Revolutionary Resolution | iHanuman

iHanuman

Love, Service, Devotion, Yoga

Revolutionary Resolution

Many of us have made new year's resolutions regarding personal qualities that we would like to cultivate in the year ahead.  We can relate this practice of intention-setting to the yogic concept of svadhyaya, often translated as self-study.   Honest, intimate self-reflection is seen as integral to almost any spiritual path.  But yoga asks: can we engage in this process without taking ourselves too seriously?
Egocentricity is defined as the tendency to perceive, understand and interpret the world in terms of the individual self.  Whether we are thinking well or ill of ourselves does not matter--reproaching ourselves up for not following our resolutions is just as egocentric as believing we're better than everyone else around us because we aspire to lofty intentions in the new year.  The ego-centeredness comes into existence as soon as we set ourselves apart from others in any way.
There are schools of thought that assert that our individual selves do not exist at all, but rather are a complete illusion.  Yoga, however, is not one of these schools.  Yoga believes that we do exist, and even goes to great lengths to explain the various components of the material world (earth, water, fire, air, ether) and the energies that move and shape them.  It goes into explicit detail about the workings of the body and mind, and the means by which the practitioner can gain greater mastery over them.  Rather than denying our experience as an individual, what yoga is asking us to do is to step beyond our limited understanding of who we think we are, and to open into the possibility that we are also something much more than our individual, ego-centered selves.  Such an understanding is known in yogic terms as advaita (non-dualism): the belief that underneath it all, although our sense of separation from others may feel very real at times, we are all One.
If it were really as simple as this realization, perhaps many more of us would be walking around in a state of perpetual Enlightenment.  But given that we experience ourselves as individual human beings with our own bodies and minds to contend with, there are a few more steps along the way for which no shortcut can be applied.  We cannot simply will ourselves into a non-dualistic state.  Thus, having a clear picture of who we are as individuals is a practical asset in our process of transformation, and setting intentions for positive change is a valuable undertaking.
But when we take ourselves--and our intentions--too seriously, not only do we run the risk of being harsh on ourselves when we inevitably fall short of our own high expectations, but we have also managed to inflate our self importance and to put ourselves at the center of the universe.  Will time stop if we eat that extra cookie?  If we lose our temper with our partner, will the mountains come crashing down into the sea?  In the new year, how often can we relax, take a deep breath, and remember to be mindful of thought, speech, and action--while maintaining our sense of humor about it all?

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