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Ahimsa: From Darkness to Light

I want to discuss the concept of darkness and light. A metaphor came to me the other day that will help me illustrate what I wish to say.

Imagine a cloudy day. It is raining outside. No sunshine is to be seen through the clouds. The day is not in complete darkness; there is daylight behind the clouds. Just because we cannot see the light of the sun shining brightly behind the clouds, it does not mean that the sun is not there shining brightly. It is merely blocked by the clouds, the shadows, and the rain. The day looks a little gloomy. We may feel a little “under the weather”.

Almost all life on this planet is dependent upon the sun’s energy. If humankind did not have access to sunshine, we would die. We receive vital hormones and vitamins from the sun’s light. Our plants and crops are dependent upon sunshine in order to grow and flourish. We receive energy from our food due to the sun’s role in the growth and production of our food.

In this metaphor, the sun is the Prana, the vital life energy of our Soul and of the Supreme Soul. The clouds, the shadows, and the rain are representative of Apana, the energy of the mind. Bapuji teaches that we have a body. We have a mind. We have a Soul, and there is a Supreme Soul. The Supreme Soul is God’s energy. It is the pure sunlight: radiant, hot, burning bright. It permeates everything. It sends its energy into plants, animals, and humankind. This energy of the Supreme Soul that we house within ourselves is the energy of the Soul (Spirit, Higher Self). This energy permeates the body. It is the breath of life. It is the reason we are alive. Just as most things are dependent upon the sunlight for life, we are dependent upon Prana for life. If Prana did not exist in our bodies, we would not exist at all.

The current situation for most of humankind, however, is that the clouds are blocking the sunshine. The Prana is under control of the mind. There is a story in the Yoga scriptures about two brothers, one older and one younger. The older one represents the mind and the younger represents the Prana. The Prana is always eager to follow the mind, the older brother. The Prana is happy to light the world from behind the mental clouds, to follow in its footsteps, but in order for the Prana to shine, it has to step forward and exert its authority. The mental impurities have to be removed in order for the Prana to shine forth in our bodies.

Through the physical and mental practices of Yoga (called “tapas”), one is able to gradually clear up the sky of the body. The clouds gradually recede to reveal more and more of the sunshine.

There is always an internal battle between the mind and the Soul. The Soul is God’s energy. Yet it is trapped behind the mind’s control. This control and trapping of Prana is the reason we are here on earth. It is the reason we are incarnated again and again. Yoga scripture teaches that the Soul never dies. It just takes on new bodies. It discards old ones. We are born into bodies and situations that help us to see the areas where we block Prana, where we block the Light, where the sun is not able to shine through the clouds because of the areas that we are allowing the mind to exert its influence.

We need to assert our authority. The Prana is tied to the body. The voice of the Prana and the voice of the mind are different. They have a different feel. Bapuji gives us some examples: when we are tired in the evening…it is 10:00pm, or 11:00pm, or 12:00am and the body (and therefore the Prana) needs to go to sleep. But the mind wants to stay awake watching television or reading or playing around on the internet. When we sit down to eat…the mind has its own preferences in quality and quantity. The Prana doesn’t have any preferences. It just chooses what is best for us. The body knows intuitively what to eat. The mind has its ideas of what it wants. It uses our senses to convince us that such and such a thing is desirable over another. When it is time to eat, the mind will state its preference. The Prana will also suggest a choice. Listen to the Prana. It will usually be the healthier choice or the choice that will increase one’s energy.

In his Premyatra volumes, Swami Kripalvanandji talks about Yamas and Niyamas extensively. He says that in the battle between the mind and the Soul, between Prana and Apana, one can either fight a battle from within a closed fort or out on an open battlefield. To fight from within an enclosed fort, one needs the armor and the protection of the Yamas and Niyamas.

