Yoga of the Heart
Ten Ethical Guidelines for Gaining Limitless Growth, Confidence, and Achievement
by Alice Christensen
Chapter 4: Nonviolence: Don't Harm Yourself (Part 2)
NONVIOLENCE AND LOVE
Love relationships can only approach a real fullness when supported by Nonviolence. I am talking here not only about romantic love, but also about the love relationships between parents and children, among friends, and any other close bond — even a person’s love for money, for instance, or work. I do not differentiate among these types of love, because, as I will explain in a moment, love is love.
I especially want to talk about love for yourself, because this is where violence usually erupts first. It is very clear: if you love yourself, you do not want to harm yourself. Many of our self-destructive behaviors make it look as if we don't love ourselves. When we drink too much, for instance, we are obviously hurting, rather than helping, ourselves.
According to Yoga, love is expressed in the physical body, but love itself is a universal force that belongs to and resides in the spiritual body. It exists unattached to any human relationships.
Love cannot be owned; it can only be used and experienced. As I mentioned above, it is often used self-destructively. You may "love" martinis so much that you want to drink them all day long, but to do so would be using the power of love for self-destruction. Your love for martinis could destroy you. The correct use of love results not in self-destruction, illness, and pain, but in happiness, contentment, and joy. Training in the ethic of Nonviolence will teach you to use love as a tool, checking two things before you act: "Does it hurt me?" "Does it hurt you?"
Love is so important to us, yet we often bury love’s expression beneath our demands and anxieties, such as when we demand that our partner spend more time with us, or when we feel anxious when our children do not call us regularly. This is where the practice of Nonviolence becomes important. Many times we have an image in our minds of what our love relationship should be like. When it does not work out that way, we often blame the other person in the relationship instead of seeing that it is usually our own demands that cause the problem. Demand is considered violent according to Yoga. Naturally, this causes great unhappiness on both sides.
Whenever you demand that someone conform to your idea of how love behaves, you are causing harm both to that person and to yourself. If you are truly practicing Nonviolence, you would never expect the person you love to be responsible for your happiness. You would realize that love expresses itself in that person in a unique way; if that way is not compatible with your way, it may be an unfortunate situation, but it is not the other person’s fault. In fact, I have discovered that it is possible to derive great pleasure from observing the beauty of others’ diversity, even if I do not particularly appreciate some of their behaviors.
Consider the love of a child. In most cases, as soon as a child is born, the parents start making demands in the name of love. They want the child to respond, to talk and walk "on time," to be obedient, and so on. We have great expectations for what our children should do and become. How many parents of child prodigies in sports, for example, have been quoted saying something like, "I’ve been grooming her for this since the day she was born"? In Yoga this kind of single-minded determination that the child fulfill the parents’ wishes would be considered violent, because it is very possible that they are not allowing their child to develop into its own individuality. We have very little knowledge of what children will do and what they want to become. The gulf between these two perspectives causes great problems.
Real love allows loved ones to be what they are — not the way you think they ought to be. The tragedy of romance is that most of the time, love is there "if you are the way I want you to be." This is why it is so easy to love pets: they are dependent on us for everything and so their behavior centers around pleasing us — not in becoming what they wish to be. In Yoga these situations describe a false use of the power of love — not love itself. Even our approach to prayer is usually a barter plan: "If you give me this, I’ll give you that" — for example, "If you get me this job, I’ll believe you exist," or "If you let me win the lottery, I’ll go to church every week for the rest of my life."
To approach love across a bargaining table would be considered violent — using the power of love for destruction rather than for happiness: "If you do this, act this way, say these things, I’ll love you. If you don’t, I won’t." Consider the song whose lyrics include, "When I fall in love, it will be forever, or I'll never fall in love. . . . And the moment I see that you feel that way too, that’s when I'll fall in love with you." Song after song in our popular music culture extols conditional love as a virtue. To Yogic eyes this is not love at all, but violence.
Once, in a class about love, I used the film Wuthering Heights to point out that the character of Heathcliff didn't actually love the character of Cathy at all; he destroyed her and everything around her with his unrelenting demands and his drive for revenge. Yet I noticed that the first reaction of my class was that this film portrayed one of the great love stories of all time. In the practice of Nonviolence, your whole appreciation of what love is changes to something nondestructive.
Yoga considers all of us to have sprung from the same spiritual source; therefore, by causing harm to another person, we cause harm to ourself. In any happy relationship, you would never ask someone to do something you are not willing to do yourself; in other words, you would not use the person you love.
Asking someone to do something that you would not do yourself is a subtle form of violence to you and to the other person. Lakshmanjoo was sensitive to this subtle form of violence his entire life. He told me once that as a young man he became very upset when his mother served him the best portions of food and gave his guests the less-desirable parts:
Lakshmanjoo: When there are some guests in front of me I want to give them good things from my dish and keep second-best things for myself. This is my nature. You cannot change this nature.
Alice: It gives you happiness, doesn't it.
