Rox Does Yoga

Musings on Everything Yoga

Yoga and Christianity, Part 1 November 29, 2011

Filed under: yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:15 pm
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My friend Birdmaddgirl recently posted a link to an article by Pastor Mark Driscoll, a long and thoughtful discussion of why yoga is an inappropriate practice for Christian people. Pastor Driscoll cites yoga’s roots in Hinduism to denounce it as demonic, by which he means that yoga is a spiritual act of devotion to beings other than the God of the Bible. You can read Pastor Driscoll’s article here. My friend Birdmaddgirl responds to it here. You may not be surprised to learn that I disagree with Pastor Driscoll and agree with Birdmaddgirl. After reading Driscoll’s article carefully, I think that his research is incomplete and his logic is fundamentally flawed. To my view, it looks as though Driscoll set out with an agenda and did only the research he needed to prove his agenda right. That sort of approach is antithetical to the concepts of open-mindedness and true intellectual inquiry.

Pastor Driscoll has some fundamental misconceptions in his research on yoga; those misconceptions, combined with his strict Christian perspective, would certainly make yoga seem incompatible with Christianity, but some deeper searching would reveal those misconceptions to be false. If you look at his reference citations, he has read one article by Elliot Miller, a fellow Christian, about yoga history, and one book by a yoga historian (and looking at the page numbers cited, perhaps he read just the introduction to that book). Driscoll doesn’t claim to have read Patanjali, the Bhagavad Gita, or any other historical yoga or Hindu texts, nor does he claim to have read any material on modern yoga practice. Even his Bikram Choudhury quote is cribbed directly from Miller’s article. Now, I’m not saying that Driscoll should have done exhaustive research just to write a blog post, but I would have preferred him to have read a little more widely on the subject before making such negative conclusions. While I understand some of what informs his viewpoint, it seems to me that he’s trying to make his article seem deeply researched to better support his agenda.

I read over the article by Miller that Driscoll cites, and overall Miller presents the material in an unbiased way and he seems to have read Patanjali carefully. However, Miller (and Driscoll also) includes discussion of tantra, which seems to me to be a purposeful inclusion to raise prurient and negative feeling, since tantra is incredibly far removed from much yoga practiced in the US today, particularly the kinds of tantra that involve “black magic” or “child sacrifice”. To me, this seems akin to including mention of abortion clinic bombers in a general discussion of Christianity, when in reality the vast majority of Christians would want no connection with such violent behavior. There are crazies and zealots in every religion, and Hinduism has some too. However, Miller doesn’t denounce yoga and generally keeps a neutral tone. This article is the first in a three-part series, and this first part only covers history and definitions, with promises to examine carefully modern yoga and its implications for Christians later in the series. Pastor Driscoll draws his conclusions from reading only Part One of Miller’s explorations, without seeing how Miller goes on to look at modern yoga practice or what conclusions he draws. (Miller does eventually conclude that yoga is inappropriate for Christians to practice – see Parts Two and Three. I fail to understand why prana can’t be understood as the Holy Spirit moving in the body, or why saying Namaste, “I honor the divine in you”, is necessarily an affirmation of pantheism rather than an acknowledgment that each of us is one of God’s children. But Miller puts a lot more work and thought into it than Driscoll does, which I respect.)

This topic is important to me. I was raised Catholic and attended 13 years of Catholic school, so I do know something about Catholic Christianity; I also deeply believe that the practice of yoga, and the values that go along with it, can be beneficial to any human being regardless of religious background. And many devout Catholics think so too, as evidenced in this fantastic article about yoga as Christian spiritual practice. I am glad to see that not every Christian believes as Driscoll and Miller do.

This is getting to be a very long post, so tomorrow: some of my own thoughts on how the spirituality behind yoga can be applicable no matter what religion the yogi practices.

 

Practicing Non-Violence November 11, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:52 pm
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I’m finding more and more that yoga philosophy is seeping into my consciousness when I’m not looking. I’ve noticed lately that I’ve become less able to deal with violence in television and movies – the images really disturb me and keep replaying themselves in my brain. For example, lately I’ve been watching the second season of Dollhouse, which is incredibly dark and violent. Usually I love any show that Joss Whedon creates (like Buffy and Firefly), but this one is really bothering me. My husband and I are also watching The Walking Dead together, a show so tense and intense and dark that I can no longer watch it at night; we’ve taken to watching last week’s episode on sunny Saturday mornings. I’ve never liked horror movies and gave up watching those a long time ago, but I never had a problem with violence before – in the past I was a fan of Dexter and thought it was great, so clearly something’s changing. I’m finding myself undecided about whether to keep watching these shows. I really want to know what happens at the end, but I don’t know if I want to keep putting myself through watching them and filling my mind with dark things that don’t need to be there.

