Greetings Sadhakas,
This week in class
we are considering which Yoga practices can help us pursue peace.
Pursuing Peace
by Eknath Easwaran
Mahatma Gandhi has said that to be well adjusted in a wrong
situation is very bad; in a wrong situation we should keep on acting to set it
right. But in order to reconcile individuals, communities, or countries, we
have to have peace in our minds. If we pursue peace with anger and animosity,
nothing can be stirred up but conflict.
Meditation and the allied disciplines enable you to take
your convictions deeper and deeper into consciousness, so that they become a
constant source of strength and security – even when you are severely
challenged or threatened. When you practice meditation, you are working hard
for the welfare of the world, for the regeneration of society, for the
establishment of peace on earth and good will among all, which, as we know to our
cost, cannot be done by governments or by corporations but only by millions of
little people in little groups, working in all countries, through their
personal example.
When I read newspaper accounts of individuals, factions, and
governments unleashing provocative words and actions against each other at the
same time they are trying to settle their differences, I am reminded of the
wise statement attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that an eye for an eye only makes
the whole world blind.
These tragic confrontations are caused by utter
forgetfulness of the deep unity that underlies all petty differences of
religion, ethnicity, language, or national identity – a forgetfulness that
leads to never ending violence, war, and destruction. Speaking as a spiritual teacher, let me
humbly submit that a true and lasting peace can only come about through the
awakening of a deep sense of shared humanity.
How meditation helps
In the mystical tradition it is said that the human appeal
and the divine response go together. If we deepen our desire for God’s help by
memorizing and using in meditation sublime testimonies of the highest qualities
a human being can attain, we can bring into our daily lives the deep faith and
unshakable security of the great mystics of all religions. By training our
attention on magnificent testimonies such as the Prayer of St. Francis of
Assisi (“Where there is hatred, let me sow love”), or the Twin Verses of the
Compassionate Buddha (“Hatred can never put an end to hatred, love alone can”),
or the twelfth chapter of Gandhi’s beloved Bhagavad Gita (“That one I love who
is incapable of ill will and returns love for hatred”), we can become what we
meditate on. Through this method of
meditation we will begin to understand that a human being can become an immense
spiritual force barely contained in a physical form.
It all depends on us
If each of us, through the example of our own lives, can
inspire two more people every year to meditate and to live at peace with those
around them, it will have an incalculably great effect in creating a climate of
peace.
That is my ambition, and that is why I say I am a terribly
ambitious man. You and I make peace. You
and I make war. It all depends on us.
Source - Special Message from the Blue Mountain Center of
Meditation, 6 February 2017
The homework is
to discover for yourself what practices you can turn to that support you in pursuing
peace. Yoga prepares us for contemplation be it prayer, meditation or other.
See what works for you.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington
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