This week, we’re discussing the yoga concept that most closely ties into that approach to life. Svadyaya, or self-study, gives us the tools we need to examine our life and our yoga and live more fully and deeply in both. Self-study means both studying on our own and studying ourselves.

When we step out beyond the boundaries of our formal yoga instruction and begin to seek answers and new questions ourselves, we also begin to integrate the concepts we study into our lives. As we learn more about yoga off the mat, we find ourselves adopting those practices. That’s what keeps svadyaya from being just book learning. It is perhaps the main way we walk the Jnana Yoga path of knowledge.

The practice of what we have learned is where the other meaning of svadyaya comes in. As we practice, we observe ourselves and our reactions to those around us. When eating a spicy meal late at night when agni, or digestive fire, burns low, we note that we are uncomfortable throughout the evening, especially when trying to sleep. By studying our actions and reactions, we learn to save bigger meals and spicier foods for earlier in the day when agni burns the hottest.

Another way we can practice is by noting what we do throughout the day and how we feel. By tuning into our bodies, minds and hearts in this manner, we begin to find the practices that serve us best and those that ill-serve us. We begin to learn through experience some of the ayurvedic principles that help us stay balanced. Doing this faithfully requires a level of mindfulness we might or might not already have, so it can turn into another form of yoga practice.

Because of the holidays, there haven’t been many updates to the blog in recent weeks. Now that we’re back in our regular routine, that should change. If you can’t make Monday’s discussion but want to keep up, we’ll have a post up sometime Tuesday recapping the information we covered in the discussion.

The yama that helps us in this process is the fifth one, aparigrapha, or non-hording/non-coveteousness. It’s a concept that occurs in many cultures and religions, the idea that we need to share with others and know we can’t have everything. It’s the yama that asks us to let go and embrace non-attachment.

Non-attachment is one of the most challenging concepts to embrace along this yogic path. Simply put, it means that we accept what happens without attaching value judgments to it. Just as a wet bar of soap will slip from our grasp if we squeeze it too tightly, so too does the rest of our life suffer when we hold too tightly to any part of it.

Think of an item we desire, maybe something on our holiday wish list. The more we focus on it, the more we want the item. Yet the way our brains are wired, once we get the item, we then look for something else to desire. It’s a cycle that can drive us further and further away from simplicity as we get into this “OK, got that. Now what?” mentality. And we live in a culture that encourages that, making it all the more challenging to break free.

On a more personal level, we can become attached to emotions or people as well. This is especially true as we move away from the present moment. We start thinking about how something will turn out, what a person’s reaction will be to a series of events. On the more extreme end of the spectrum, co-dependency, enabling and other unhealthy behaviors can be traced back to attachment. Through the way our brains are wired or the past experiences in our lives, we find ourselves walking in these less-healthy paths because we believe we have security there.

Finally, within ourselves we can be attached. How many of identify with our job or role in the family or spot in the community? We think of these things as “I am a …”, elevating that aspect of our life to be our life. That can lead us to elevate that aspect of our life to an unhealthy importance. Think of the person who identifies completely with their job – what happens when s/he loses that job? What about people who identify completely with their role in their family – what happens as the family members grow and change?

The first step to releasing attachments is identifying them. What are you attached to?

The magazine has eight others listed in that feature, plus another handful as part of the new releases section. If you’re focusing on svadyaya or are more of a jnana yogi, it’s worth picking up to get some ideas.

Jnana yogis pursue the path of knowledge. They deepen their yoga journey through books and study.

Raja yogis are the science yogis, following the path of concentration of body and mind as laid out in the eight limbs.

Bhakti yogis practice devotion through loving, chanting and other practices.

And Karma yogis follow the path of selfless service. They approach each action as an opportunity to practice yoga through being present.

Some of us are strongly drawn to one path throughout our journey. Others might walk down one road for a while before transitioning to the next, picking the one right for them at that particular stage of the journey. Think of it as either a cloverleaf intersection, like a highway, or as parallel paths that merge together at multiple points before splitting out again.

No one path has a higher value than another. It’s almost as though they are different learning styles. Some of us process information better one way, and others in other ways. They also allow us to adjust our practice throughout our journey.

One person might take the jnana path when they first start to really ground his mind in the concepts and thoughts of yoga. As they integrate with his existing thoughts and ideas, he might turn more to raja or karma to put the knowledge into practice. And once he has incorporated yoga into his habits, he might turn to bhakti yoga to express that to others.

That’s just one example. The possible permutations of the four paths within our lives are endless. The important part of the paths is to remember that we are not better or worse than another person because of the path we’re on. We’re also not tied to that path forever — we likely will incorporate elements of all the paths into our practice at any given time, even if one predominates.

For those of us tied particularly to one path, it can make a big difference to consciously choose a different path to pursue for a time. Just as the poses our bodies need most are generally the ones we least like to do, so too can the path we’re on limit our growth if we stay entirely within our comfort zone.

Which path are you walking right now? Have you always walked this path? Which path seems least comfortable? Can you try adopting that form of yoga for the next several weeks and see how your practice evolves?

