The Teachings of Anand - Sattva Yoga

“Stop playing the victim. Stop pointing fingers on others. You are not the effect, you are the cause. Take responsibility for your own state. Live in the now. Your are not the created… you are the creator!”

What a magical start to the day. The two hour morning yoga class, ended in Shavasana (lying on the floor), completely surrendering to earth. I was in a complete state of relaxation, when suddenly there was a power cut. The lights went off and rain started drizzling on the aluminium roof of the building. It was like earth was speaking to us. After 6 extremely hot days and hard work, it was like a release. Now I’m sitting here on the terrace of my room, and the thunder tunes over the land.

During class I had moments where I felt slightly overwhelmed. We had to form fists with the thumbs tucked in and our arms stretched to the sky in the ‘winners pose’, while doing the breath of fire (quick inhalation and exhalation through the nose, pumping the navel).

It was a practice to let go of our mind. Let go of our thoughts that tell us to give up. Let go of the inner force that restricts our abilities. I had moments of weakness and had to lower my arms. But by concentrating on the breath and by trying to let the feeling of strain and pain pass by, allowed me to repeatedly shoot them back up again. At the end we found out that we were able to keep our arms up for 2 intervals of 7 minutes each! I couldn’t believe it! Its incredible what we are capable off when we stop thinking about it too much, as our thoughts are confining our potential.

In the afternoon class about the Elements of Yoga, we went into the different Koshas. After Anand’s saying that there are no complicated situations only complicated people, a question came up in class asking: When anger arises in us, how should we treat it? As we are the cause and not the effect.

Anand’s reply was extremely eye opening. He said that we have to let these emotions arise in us, but learn how to not act on them. Ask yourself: Am I willing to give myself the gift of not suffering?

We manipulate ourselves and others by creating narratives around the problems (“I feel like this, because…”). This results in us starting to come up with stories around the problem that might not even be true, by diving into an ecstatic state. When getting into an argument with someone, we have to stop trying to prove ourselves right. Let the feeling arise, acknowledge it and then try to simplify the feeling and shift your attention/ energetic state. This could be done by an transcendent relative behaviour, going out of the zone and acting in an evolved manner; by giving someone a hug, compliment, or by simply leaving the room. This will interrupt your negative state and will allow you to not project it to the outside.

Because being in a negative state of mind, results in your emotions and heart supporting and manifesting that state and will systematically delete all the good things.

For example when you fight with a friend because you’re disappointed, you will start to only see this one negative thing that really upsets you and automatically all the positive characterisitcs of your friend fade out. And most likely you’ll keep on going, as its an addictive state (addictive energy), by magnifying the condition unconsciously.

You become the creator, by creating the narrative! Words are creative - they manifest and result in your experience.

Hence people have to stop giving themselves too much permission to being pathetic and acting out. We have to awaken our inner power to change that negative state of mind. We need to let go of our ego, as soon as the emotion arises!

Another thing he said, was that love is the greatest glue. He explained that it is impossible to loose someone if you really loved that person. You can maybe loose an experience or memory of someone and hence can’t locate it anymore, but you can never loose a person. Because how do we know, that that person is not in a better place now? We only know life. We don’t know what happens after death. So at any phase of uncertainty, we have to adopt optimism. Pain is completely natural and comes with love. Pain is what makes us humble and allows for compassion and authenticity, it awakens the heart. Pain is a gift of living, so we should never cover it. Tears are something beautiful. We have to learn to open up and let go of our feelings and emotions, as long as we disengage from the narrative.

“Be fearless of pain to truly love!”

and

“Keep your heart open in the direction of evolution!!”

For you as a reader, my experience might sound far from reality. I am also sure that while reading this you’ve come up with situations where you believe that my advice would not apply. But give it a try :)

Its difficult to summarise the complexity of what we learn here, but I hope that you can understand and apply some of this into your daily life. Its nothing that we can learn from one day to the other. Its a process.