Lakshmanjoo: Distributor from kitchen comes and he keeps good things in my dish and things not so good in dish for others. I hate that. I want to die. Once my mother did this mischief. I was seated in a collection of my spiritual friends who came to dine with me, and my mother gave me the cauliflower tops. The roots were in their cups. I was so scared, I thought, "I want to die. I don't want to eat that dish." And then I threw that cup. And washed my hands and went to my room.
Alice: Was your mother very upset?
Lakshmanjoo: She was very upset. I told her, "What are you doing? This is not what I like. I want to serve them first. I would be happy with that." This is my nature, from my very childhood. When I see them, I see my spiritual body, and I would never give it leftovers. Love flourishes in this way. [quotes from Bhagavad Gita] "Whoever sees my presence in each and every being and who doesn't see my presence only in his personal being; that one who realizes my presence in each and every being, he is residing actually in me [God consciousness]."
The violence in demanding love from another person also has to do with the idea of loving yourself. If I demand that you love me, it means that I am not feeling enough love from myself, and therefore I want you to supply me with what I am lacking. But if I take that quality away from you, who will supply you? In a healthy love relationship, both parties know that they depend on their spiritual self to supply love for themselves. The supply from the spiritual body is endless; it is freely offered to you for your use, and you can enjoy sharing this.
In a nonviolent love relationship, you bring your own reserves of happiness and strength to the relationship, meeting your lover halfway to complete the union. You are not, then, a dependant, but a strong equal. The relationship would not be based on receiving a response from the other person or anyone else, but simply on the feeling of love springing from your heart. This love exists in full power in your spiritual body and needs no response of any kind; it is self-sufficient. It was here long before you were born, and it will be here long after you are gone. It can never be taken away from you, because you never owned it. As I said before, according to Yoga, love is universal, and not limited by any physical structure or being.
THE POWER TO MAKE A CHOICE
In the previous section, the concept of "not harming yourself" has been gradually broadened to include "not harming others" as well, remembering the Yogic principle that everyone springs from the same divine source. As we go on, you will see that both constructive and destructive actions can be transformed, by your powers of observation, into useable tools for growth. The practice of the ethic of Nonviolence helps you develop your observation skills. As you learn to observe how you harm yourself and others in food, in love, and in any other situation in life, you will gain the power to make a choice.
Most of us tend to react to situations almost automatically, and so we often do not realize an action is destructive until it is too late. Automatic reactions have a lot to do with how we were reared. For instance, if your parents told you repeatedly that dogs bite, you may have grown up to hate and fear dogs, even when you learned, as an adult, that most dogs can be quite friendly. Such preprogramming stops the wonderful, spontaneous experiences that the spiritual body can provide. One of the things you learn by practicing Nonviolence is how to stop these programmed responses so that each situation becomes new and you can now make a choice as to how to respond to it.
As you become more proficient in your observations, you will be able to apply these concepts to any situation. Because of such constant examination of what you are doing and how you are feeling, your physical body begins to welcome and trust the emotional contributions of the spiritual body.
The heart, the center of the spiritual body, is where violent qualities such as selfishness and revenge can be transformed. The increased powers of observation that come from practicing ethics clears the path to the heart by teaching you to recognize both the beautiful, powerful use of constructive emotional behavior, which springs from the spiritual body, and the violent result of destructive emotional behavior, which comes from the physical body’s reaction when it falsely misconstrues where this emotion comes from. Both are clearly observable when you are trained in ethics. You have a choice. You are no longer helplessly blown about by the winds of indecision. Training in the ethic of Nonviolence helps you make the choice to be constructive or destructive and accept the responsibility for your actions.
Instead of feeling trapped or victimized, you can become very strong as you realize freedom from automatic reactions. You are able to make a new assessment for each situation — is this destructive or is it constructive? — and take the responsibility for your decisions.
This constant observation does not mean that you will develop a passive relationship with the world. On the contrary, Kashmir Shaivism says that this is the only way to be truly dynamic. Practice of the ethic of Nonviolence puts you in an extremely strong mental position of being able to choose what you want to do, because you have carefully examined how this decision will affect you. Most of us want to encourage happy, comfortable, powerful feelings, and because of constant examination of what you are doing and how you are feeling, the physical nature gains confidence and welcomes the true emotions of the spiritual body, free of past programming.
Shaivism believes that in order to be really powerful, you have to know yourself, and this means relying on ethical behavior while you decide what it is you really want to say and do in your life. This kind of thoughtful practice protects you from making a great many mistakes and can protect you from a lot of unhappiness.
PROTECTING YOURSELF
When trying to figure out how to choose actions that are not destructive, either to themselves or others, many people become confused when they encounter situations where they need to protect themselves from harm. Perhaps you, too, are wondering what to do in a situation where you are being threatened.
The standard hypothetical challenge goes something like this: Suppose you are alone in your house at night and an intruder breaks in and threatens you with a knife. If a weapon were available to you in that situation, would you be justified in harming the intruder in order to protect your own life?