I mentioned this issue to a friend, who told me that she’d experienced something similar after she started meditating. Now she can’t watch Law & Order: SVU anymore, among other things. I wonder if many people who begin cultivating a spiritual practice (any kind of spiritual practice) experience a change like this?

For me, I think this change is a combination of a few things. First, yoga teaches non-violence in the form of ahimsa. This isn’t just refraining from violent actions: ahimsa means keeping violence from our words, voice, and thoughts as well, and what’s more, striving to bring peace to our actions, words, and thoughts instead. Ahimsa was a major inspiration behind me becoming a vegetarian – I didn’t want to bring another creature’s suffering into my body or make that suffering a part of me. So why would I want to take suffering into my mind, even if it’s only the suffering of fictional characters?

Yoga, Hindu philsophy, and Buddhist philosophy alike all teach that we are all one – that the one truth is that we’re all part of one Self, one higher Consciousness. Our physical appearances may differ, but at root we’re all the same. When you start to absorb this philosophy, the idea of violence becomes repugnant. Any violence done by one person to another hurts not just the person on the receiving end, but the do-er as well. In fact, it hurts everybody. We’re all joined, all parts of one whole. The Upanishads emphasize this again and again. It’s a concept that can be hard to comprehend intellectually, but after a while you start to feel the truth of it.

Jesus said it too: Love thy neighbor as thyself. That simple saying is easy for schoolchildren to parrot back, but it’s hard to put into practice. When you begin to believe that we’re all brothers and sisters, that the spirit in me is the same as the spirit in you and you and you, then the love starts to come more naturally. Loving your neighbor is the same thing as loving yourself! And correspondingly, the acceptance of violence dwindles.

I think this is about where I’m at in my spiritual practice, and I think this is why it’s hard for me to watch violent shows anymore. I have four episodes of The Walking Dead left to watch, and maybe five or six episodes of Dollhouse. Part of me thinks I should stick it out, finish these shows off and then be done with violent shows. But then when I add it up, that’s a good ten more hours of watching people stab and hurt each other. I’m not sure if I’m up for that.

 

Upanishads (part 1) November 1, 2011

Filed under: upanishads,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:18 pm
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We’re taking a quick break from our yoga & sex series so I can tell you how much I’m in love with the Upanishads already. It’s a collection of ancient wisdom from Hindu sages who lived over 2000 years ago, and so far I’ve only read the intros and the first Upanishad, the Isha, but I’m head over heels here. Opening the book, the very first page has this inscription:

You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As you deed is, so is your destiny.
(Brihadaranyaka IV.4.5)

Those few lines touched me really deeply. I memorized them and used them in my meditation this morning. Ten minutes zipped past, and afterwards I felt incredibly peaceful. I love how these lines imply that by using your will to carry out your deepest desires, you have the power to choose your destiny, and further, that that destiny is already within you, ready to be created.

I loved the Isha Upanishad, too. It’s so short and so powerful, really intense and lovely. I read it and the accompanying commentary twice on the train this morning. I’m really loving this. I simultaneously want to read the whole book right now and also to stretch out the reading of it for as long as I can. I’m planning to stretch it out since I know I’ll get more out of it that way. I’m already plotting the purchase of multiple translations so I can reread it again and again and compare the wording. Just thinking about it makes me really happy.

 

Four Primitive Urges October 11, 2011

Filed under: yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:25 pm
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Many yogis, including Swami Rama, talk about the four primitive urges, also known as the four fountains. Every animal experiences these urges, and humans aren’t exempt! These are the basic needs that every creature wants to have fulfilled. Almost any problem you may experience can be related back to one of the four primitive urges at the root level.

  • Food

Who doesn’t need food? The desire for food naturally occurs in the body when we become hungry, but sometimes the urge to eat can begin in the mind, when we use food for more than just physical nourishment. Food can be comforting, calming, soothing; it can help us procrastinate, it can get us excited, or even make us sick. The next time you reach for a candy bar, consider whether you’re truly hungry or whether you’re trying to fill some other emotional need. As a yogi, one’s food intake shouldn’t be more or less than what the body needs for fuel, so both overeating and starving yourself should be, well, off the table. Also, your diet shouldn’t pollute your body or agitate or your nervous system (hello, coffee!). We’re all guilty of indulging now and then, but in general, following the guidelines for a sattvic diet will help to keep the primitive urge for food in check.

