What is the greatest gift yoga has given me?
I love a good question and “What is the greatest gift Yoga has given me?” is a cracker of a question. When the question was posed, I stopped pondered and contemplated. I considered which Yoga does the question pertain to. Is it the me as a Bhakti Yogi, or the me who serves as a Karma Yogi, or is it the me who seeks to transcend ignorance as a Jnani Yogi, or me who sits and wrestles with the mind to become a Raja Yogi?
This gift of non-identification with the body-mind complex has set me up to do the inner work. It gives me context about how to deal with the suffering and joys of this earthly plane. It has helped me to not get too trapped in the melodramas of life as deeply or for as long. Each time I forget I am a Soul and the sensual delights and mental sufferings of the world capture me; I can swiftly (sometimes) return to the knowingness of Soul, not Role.
Was the biggest gift one of the powerful techniques for liberation, Asana Pranayama or Meditation? Was it those masterful Yamas and Niyamas that are helping me to live a moral, ethical and Yogic life? Is it faith? Is it loving awareness? Is it my Yogic Satsang and the way they are helping me to fulfill the potential of my incarnation, helping me by highlighting my shortcomings and supporting my strengths?
After several days deliberation I came to two answers. The first answer to the question ”What is the greatest gift Yoga has given me?”,
The First gift is my Guru – Neem Karoli Baba/Maharaji. To tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Maharaji came to me before I was what might be called a yogi, so it is slightly mischievous to say Yoga bought me to him, or him to me, even though he is a Yogi of the Highest Order.
I was a spiritual seeker who loved Christ and the Buddha. I debated with my Salvation Army Captain about Hinduism and Buddhism. I argued that I thought God would not do the “hell thing” and that it was a manmade recruiting tool. I dabbled only slightly in the new agey material but it lacked depth and no one I saw had made a reasonable level of peace and power.
Then one day searching through the dark corners of a spiritual bookstore in Penrith I came across Miracle of Love. Miracle of Love is a thousand miracle stories about Neem Karoli Baba. It was tattered and had the strong smell of incense, suggesting it had been in the shop for some time. It was an expensive book for a single income family with one young child, but something came over me. There was no way I could leave that store without it. I did not know of Maharaji or even open the book, but after several feeble attempts to exit the store without it, I shelled out the thirty dollars and walked out unknowingly with my Guru under my arm.
The book would sit on my shelf for 18 months before fate intervened again. Karma presented me with a cassette tape from Ram Dass who spoke of Maharaji, the guy on front of my tattered book. This was the moment my love affair began in earnest. I read about him, I prayed to him, I loved him with a love that I did not know was possible and as I sit here now with tears brewing and heart aching, I am grateful that Bhakti Yoga inadvertently bought him to me.
The second answer to the question ”What is the greatest gift Yoga has given me is the awareness that I am not the me that I thought I was.
The Yogic Philosophy leaves me with no doubt that I am more than this body-mind complex running off Karma, dancing the dharma. The Yogis left unambiguous teaching’s that we are Souls playing roles in this realm of Ignorance or Illusion.
Yoga’s inherit depth and the purity of its sources time and again remind me of the temporary nature of the body-mind complex and the eternal nature of the Soul, of God. These reminders are the braces in turmoil, they steady the ship in delight and they open me to working with the karma being served.
This gift of non-identification with the body-mind complex has set me up to do the inner work. It gives me context about how to deal with the suffering and joys of this earthly plane. It has helped me to not get too trapped in the melodramas of life as deeply or for as long. Each time I forget I am a Soul and the sensual delights and mental sufferings of the world capture me; I can swiftly (sometimes) return to the knowingness of Soul, not Role.
This in no way gives me permission to be less than or to do less on the worldly plane, in fact, quite the opposite. The identification as Soul allows me to do the best I can and be the best I can because I am less clouded due to a decrease in misperception and delusion. The Gift of seeing from Soul plane, not that I am there as frequently as I may be one day, is that the inflammation of the mind, the clinging of the senses is less apparent.
It has been a hard-earned gift, probably thousands of incarnations to not see myself primarily as the self-evident body and mind. It comes with challenges and victories; it comes with confusion and separation when others disagree with the approach I am taking. However, for me the evidence of who I am, a Soul, is more real now than the evidence that who I am is a temporary conglomeration of Matter, Prana and Karma.
Hanuman Das
Yoga Week Ambassador 2022