Journaling is a wonderful way to meet with what is speaking to us, often unarticulated but arising from the inner landscape. Writing these “articles” reflect this process for me and express where contemplation has been leading me. The challenge to sustain a strong practice over decades demands daily application even though the pattern is pretty well established. This offering expresses what I’m still learning about meaningful effort, and in this one we’ll draw upon a traditional sutra as our starting point. The opening instruction from the second chapter entitled Sadhana Pada from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali begins with the word “tapas.” The full sutra is “tapah swadhyaya ishwarapranidhanani kriya yogaha. ” and in this simple concise statement Patanjali lays out a complete sadhana or means of spiritual practice that is encapsulates essence of yogic practice, with tapas as its’ core.
In yogic culture this term tapas is significant. Tapas underpins yoga’s transformational capacities and vast range of practices that ignite and sustain the intense quality of application required to effect a radical Awakening that is enduring. Tapas literally means “heat” and when applied to yoga signifies ‘consuming capacity’ as well as ‘burning’ as in conflagration and also connotes ‘ardour’ or sustained, unwavering passion.
Patanjali gives a lot of importance to being able to go the distance. Not unlike any other pursuit requiring unremitting effort yoga also calls upon skilful application of this ability. It is said that when told he had a certain amount of time to chop down a tree the youthful Abraham Lincoln responded that he would spend the bulk of allotted time in sharpening his axe. With his precision tool in hand the task became almost effortless. Physical strength, though a factor, was secondary to his honed axe when meeting that trunk. He also possessed enormous doses of conviction and staying power, more often than not encountering setbacks and defeat in both personal and professional life. But he had an inner fire that wouldn’t be extinguished.
Of course, this internal fire and its essential quality of enduring heat are needed. A good cook harnesses this raw power to change a diverse mix of raw ingredients into a flavoursome and nutritious meal. All the substances meld through the agency of heat to combine and become something unique in its own right, like an aromatic delicious hot vegetable soup. Our own bodies perform the same function through the digestive ‘fire’ by not only breaking down constituent nutrients but then converting them into a new more subtle form that enables assimilation and reformulation into living dhatu or grades of tissue.
In yoga, fire or agni is the transformative agent used to purify, by removing obstructive and base tendencies, both in body and mind. Asana practice offers a type of tapas, that through skilful application of movement, breath and subtle attention, shift the heaviness, stagnation, and toxic overload of tamas guna into mobile subtle movement of bio-energy or prana by raising gentle, not overt heat into rajas guna. The heat needs to be directed, controlled, sustained and generated internally, not imposed externally, to facilitate even more subtle levels of obstruction, including restlessness, arrogance and anxiety to dissipate, release and become radiant as applied sattva guna. Body, energetic matrix, mind and refined intellect all become suffused by this cool inner radiance. Now fire, heat have transmuted into luminosity. Yet the work is still not complete.
Tapas is understood, in another way, to be the artful practice of sacrifice. In Vedic practice, the havan or ritual fire ceremony taps the power of agni to reconnect with the ever present but unseen universal power or shakti. Through this power and the action of offering both physical and subtle elements into the flames awareness of the refined domains of existence are revealed. To perform sacrifice is to make sacred through this heightened self-transcended awareness applied to action. In yoga, to make sacred is to re-unite, by removing that which conceals or obscures the underlying relationship of interconnection with all things. This principle of being in accord with the Cosmos is called Rta, and the English word ‘ritual’ actually means to enter into relationship with the Centrepoint that is everywhere, at the very heart of Existence always.
The only characteristics of tapas are transformative heat and light. And when applied to ourselves, nothing is scorched or singed, but purified, into a higher truer expression of our innate attributes. And acts of sacrifice yield this radiance and peace of heart. The wonderful manual of yoga, the Bhagavad Gita guides that through such practice “no effort ever goes to waste and there is no failure! Even a little practice will protect you…”meaning that every effort brings benefit in terms of a shift of understanding and perception.
The Bhagvad Gita continues to elucidate the nature of sacrifice…”be intensely active in all that is done but at the same time have no selfish motives, no thoughts of personal gain or loss. Action uncontaminated by personal desire leads to inner peacefulness and increased effectiveness. This is the secret art of living a life of real achievement…” and a bit more from this sublime text, “…do your work in this world with your heart fixed on the Sacred instead of on outcomes. Be even tempered in success or failure. This mental evenness is what is meant by yoga. Equanimity is yoga!”
We can approach everything with this refined understanding of tapas, the purifying inner fire that reveals the secret of sacrifice, that is there to uplift us with each breath, and every action. All things are then imbued with meaning and purpose, and every effort is capable of revealing our inner effulgence; this is our swadharma our real duty. The real tapas, or austerity, then is the ability to let go of the non-essential or superficiality and re-focus our energies on revealing the true Self abiding within. As the Buddha instructed “become a light unto your own self.” That light and its heat are carried about by everyone already. Yoga reveals the universal eternal flame.
“be intensely active in all that is done but at the same time have no selfish motives, no thoughts of personal gain or loss. Action uncontaminated by personal desire leads to inner peacefulness and increased effectiveness. This is the secret art of living a life of real achievement…”
— Bhagvad Gita
Meditation
Establishing a Practice
Meditation training online with Keval Pezet, co-founder of Shantarasa Yoga Darshana
Commencing | 1st January + 1st April 2021
Learn basic skills to establish a rewarding and dedicated practice. Meditation is a gift for life. It is an essential practice of the traditional yogic path. It is an essential practice for anyone wishing to live a well balanced life with a profound internal connection and for those who wish to evolve innate transformative potentials.