Yoga of the Heart
Ten Ethical Guidelines for Gaining Limitless Growth, Confidence, and Achievement
by Alice Christensen
From Chapter 3: Introduction to the Ten Ethical Powers of Yoga
UNDERSTANDING VERSUS REALIZATION
If you are like most people and enjoy answers, conclusions, and reasons, you may find yourself struggling to grasp many of the more subtle points in our discussions of the ethics. This book is not a morality tale where you will get "rules to live by." Each chapter will challenge you to learn in a new way as your spiritual body begins to take form and express itself.
The problem with intellectual understanding is best illustrated by a conversation I had with Lakshmanjoo when we were talking about Nonviolence, the first ethic described in this book:
Alice: You have said that everything is God. If that is so, then what makes an action either violent or nonviolent?
Lakshmanjoo: That is to be realized. When realization is there, then whatever you do is fine. It is for you to realize yourself.
Alice: The idea that "everything is God" is easy to say, but it's very hard to understand.
Lakshmanjoo: Not to understand — to realize. They are different. One is intellectual, other is emotional. To realize is to feel the truth.
Lakshmanjoo was pointing out to me that asking to understand is an intellectual demand, and that realization is a totally different experience. My naive statement about understanding would apply to the physical body, the residence of the intellect. Realization, on the other hand, has to do with the truth, which resides in the spiritual body.
The brilliant voice of intuition describes the realization that comes like a gift from the spiritual body. This voice of intuition can replace the repetitive, closed-circuit conversations of your physical self talking to yourself inside your head. The truth of all situations will speak from your heart.
Intellectual understanding is based on separateness because it demands proof and because it cannot see outside its own limits. Realization of the spiritual nature needs no proof and has no limits. Lakshmanjoo pointed out this clear difference when he corrected my use of the word "understand." Our conversation continued:
Alice: Many people think that realization is a religious phrase.
Lakshmanjoo: No it’s not a saying, it is to become the state of realization.
Alice: It’s a state of being.
Lakshmanjoo: Being or becoming, these are the two things. Being is already there in the physical. Becoming lies in the spiritual.
Realization means awareness of the limitless possibilities expressed in the word "becoming." The potential is already there in your heart. To reach that state of becoming, you have to provide the path for the avenue of expression that will allow your spiritual body to join with your physical body in the most harmonious and spontaneous way, as if you were planting a garden with no preconception of what will bloom.
My purpose in bringing this distinction to your attention is to convince you that it does not matter if you do not understand all the points of each ethic that I will be discussing in the following chapters. What matters is that you simply observe, listen, and then let your spiritual body take care of absorbing the message. It takes a type of humility to drop the demand for intellectual mastery, but I can tell you that when you succeed, the result is a delightful new awareness.
From Yoga of the Heart: Ten Ethical Guidelines for Gaining Limitless Confidence, Growth, and Achievement, by Alice Christensen (Daybreak/Rodale Books, 1998).
Copyright 2002 by The American Yoga Association. All Rights Reserved.
