed through sitting meditation, the idea is to bring it forth
throughout our daily lives.
I remember a morning when I had
experienced a particularly peaceful, even blissful meditation session. Afterwards I got my coffee and hit the
freeway for work. Within ten minutes I
found myself experiencing “road rage” because of the commuter traffic. So much for my inner peace and bliss!
Peace and bliss are nice and we
need to be able to let go of stress and enter into these states regularly for
our well-being. However peace and bliss
are not always the point. We need to learn
to be present with painful emotions as well.
As Pema Chodron says, “To stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling
stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is
the path of true awakening.” Encountering
the difficult areas of life with awareness and compassion is where true growth
takes place.
So let’s go into the New Year
with the resolve to be more aware of our inner selves; to be observant,
compassionate, forgiving and grateful for each moment of life – and for our own
gift of awareness. Ultimately it is that
dimensionless center of loving awareness which is the essence of who we are
underneath all of the temporary identities and circumstances of life.
"To meditate,” states Hui
Neng, (the Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an or Meditation School (638-713) “means to
realize inwardly the imperturbability of the Essence of Mind. The reason why we
are perturbed is because we allow ourselves to be carried away by the
circumstances we are in. Those who are able to keep their mind unperturbed,
irrespective of circumstances, have attained Inner Peace." This is not a
case of “fake it until you make it.”
Instead we have to be very honest with ourselves and accept who, what
and where we are on the path. As Carl
Rogers put it, “As soon as I can accept myself exactly as I am, I can change.”
Namaste! Happy New Year!