  • Sex

Although the need for sex is a physical need, the desire for sex typically begins in the mind and travels to the body. For example, you might be in a perfectly normal mood but then happen to see a sexy scene in a movie, which stimulates the mind and which in turn arouses the body. The body was just fine; it was the mind that got you worked up. As yogis, we try to keep a balanced state of mind in relation to sex, following the yamas and niyamas to use sexuality appropriately and enjoy it in a healthy way.

  • Sleep

Every living creature needs sleep, but we can definitely get too much of a good thing! Laziness is said to be the greatest of the sins that undermine progress, not just in yoga, but in whatever you do in life. Laziness is covered under the yamas and niyamas, as well as in the nine obstacles to mental clarity, the Gunas (as tamas), and is mentioned often in the Bhagavad Gita as an obstacle to performing your duty or dharma, which of course is a major part of yogic philosophy, so laziness is clearly a major issue! The Bhagavad Gita also says that yoga is not for those who sleep too much or sleep too little – in yoga, we seek to find a balance, not depriving ourselves of the sleep we need to do our work and function in the world, but not giving in to laziness and lethargy either.

  • Self-Preservation

The instinct for self-preservation is where our “fight or flight” response comes from. In essence, this urge is rooted in fear: at the base level, fear of death, which is included among the kleshas as an obstacle to achieving enlightenment. On a figurative level, self-preservation includes fear of losing something we have, and fear that we won’t get what we want or need. Among the many things we try to preserve are our physical body, attractiveness, social standing – anything that contributes to our mental concept of ourselves and how we want others to perceive us. Trying to preserve these things is a natural instinct, but in yoga we work to remove our attachment to the things of the physical world, because only the inner true Self stays unchanging.

We need the four primitive urges to survive, but as we seek spiritually, we must recognize how they influence us and keep the urges working in appropriate ways, not limiting us or holding us back, but only pushing us forward to achieve our potential.

 

The Bhavas September 19, 2011

Filed under: yoga,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:39 pm
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The Bhavas are four spiritual attitudes to cultivate as a student of yoga, or really as a student of anything! The Bhavas are:

  • Duty (Dharma)
  • Knowledge (Jnana)
  • Detachment (Vairaigya)
  • Self-Reliance (Aiswarya)

Duty, or Dharma, is an important concept in the Yoga Sutras as well as in the Bhagavad Gita. The idea here is to know your duty, understand what you have to do, and then perform that duty with a neutral attitude, without regard to whether you like or dislike the task. Some examples are going to yoga class regularly even when you don’t feel like it, studying and doing your homework for school, making phone calls at the office, or taking out the trash. Regardless of whether you enjoy taking out the trash, pickup is on Tuesday morning, so it’s your duty to take it out on Monday night with no complaining! To cultivate your sense of duty, try doing meditative yoga asanas, like a series of sun salutations or half-salutes.

Knowledge, or Jnana, goes hand in hand with duty. We should strive to know ourselves at every level: body, thoughts, speech, and emotions. Knowing yourself will help you to better know and understand your duty as well. To cultivate self-knowledge, work on concentration exercises (like, for example, counting meditation), and yoga asanas that require concentration, like balance poses. Pranayama breathing exercises (like these) are also helpful here – pranayama helps you learn your breathing patterns and how to calm your emotions using your breath.

Detachment, or Vairaigya, means living in the world without being of the world. We work not to get caught up in the trivial details of the world around, instead keeping a sense of our true Self, which remains unchanging. This also feeds back into duty – we do the right thing because it’s right, and with detachment from the results, without thought of reward. Overall, cultivating detachment in our lives usually means cultivating an attitude of humility and surrender. Yoga asanas that can help with this include forward bends and twists. These postures encourage us to surrender and relax into the pose: if you’re tensing your muscles and pushing hard, it’s more difficult to succeed with forward bends and twists, but if you let go and surrender to the pose without trying to push, you’ll often find that you can bend just a little bit farther, twist just a little bit deeper.

Self-Reliance, or Aiswarya, can also be referred to as willpower or self-confidence. It’s that deep inner sense that you can do what you need to do. Self-reliance comes from knowing yourself well and having a attitude of humility. Maybe we could also call it integrity! Backbends are yoga asanas that will help with this bhava. Backbends can be scary because you’re dropping your head backwards, unable to see anything coming toward you, so doing backbends develops confidence and strength. Backbends also work to open up the chest, heart, and shoulders, which helps posture – if you’re standing with chest open, shoulders back, you’ll project a much more positive, confident attitude than you would by hunching over!

