A Tiny Voice for Ahimsa by Anne Waters
I’ve been dipping into The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a text I was required to read in yoga teacher training that is no doubt familiar to many readers. The translation I have is by Sri Swami Satchidananda, founder of the Integral Yoga Institutes and Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville in Virginia. Periodically I find myself drawn to reread and ponder these wise but difficult to follow—for me anyway—aphorisms, and one of my longtime favorites is Sutra #33 in Book One:
maitri karuna muditopeksanam sukha duhkha punyapunya visayanam bhavanatas citta prasadanam
By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.
Satchidananda goes on to say, “Whether you are interested in reaching samadhi or plan to ignore Yoga entirely, I would advise you to remember at least this one Sutra.
Easy peasy. This is one kernel I both understand and find highly do-able. Afterall, who doesn’t want the “serenity of mind and happiness always” this Sutra promises?
Me, I guess.
Lately I’ve found “disregard toward the wicked” really, really hard and I am certainly no angel myself. How can I scroll through my Instagram feed looking for amazing ceramics and ️ the potters who make them while ignoring a Sandy Hook father’s plea to sign the Sandy Hook Promise before quickly passing over ANY image of Gaza, hoping against hope that surely this carnage and cruelty will soon end?
Okay, enough already. I know this is Yoga Garden PBO’s insightful, inspiring blog where we all come to feel uplifted and part of a loving community. But here’s the thing, I signed the petition and donated to Doctors without Borders a while back, and I have written my elected officials more in the past six months than I have in my entire lifetime—and, still, the Peace Train is headed over a cliff!
My voice feels tiny, though I know I must continue to speak out as futile as it feels. And, trust me, my NPR/PBS-loving, yoga-practicing, serenity-seeking soul knows just how futile it feels.
On my refrigerator there are many magnets—yep, I’m one of those, too, and I love cats—but there are three that continually inspire (and amuse) me.
She believed she could. So she did.
She didn’t know how much she could do until she got off her ass and did it.
And my favorite: Oh, crap! I meant to get married and have some kids.
Which brings me to my new favorite Sutra, #35 in Book Two. It is also the first of Patanjali’s ten virtues or yamas and niyamas, so is pretty elemental to the practice of yoga.
ahimsa pratisthayam tat smanidhau vaira tyagah
In the presence of one firmly established in non-violence, all hostilities cease.
Unlike finding the keys to unlock sukha (happy), duhka (unhappy), punya (virtuous), and apunya (wicked), I don’t find this one easy at all. In fact, I must continually remind myself that we are all interconnected even though I find some of those with whom I am connected unbearable. And while I would never engage in violent action, Alligator Alcatraz leads me to have some pretty hostile thoughts. But drawing inspiration from those whose non-violence changed the course of history, I find my better self and trust that even “a bit of ahimsa is enough to elevate us to a higher state.”
So, I take out my apunya key and sign petitions, protest peacefully, join and donate to organizations whose work I support, and write my elected officials to tell them what I think and remind them that I vote.
Then I head outside to find the peace of wild things.
Note: I love literature and music and rely on both to teach my yoga classes. The Peace of Wild Things is a poem by the incomparable Wendell Berry whose Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front I want to be read at my funeral. Peace Train is Yusuf Islam’s (Cat Stevens) anthem that The Krueger Brothers cover beautifully. And my “tiny voice” is borrowed from Rising Appalachia, sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith, whose song Resilient I discovered during the current administration’s first one.