The Yamas and Niyamas are the first two “limbs” of the Eight Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. They are the way that one protects his or her sadhana (spiritual practice) from things which would interfere, disturb, or halt its positive progression. So what are the Yamas and Niyamas? They are our internal and external manners. They are the ways we treat each other externally and the ways we treat ourselves internally. Collectively, they are the Law of Prana. If you want to bring Prana into your life, bring the Yamas and Niyamas into your life. If you want to remove the clouds that are blocking the sun’s light, bring the Yamas and Niyamas into your life.

Swami Kripalvanandji says that the five friends of Yoga are nonviolence, truthfulness, nonstealing, energy movement and maintanence, and nonpossessiveness. The five enemies of Yoga are violence, nontruthfulness, stealing, lust/desire, and possessiveness. The five Yamas are Ahimsa (nonviolence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (nonstealing), Brahmacharya (the building, maintanence, and movement of energy), and Aparigraha (nonpossessiveness).

Ahimsa is the first and the most important. Swami Kripalvanandji says that if one can master nonviolence, the other four Yamas come to the Seeker automatically. Lord Lakulish says to pick one Yama and Niyama to master, and it makes the journey up the mountain to God easier to climb.

Is a Seeker of God more or less violent than an average human being? A great deal of violence has been created in the name of religion and spirituality. Swami Kripalvanandji says that to a family of deer, a lion is very violent. However, a lion cub sees his father lion as being very loving, kind, compassionate, loyal, and courageous. He says that in the grand scheme, violence or nonviolence is partial. On the subtle level however, violence is more obvious.

Because every person is prone to violence, on even the most subtle level (if we did not have the clouds covering the sun, we would not be incarnate in a human form. The darkness, the Apana, the mind, keeps us trapped into bodily form.) the Yama of nonviolence comes first in the list of Yamas and Niyamas.

The root “a” means “not”, and the root “himsa” means “violence”. So, Ahimsa means nonviolence. What is nonviolence, and how does a person practice nonviolence? We look on the television news and we see violence reported everywhere. We look to jails and prisons and see violent criminals locked up. But we look at ourselves and say that we are not violent people. We do not break the law. We do not physically harm anyone. We are not assaulting people or murdering others, so how are we violent people?

Swami Kripalvanandji says that actions are merely manifest speech, and speech is merely manifest thought. One of the main ways that people are violent is with their speech and with their thoughts. People can even be violent with their looks, hence the term “if looks could kill”. A person can outwardly be behaving perfectly appropriate and apparently kind, and yet his or her eyes and body language tell an entirely different story.

Therefore, Swami Kripalvanandji says that to practice nonviolence is to practice nonviolence in thought, word, and deed. If we can stop a violent thought, then we can stop it from manifesting into our speech and actions. So, what is a violent thought? Swami Kripalvanandji answers this for us as well by telling us that a violent thought, word, or action is one which disturbs another’s mind.

The second sutra of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras says, “Yoga citta vritti nirodaha”. The translation is, “Yoga is the control/cessation of the vrittis in the citta”. The vrittis are the cycles of the mind. They are the patterns and the habits and the mental spinning that causes the impurities in our consciousness. They are the clouds that are in front of the sun. The cycles start from the very moment our senses (any of the five) encounter an object and bring data into the mind. The entire purpose of Yoga is to cleanse away, to control and to eventually cease these vritti cycles from clouding the sunshine of Prana. When the vrittis are gone, Prana can shine forth and Yoga is complete.

So, to excite the vritti cycle in any person is a violence to that individual because it just perpetuates the existence of the clouds and could even create more clouds and even more rain, leading to an even gloomier existence as God’s light is blocked. For example, when we judge others, when we find fault in them, when we blame them, we cause vrittis in our own minds as well as in the minds of others. The judgments and negative thinking come out through our body language, through our eyes, through our tone of voice, inflection, our words and our actions. When we judge ourselves or think any negative thought about ourselves, we are disturbing our mind, and our vritti cycles continue to spin.

