Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Abhyasa & Vairagya – Spiritual Principles to Develop Better Attitude
Posted: Sunday, February 20, 2011
by Drunken Mystic
http://drunkenmystic.wordpress.com
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There are two most basic and essential factors mentioned by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras for spiritual progress. They in Sanskrit are known as Abhyasa and Vairagya. Abhyasa means practice, and Vairagya means non-attachment. Practice and non-attachment play a very necessary role as we continue to move on the spiritual path with our daily routine of yoga and meditation. Yoga cannot be considered only as a physical exercise to improve the body. Yoga is first a spiritual exercise, an austerity for revealing the true nature of the inner self, to help our conscience rule above the various improper tendencies of the mind.
A clear example is if we happen to face bankruptcy, we may get tempted to steal somebody’s wallet or rob somewhere. This is because our mind is not steady during the moment of poverty and the loss of money is instilling fear in our minds that we may not be able to survive anymore. To overcome such situations, and to be aware of our mind tendencies, yoga is the actual medicine. Yoga clearly increases our awareness of attitude towards life slowly with time. To attain this awareness, calm attitude, and yet not let the progress get to our heads, we need to maintain regular “practice” and “non-attachment”.
The reason why Patanjali stresses on both is because, as we advance further with gaining greater flexibility of the body, expansion of consciousness, and development of intuition and greater foresight, many people tend to think they are ready to be “Gurus”. Even I have noticed umpteen times when people gain full flexibility of the body and complete a yoga course their arrogance reaches super levels and immediately open up a centre and boast about their levels of attainment and start calling themselves as “Yogacharya” which means the one who has attained perfection in Yoga.
Some shamelessly call themselves as “Guru ABC” and move about preaching even before they have been truly certified or green flagged by a true enlightened master as ready to move out into the world to teach. The original tradition of “Guru – Disciple” was – the disciple would continue to remain as disciple and would never attempt or even “dream” of becoming a guru because the “goal” of the disciple is not to become a guru when he/she comes to learn under a guru. The actual purpose is learning.
Maintaining “practice” and non-attachment” for attaining perfection means not keeping any expectations. Yearning for soul perfection may be maintained but even that should fade away with slow progress. The humble attitude of the student is not maintained these days and everybody yearns to become a yoga teacher. This very experience forced me to take a back seat and even today I can proudly claim, “I have not attained perfection in yoga. I am still a student and wish to remain a student till my true Guru appears in front of me to offer me the divine touch just like John the Baptist gave it to Jesus Christ.”
The disciple must continue to practice and develop greater sense of non-attachment. There may be at times when the guru will teach advanced levels to another student who may not be serious with the practice at all, while he/she may stop the perfected student. Only the true guru knows what they are teaching and the student may feel insulted at these moments. But this is nothing but true learning to the student who is being stopped. This is the real test of “humbling” the ego and making the student increase non-attachment, and reduce any kind of expectation and further increasing greater sense of faith in the master’s way.
The master purposely makes the student practice more and more and still the student may get angry and say, “What the heck? I’ve already perfected this level of yoga posture and he doesn’t teach me any further. I am leaving.” This would be the most foolish thing to do. I learned this from my experience with Late Father Joise. He always gave more postures to his western students, right in front me when I had greater flexibility, attained amazing perfection and lightness of body. There were days when my body would feel light as a feather and I would be enjoying the process like a flying bird smoothly changing positions.
I learned a lot through this experience, I developed a great sense of detachment from the practice and even expectation grew lesser. I even stopped thinking of becoming a teacher of Ashtanga yoga. I could feel that I was not just learning something physical but also learning a greater aspect of the complete relationship of the “Master – Student”. I learned how to surrender at the master’s feet and not question anything and rather just humbly learn and practice whatever he/she offers you. Never be boastful of your spiritual progress.
The moment you start getting attached at any step with your growing prowess, it will immediately lead you to a steady downfall and it may take a very long time before you come back to the same point from where you started. The grace of the master definitely saves us, but the master cannot keep saving you time and again. You may just get warnings once in a while, but must always be wary.
When learning yoga postures even in a simple yoga class, never think that you must attain flexibility immediately. Don’t take it as a challenge to the mind that you must get better off the others in the class. This is an insecurity of your own mind that you must attain perfection immediately. You will only end up injuring yourself which will further create a lifelong damage. Go at your own pace, and don’t compete with the person next to you. Practice and non-attachment is about being regular as well as remaining indifferent to what you have to attain.
If you have to bend forward to touch the floor with your hands without bending your knees, and you are not able to do it, it is not a shame. Go slow and steady. To gain flexibility, it might take you two weeks, two months or even two years. The focus should be on constant practice and not on tearing your muscle and hurting your knee joint to attain perfection in a day. Practice yoga for your inner perfection, humbling your ego and developing a greater sense of love, peace and calm state of mind and yet not boast about it. The key to attain this and more is by maintaining the two principles – Abhyasa and Vairagya.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Good stuff DM. My disciplines are probably closer to Abhyasa and Viagra.:-) Who knows though maybe someday I'll get there.Maybe sir. I am happy you can feel that way. We are all in the "process" of the making. :-) Just getting baked continuously. Thank you for commenting.
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