For me, the bhavas are interesting and helpful to keep in mind as I follow the path of karma yoga, which requires following my dharma with a sense of service and without regard for reward. But the bhavas are useful for any yogic path, or for people following a different path entirely: the characteristics described by the bhavas are useful to cultivate no matter what your faith, religion, or spiritual path!

 

Books: Bhagavad Gita September 9, 2011

Filed under: bhagavad gita,books,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 2:06 pm
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The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath EaswaranThe Bhagavad Gita is one of India’s best known scriptures. It tells the story of Arjuna, a warrior on the eve of battle who has lost heart and become uncertain as to his duty. Arjuna turns to his spiritual guide, Krishna, for answers to all the key questions of life, questions about wisdom and service and spirituality. The battle that Arjuna is about to fight is the perfect metaphor for life and the interior battle we all fight to live a life that is meaningful and fulfilling. The Gita, in essence, is a manual for how to live.

For my yoga teacher training, we were asked to read a translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran. On the back cover, Easwaran’s version is described as “reliable” and “readable”, and this is definitely true. Easwaran opens the book with an introduction to the Gita, setting the scene, and then each chapter of the Gita opens with a brief introduction that explicates the content of that chapter. This makes the story easy to follow, and really helps in understanding the context of Arjuna’s and Krishna’s conversation. The endmatter of the book includes a section of notes (typically, helpful insights on issues of translation), as well as a glossary of Sanskrit terms and an index. Easwaran’s version really focuses on making the Gita accessible for the reader, so this version is a great place to start if you’re reading the Gita for the first time.

I had read the Bhagavad Gita previously, in Stephen Mitchell’s translation. Mitchell is known as a translator of ancient poetry – he’s done the epic of Gilgamesh and the Tao Te Ching, among others. The great thing about Mitchell’s work is that he finds a way to take this ancient poetry written in another language and capture not just the meaning but the beauty of the language. Easwaran’s translation of the Gita is verse, but Mitchell’s translation is poetry. The last time I read it, I was looking mostly at the poetry; I decided to read it again, and this time, it was really enjoyable to read the book in a different context, looking more at the content, the instructions for how to live. Definitely got more out of it this time.

When we were assigned to read the Bhagavad Gita for class, I chose to read both versions back to back. I didn’t try to do a line-by-line comparison (that would defeat the purpose of reading it at all, really). Instead, I re-read the Mitchell translation, and then read the Easwaran translation, in the hope that reading both versions would deepen my understanding. I think it did, but I also felt a little burnt out by the time I got to the end of the Easwaran version. I definitely want to reread both versions again, but next time I’ll space them out more.

 

Revelation # 56: Yogis are not missionaries September 8, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 4:46 pm
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At last month’s yoga teacher training weekend, one concept really struck me and has stuck with me. It’s the idea that yogis aren’t missionaries. Now, nobody ever said that they were, but I was raised Catholic – my childhood religion classes were filled with stories of missionaries, going out into the wild to educate and spread the good news of Jesus. Such people were held up as heroes for us to emulate. Coming from this background, the concept of spreading the word and converting others to your faith is very familiar to me.

Which is why it blew my mind when I realized that yogis aren’t missionaries. It’s a concept that just doesn’t fit in with the yoga worldview. Sure, if you seek out a yogi based on a sincere desire to learn, the yogi will teach you, but he’s not going out looking for students. That’s not his job.

Yogis don’t preach or proselytize because they believe that each person has the responsibility for his or her own spiritual development. In the Yoga Sutras and in the Bhagavad Gita, it’s made clear that your responsibility is to yourself first; you should take action primarily to preserve your own calm mind. Consider the parakarmas: this wisdom, straight from Yoga Sutra I.33, is intended to help you in your relationships with others – to help you treat others better, yes, but mostly to help you live in the world and still keep your serenity. According to the scriptures, your job is to take care of yourself and your own spiritual development. It’s not your job to worry about anyone else’s. The yogi knows that he’s on a good path, but he also knows that there are other paths that people can follow, and that’s up to them. The yogi isn’t responsible for saving the world; instead, he leads by example, practicing kindness and service, demonstrating the goodness he wants to see in the world.