As we remove the impurities in the body and in the mind through following the Law of Prana (Yamas and Niyamas, a.k.a. “the Law”), we gain Prana, we gain energy. Our lives are happier and we feel better. If one does not want to merge with God, then that is fine; one can still live a very happy and successful life by following the Law. If one should want to attain Divinity and merge with God in this lifetime, Yamas and Niyamas are the keys, and the practice of nonviolence is essential. Our internal and external manners matter greatly on the path to God and Prana and in the creation of a happy, successful life. As my Bapuji says, “if you want to be Divine, act Divine”.

So what do we do when someone treats us violently, is Law-less with us, or disturbs our minds and starts those vritti cycles spinning? We merely turn the other cheek. We raise a shield instead of a sword. We walk away. We change the subject. We do something different. We act opposite of the way our minds would want us to act. We show appreciation and gratitude and point out the positive instead of focusing on the negative. When one lives the Law, one creates a space where one allows others to see where they are being Lawless (without one being Lawless by pointing anything out) and one provides the space for others to follow the Law too. See, the Law is the Law of Prana and the Law of Love and the Law of Nature. It is in us. It is us. It is the Supreme Soul and the energy of the Soul. We do not have to learn it. We just have to recognize we already are it and follow it, and then the Prana gets stronger, and the darkness gets weaker.

This path of following Prana is called the Pravritti path of Yoga. The root “pra” means “to organize”, and so one organizes the vrittis on the Pravritti path. One straps on the armor of the Yamas and Niyamas and prepares for battle, organizes one’s troops and strategies. When one strengthens one’s reinforcements and purifies the mind (removes the clouds at least 50%) to the point where the mind begins to take notice, the Nivritti path begins. The battle for God-realization and attainment begins.

So what can we do to redirect our mind, to gain Prana? This is where sadhana (spiritual practice) is so imperative. When one wakes up in the morning, he or she should remember the Lord. He or she should reflect on Prana and the Supreme Soul. One should do anything one can to connect with that energy. After one’s morning bathroom routine, then mantra chanting, meditation, exercise, Arti, reading scripture or texts containing statements of Truth, postures and pranayams can help to connect one to Prana. Start the day off well. If our day goes poorly, and if we treat ourselves and others poorly, then these negative actions, words, and thoughts seep into our subconscious. When we go to sleep, our subconscious plays out these mental cycles, and we wake up feeling “under the weather” to some degree, especially if we have slept poorly. Depending on how we slept and how we treated ourselves and others the day before, we may wake up feeling wonderful and ready to take on the day (we possess “sattvic” energy). We may wake up feeling feisty and a little snappy (we possess “rajasic” energy). Or we may wake up feeling horrible, lethargic and depressed (we possess “tamasic” energy).

Bapuji suggests that before we go to sleep in the evening, we review our day mentally. We pick some responsible, loving person to watch our day for us within the corner of our own mind. This person could be our God, a loved one, or someone we look up to. It should be someone who represents our Ideal, the kind of person we wish to be when we think of the greatest, grandest version of ourselves that we could ever hope to create. We should start to review our day mentally from beginning to end, and we should sit back and just watch. We should let the person we have chosen as our witness be the one who watches and we should observe his or her eyes, face, and body language, and we can begin to get an idea of what this person finds good, bad, and ugly in our behavior. We will see the ways that we follow the Law and the ways in which we are Lawless. We will begin to be less violent throughout the day, and we will sleep better. We will awake feeling better, and we will once again lead our days well, gaining more and more Prana as we progress.

In every person there is Light. If we nurture that Light then we serve our higher Selves. We serve God and we serve the Supreme Soul and Prana. If we want to live our days in sunshine and one day merge with Divinity, we need to slowly begin to remove the clouds that block the sun and let our true Light shine.

Jai Bhagwan! Victory to Prana!

© 2009 – Jennifer Jacobsen, Saint Augustine Lakulish School of Yoga