The most common discussion that arises from ahimsa revolves around whether to eat meat or other animal products or not, and it can be a hotly contested debate. We touched on that, but focused more on how ahimsa taps into the other yamas because it’s a thread throughout all aspects of our lives.

For example, when we think about satya, or truth-telling, we’ve talked about the “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?” test. The second element, kindness, is rooted in ahimsa. Just because something is true doesn’t always mean we necessarily need to speak it. Many of us know somebody who is blunt, almost to a fault, somebody who speaks truths that can be harsh. 

The difficulty can often be in discerning the necessary part of speech, and here we rely on ahimsa as the foundation of our decision. If we speak and tell this truth, will somebody be harmed? If that is the case, then will somebody also be harmed if we don’t speak? In many cases, the answer is clear at that point. In others, it only becomes more difficult to discern the approach most in keeping with the yamas and niyamas. 

As we move to bramacharya, moderation, we return again to ahimsa. Brahmacharya is the practice of avoiding extremes in all things. Patanjali recognized that too much of something can be as bad as too little. Whether it’s food, sex, money, alcohol or responsibilities, the path to balance lies down the middle. By going to one extreme or the other, we often are harming ourselves.

In “Breakfast With Buddha,” a wonderful novel by Roland Merullo, protagonist Otto Ringling loves food. And throughout the novel, we see how his relationship with food changes as he travels a path toward enlightenment.

More pragmatically, going to either excess or scarcity affects who we feel, how we act and how we think. Either extreme tends to focus our mind on the area is which we are out of balance. Think of those days when we forget to eat and all of a sudden realize we’re starving and don’t have time to get food. That’s all we can think about. And yet on the days we stuff ourselves, we also find our mind focusing on how badly we feel because we’re too full. In both cases, we’re causing harm to our bodies. 

We also, in our ahimsa practice, can apply it to our thoughts. How many of us have had thoughts chiding ourselves for not meeting an expectation, whether it be our internal standard, an authority figure’s priority or a societal expectation? Advertisers bombard us with so many images of what it means to be attractive, to be desired and to be a success. Thanks to digital editing and computers, these images don’t even have to be rooted in reality. When we beat ourselves up for not meeting the impossible standards, aren’t we  forgetting to practice ahimsa towards ourselves? 

How would our lives change if we could embrace this yama in our thoughts? On the mat, we embrace this practice by listening to our bodies, letting go of competition, letting go of expectations and letting go of judgement. Off the mat, we practice by accepting ourselves for who we are. Not excusing ourselves from responsibility, but accepting that we are at this point on our yoga and life journey. We can always take a step down a different path, but we must travel any path one step at a time. There are no shortcuts on this journey, no ways to avoid the challenges we face as we move closer to living a yogic life. Ahimsa allows us to change our behaviors, guiding us down the new path we have chosen. If we approach every action with nonharming in mind, we allow ourselves the chance to make the choice that’s consistent with our yoga practice on and off the mat.

The two we’ve been using most lately are Stephen Cope’s “The Wisdom of Yoga,” and Nischala Joy Devi’s “The Secret Power of Yoga”.

Cope’s book is a great look at how we can live out the sutras in our lives. It also has two appendices — one comparing yoga and Buddhism and one with a translation of the Sutras.

Devi approaches the Sutras from a female perspective and looks at how the cultural context at the time of the first English translations colored some common concepts in the sutras. Her translation language is very different, yet the core is the same. Since she comes from Satchidananda’s lineage, it’s interesting seeing where the commentaries overlap and diverge. She also includes exercises that provide concrete steps for living our yoga off the mat.

One of the benefits of our group is we have different perspectives because of our different backgrounds and experiences.

For example, I tend to struggle with blending satya (truth-telling) and ahimsa (nonharming). I can be very blunt, and I’m a chatterbox, which means I often say things that don’t meet the “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?” test. I admire those who do pause and think before they speak, who are careful to follow that path in their words even when it’s difficult.

Yet a group member who does this well reminded me today of the flip side of that practice. For those who are focused on the kindness element of speech, the challenge can be to say something true and necessary even when it’s difficult.

In many cases, speaking a difficult truth can be a kindness. That doesn’t make it easy. And even when something is a cosmic kindness, for lack of a better description, that doesn’t mean the recipient will always take it that way. Those are perhaps the most challenging situations.

Often times, speaking or not speaking in difficult situations is a result of our past training and experience. Those mental ruts, or samskaras, kick in and we find ourselves falling back into old patterns. It can be challenging to change our reactions, especially once we start back in the pattern. While we can try to avoid those ruts, in the long run, we need to find a way to process through our samskaras and fill them in so the ruts are no longer there. When we don’t, when we choose instead to stuff our issues back behind the door and nail them up, we set the stage for them to come back in a bigger form.