Understanding this has been a big realization for me. I feel that I’ve found a good spiritual path for myself in yoga, but I don’t have to go out and shout about it. There’s no onus on me to try to convince anyone else that this is a good spiritual path. My path may not be for everyone. What’s more, as J has said all along, my spiritual practice is private; it’s my own and not anyone else’s business. This too is different from how I grew up: in Catholicism, demonstrating your faith in community is important. For me as a yogini, community is still important – the community of yoga classes that I attend and the classes I will someday teach, as well as the community I find in my local Unitarian Universalist church – but ultimately my spiritual practice is personal.

I want to be a yoga teacher, which means sharing my yoga and my spirit with my students. But being a teacher doesn’t mean being a missionary. I believe yoga has the power to heal both bodies and minds, but I don’t have to go out and advertise that or force that belief on anyone – as long as I work hard and put myself out there as a teacher, people who need yoga will find their way to me.

 

Books: The Secret Power of Yoga: A Woman’s Guide to the Heart and Spirit of the Yoga Sutras, by Nischala Joy Devi September 7, 2011

Filed under: books,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 4:13 pm
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The Secret Power of Yoga: A Woman's Guide to the Heart and Spirit of the Yoga SutrasNischala Joy Devi’s interpretation of the yoga sutras offers a different take from most traditional translations. Devi set out to write a book that explicates the yoga sutras from a heart-centered, more “feminine” perspective. She realized that most of the existing translations of the sutras were written by men, and she noticed many of her female students commenting that the sutras didn’t seem to relate to them. Devi set out to complete a more accessible text for women. She sought for her book to embrace both thoughts and feelings (rather than separating thoughts from feelings, which is often done in Western culture). She generally uses the terms “consciousness” and “heart” where the customary translation would read “mind” and “thoughts”.

Overall, I think Devi’s technique was effective.The first time I read the sutras was in this translation, and it was difficult for me; I’m not sure how I would have fared with a more traditional translation. At least with Devi’s version I felt as if the book was intended for ME.  For the most part, Devi uses real life examples that made sense in relation to how to practice the sutras in a real woman’s busy life.

On this reread, I was also simultaneously reading Sri Swami Satchidananda’s translation of the sutras; Satchidananda was Devi’s spiritual teacher, so it was very interesting to see where the two of them interpret the sutras differently and where they have a similar approach. In many instances, Satchidananda and Devi say much the same thing, but Devi couches her language in ways that feel more familiar and welcoming for a modern woman. Part of me wants to call this “the sutras – lite”, but it’s not light at all, it’s just a different take that… well, doesn’t feel quite so difficult, even though it’s the same material.

One thing I would have really liked in this book is a glossary; Devi naturally uses a lot of Sanskrit terms. The first time I read the book, it took me several months to complete it, and reading it over such a long period of time, I definitely got my dharmas and dharanas and dhyanas crossed. There is an index, which is helpful, but rather than looking up where the word first appeared and then going there to refresh myself about the definition, it might have been more effective just to have a glossary. (Satchidananda’s translation does include a glossary.)

Overall, I recommend this book for women who are looking to deepen the spiritual side of their yoga practice or meditation. I also recommend it for men who, like me, don’t connect so much with the mind/thoughts rhetoric in spiritual books.

 

Books: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, trans. and commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda September 2, 2011

Filed under: books,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:23 pm
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The Yoga Sutras of PatanjaliThe Yoga Sutras, the key text in the study of yoga, is an ancient text dating back at least 2000 years. The sutras were compiled by the sage Patanjali (pah-TAN-ja-lee). Patanjali didn’t invent the concept of yoga, but he made a system of it by bringing together all the existing teachings and traditions and giving them a structure for students to follow. The word “sutra” means “thread” – the text is a collection of almost 200 brief “threads” of wisdom. Patanjali used as few words as possible in each sutra with the idea that students would be learning from an established teacher, who would expound upon each sutra in turn. Sri Swami Satchidananda takes on that role in this translation of the sutras and the accompanying commentary.

The sutras are traditionally grouped into four books: Book One, Contemplation; Book Two, Practice; Book Three, Accomplishments; and Book Four, Absoluteness. For most students, just reading Books One and Two is sufficient – the last two books contain the more esoteric teachings. For my teacher training we actually started by jumping right in with Book Two, the practical teachings, and this certainly isn’t a bad idea. For Patanjali, the physical practice of yoga is simply a means of calming the mind, and the vast majority of the sutras are about the mind; it can be a little easier for the modern student to begin with the practical sutras in Book Two before working on the contemplative sutras in Book One.