According to Yoga, the simple answer would be that you must do what you have to to protect yourself from harm. The traditional religious idea is that you would die rather than harm another person; in contrast, Yoga would say that your life is as important as anyone else’s. Whether or not you have to actually kill the intruder is another story. But this argument only scratches the surface of the reason to practice Nonviolence.
The texts of Yoga go so far as to say that for someone who really practices this ethic of Nonviolence, the power of this ethic manifests itself in a way that would prevent the intruder from showing up in the first place.
The ancient Yogic texts specifically outline the power that is conferred upon the practitioner when that person is established in each ethic. To be "established" in an ethic means that your practice of it is perfect. In the case of Nonviolence, to be established would mean that you would be incapable of doing anything that would harm yourself or another. In addition, the classic result of becoming established in Nonviolence, as stated in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (see Chapter 2), is that then no harm will ever come to you. Nonviolence itself becomes your protection.
Those who practice Nonviolence create an atmosphere of peace around them. Lakshmanjoo translates the verse pertaining to this in one of his books: "No power on earth can make two mutual enemies enter into combat in the presence of him who, being established in subtle Nonviolence, does not harm anyone."
The Atmosphere of Nonviolence
One moonlit night, quite a number of years ago, a friend and I went out into the back yard of my home and sat on the stump of a very large tree that had been cut down — it was at least three or four feet in diameter. Soon a band of little skunks came crawling around the base of the stump, followed by several big raccoons. They all rolled around together. When a large cat arrived on the scene, I expected the cat to chase away all of these little wild animals, or at least cause a fuss. Having three skunks and a cat under your feet could cause real problems! But they all just played around our feet for quite a while as we talked. We were all happy with each other’s company. Although we were all different, there was no upset in being together.
The ubiquitous religious picture that shows the lion and the lamb lying together peacefully implies that there is no hostility in the atmosphere around them, and that neither is feeling any hostility or fear toward the other. According to Yoga, those who are successful in Nonviolence create this nonhostile atmosphere wherever they go, and so anyone or anything who enters into their presence is affected by that atmosphere. In reference to our earlier example of the hypothetical intruder, that hostile attitude could not be maintained when confronted by someone who is established in Nonviolence.
Nonviolence creates an ability in you to recognize the underlying unity of life. You then can gain great comfort in realizing that you are not separate or alone, but instead part of the magnificent system of the world’s life. You do not, then, feel threatened by any life form, because any life form would be observed as part of yourself. All life would be your life, supported by the spiritual body.
If you really believe that this is so, you will never fear any situation. Rama told me that one time, when he was living in Kashmir, he was seated on the side of the mountain in meditation one day when he sensed movement to one side. He looked up to see a huge tiger, obviously hungry, creeping past him down the hill. Rama watched as the tiger walked down to a farmer’s field, killed a young cow, and dragged it back up the hill, right past where Rama was sitting. It was not unheard of for tigers in those mountains to kill human beings for food, and Rama would certainly have been an easy target; he was alone and unarmed. He believed that his practice of Nonviolence prevented the tiger from attacking him, and indeed it was so.
DOES A NONVIOLENT PERSON EVER GET ANGRY?
A common misconception about Yoga practitioners is that they are always calm and unruffled; that they never feel or express anger (or any strong emotion). The great Yogis I have been lucky enough to know would really laugh to even think they would be described in this way. They were able to express emotion in a pure, very powerful way.
You cannot be human without feeling. Those who pretend that they are not emotional are clearly showing denial of feeling — a complete negation of the power of the spiritual body and its support. Denying feelings is a form of violence against yourself, because that egotistical stifling of emotion cannot help but become uncomfortable and cause problems.
Lakshmanjoo made a distinction between anger that was "on the lips" and anger that was "in the heart." A master of Yoga may show anger for a purpose, but the effect is different: the anger will not destroy the recipient. Anger becomes constructive when it is viewed as a friend who reminds you when it is time to protect yourself; it is a cautionary instrument that serves you.
In most societies, people are taught to subdue and repress anger, along with other so-called "undesirable" emotions. Someone who practices Yogic ethics believes that all emotions are part of the spiritual body. They are beautiful and powerful in their own right. They want to show themselves, and you want to welcome them to do it.
I’ve seen many examples of people who use so-called "righteous anger" as an excuse for revenge, such as the familiar Hatfield/McCoy feud: "You killed my brother, so I’m going to kill yours." According to Yoga, you harm both yourself and the other person when you do this. Using anger as a weapon to strike out against someone contradicts the idea that anger is a friend who is there to remind you to protect yourself. Thinking or acting on a desire for revenge shows the intrusion of the false ego; this means that you think you own anger and can force it to do what you want instead of letting it take its own course. Yoga says that the universe has its own way of dealing with injustice; by trying to take on that responsibility yourself, you simply make yourself more uncomfortable and open to pain. As the saying goes, "The mills of the Gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine."
If someone has done something awful to you, you can be sure that it will be taken care of, but you must step aside and let that process function without your interference. It takes experience to practice this, but I can tell you that it removes a great deal of stress to believe that you do not have to take responsibility for the rights and wrongs of the world.
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.