That recurring cycle is at the heart of karma. When we can deal with a situation in a yogic manner, practicing nonattachment, we don’t generate any new karma. That’s a challenging standard. More often, we muddle through and generate some new karma. In situations we handle poorly, we often will see the challenge reappear in magnified form later in our life’s path. If we’ve learned better ways to handle our emotions, we might get through it fine. When we have another reaction that doesn’t address the issue, we might find ourselves starting a new cycle again.

With each cycle, the challenge gets bigger. Sometimes the consequences are greater. Sometimes the challenge is just tougher. Each time we pass through that cycle, the ruts become more deeply ingrained. The next time through, we have to approach the challenge that much differently in order to steer our way out of the rut.

In some cases, the challenge is not a key part of our lives, and we can limp along without resolving it. It likely will affect where we begin the next cycle, both in form and standing. But it might not have a noticeable effect on our current path.

In other cases, we run into the same wall many times. Each time it gets thicker and higher. We do more damage to ourselves with each collision. At some point, we reach a stage where we must deal with our challenge in order to continue living our lives in a way we can accept. We often must “hit bottom” to realize this.

Some years ago, I had a third try at a personal challenge, and once again my actions and reactions weren’t what was needed for it to end well. That particular incident didn’t cause me huge problems, but it planted some seeds. Five years later, I had a professional challenge on my plate, one I knew would be made more difficult because it involved a person with whom I was not on good terms because of my earlier personal collision. It ended in disaster, leaving me questioning many things in my life, things I had thought I would never question.

Yoga became my refuge then. As I turned to yoga to help me through that troubling time, I stepped down a different path, one that led me to changes personally and professionally. And yet, working through many of the underlying causes of the actions and reactions that led to that meltdown, the one personal challenge that planted the seeds for that disaster got shoved to the side.

About 18 months ago, I found myself in a situation with some similarities, and dealt with it with minimal negative effects. Yet I knew, deep down, that my actions and reactions were very much rooted in the same samskaras — the better ending was because the outside circumstances were different in a couple of key respects. Still, if you believe there is always a reason for the people and events in our lives, you could consider that a chance to change things, to try out new actions and reactions.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a situation that was similar to the three earlier ones. The differences that marked the most recent manifestation were not there. And with the ability to step back and observe that I’ve gained from my practice on and off the mat, I recognized the pattern while it was in its early stages. After some thinking and some journaling, I decided what specific steps I could take to avoid the behaviors that had caused problems in the past and took them. It was scary in some ways, but changing the process was the first step.

The second step was not being attached to the results of my actions, and I was pleasantly surprised that when the process played out and the superficial results were similar to the ones in the past instances, it didn’t feel the same. Changing the process changed how the result manifested. Also, one yoga book has a passage on negative emotions that suggests we allow the emotions to arise and bubble up, experiencing them fully. It states that only by experiencing the emotions without attaching to them can we stop generating karmic ripples. By adopting that practice after the superficial results manifested themselves, I feel like that rut got just a little less deep. It’s not filled in, and down the line the same challenge will arise again. The challenge, as always, will be recognizing it before going too far down the well-worn path and responding in a manner that stays on the new path I’m walking. But it’s a challenge I feel more able to meet now than I did a week ago.

As we work through the yoga sutras and begin practicing off the mat, we recognize more and more of these opportunities to alter our path in life. The yamas and the niyamas also better equip us to work through the challenges that face us in our everyday lives, allowing us to fill in those karmic ruts.

How have you noticed your off-mat practice influencing your approach to life and its challenging situations?

Sometimes we find that shows up in our approach. Like many in the Western world, we generally start our exposure to yoga through the asanas, or poses. In the Eastern world, the yamas (external restraints) and niyamas (internal practices) are usually the first element of yoga that people practice.

Other times, we find that the issues we’re dealing with are different than those of the ancient yogis. Our group is about half women, and that is a significant difference than in the world Pantanjali knew. We also live in a world vastly more complicated, where the life of just the mat and the bowl are much more difficult to come by. We come from different regions, with different family and cultural traditions. Finally, we all are householder yogis and yoginis in some form, whether we have formally started a family or not. All those aspects color our yoga and our approach to practicing both on and off the mat.

We still practice, and we discuss and share our experiences. Our variety of backgrounds adds flavor to our discussions as one person will often think of an angle that has not occurred to the rest of us. Throughout the discussions and subsequent blog posts, we’ll be considering how the cultural context of our lives influences our practice. Sometimes it’s a legitimate consideration; other times we’ve found it’s more of an excuse to avoid the challenging aspects of our practice.

For background, the group started as a three-night workshop hosted by The Sacred Circle in downtown Staunton. After some great conversations, we decided to keep the group going as an informal weekly group. We meet at 6 p.m. Mondays at The Darjeeling Cafe, which is downstairs from the studio in the old Stonewall Jackson School.

We’ve spent the last few weeks working our way through the yamas, or external restraints, and we’ll pick up again Dec. 7 with the final yama, aparigrapha — non-coveteousness. During the next few days, I’ll try and recap the content from the first four yamas and offer some thoughts to chew on as we lead into the aparigrapha discussion.