This version of the sutras follows a helpful format: for each sutra, the original Sanskrit is given, along with the Sanskrit transliteration, the literal translation, and finally a translation set in readable English prose. This structure could appeal both to the serious Sanskrit student as well as to the beginning student (who can just skip right to the English). After each sutra follows commentary from Swami Satchidananda. At first I found the commentary to be rather dry, but after journeying through the whole book I came to enjoy his tone and appreciate his stories. Satchidananda’s translations of the sutras are very straightforward, and his commentary really elucidates each sutra and gets to the heart of what Patanjali is saying.

Overall, this is a good translation of the Yoga Sutras for beginning students, and for those who have studied the sutras before, Satchidananda’s commentary is a worthwhile reason to choose this edition for a re-read.

 

The Parakarmas, part 2: celebrating the good, staying impartial to the bad September 1, 2011

Filed under: yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:19 pm
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The parakarmas, discussed in Sutra I.33, are four attitudes that, if we practice them, will help us in our relationships with other people. Swami Satchidananda says that if you’re going to remember just one of the yoga sutras, it should be this one, for the power it has to help us keep a serene mind.

The sutra reads as follows:

By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind retains its undisturbed calmness. (page 54)

Nischala Devi translates it just a little differently, with a little less judgment on the “wicked”:

To preserve openness of heart and calmness of mind, nurture these attitudes: kindness to those who are happy, compassion for those who are less fortunate, honor for those who embody noble qualities, and equanimity to those whose actions oppose your values. (page 77)

Yesterday we discussed the first two parakarmas (friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy). The last two are a little trickier.

  • Delight in the virtuous / honor for the noble

This attitude can be summed up as “celebrating the good in others”. I have a friend who goes to Nicaragua every year to volunteer in an orphanage for disabled children. I know a woman who overcame great personal hardship to raise her son, her daughter who has a serious heart condition, and her youngest child, a small boy who also has a serious health problems whom she adopted from China. I know a perfectly ordinary guy with a job and a kid who feels so passionately about cancer research that he organizes a huge fundraiser every year as a volunteer, putting in hours of his time and energy to help others. Everybody knows someone like this, and we all wonder how on earth such people exist: come on, can they really be that nice? But we’re just looking at the whole picture, without the benefit of the context of the little moments that brought that person here. In each individual moment, that person was just trying to make the best choice she could, the same way that we all do. The sum of those choices may be a larger-than-life story that doesn’t seem real, but at the center is a regular, fallible person doing their best. Don’t envy that person (because you don’t know what he had to go through to become who he is), and don’t gossip or try to pull that person down. Instead, admire him, or use her as an example for your own conduct. Such people deserve our respect for all the love and goodwill and service they put into the world, and they deserve to be celebrated – we need more of them!

  • Disregard toward the wicked / equanimity to those whose actions oppose your values

Devi’s translation is a little more politically correct than Satchidananda’s, but it comes to the same thing: don’t let it upset you. (Don’t let the bastards get you down!) There will always be people who seem wicked or wrong, people who have values different from our own. Some people are just like that; maybe you or I used to be like that too. Maybe it’s something as simple as someone driving like a jerk on the highway – we don’t know what made that person act that way, so all we can do is hope he’ll do better tomorrow. Or maybe it’s someone you must interact with (a distant relative, a coworker) whose views are just totally different from yours: these are the most difficult people, because what do you say? Nothing you can do will convince this person to change his mind. If you want to preserve your own serenity, the best course of action is just to let it go: don’t get angry, don’t argue, and don’t let it upset you. Be as polite as possible, and when the situation has passed, put that person out of your mind. Don’t spend the next two days arguing about it in your head – that’s not going to change the other person, but it does change you. Why choose to get upset and keep rehashing angry words? Let it go.

N & J described this attitude as “remaining impartial to the faults and imperfections of others”. I like this rephrasing a lot because it reminds us to keep this attitude not just with nasty Uncle Larry or with Susan in marketing, but also with the people closest to us. I’m not perfect and I’m never going to be, but it’s easy to forget that my friends and loved ones aren’t perfect either. I may have high expectations for them – and we often expect the best from the people we love, don’t we? – but they have faults and imperfections too, and they make mistakes. If we can remain impartial when those mistakes happen, we’ll be able to be kinder to the person in that moment, and we’ll be better able to preserve our own calmness of mind without getting angry or disappointed.

 

 
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