Fear, Anger, and Doubt

Just a very quick post.  As many of you know, I worked as a programmer for 22 years.  On July 10th, that came to an end.  I was informed that my services were no longer needed.

Since then, I’ve been writing a book.  On August 21st, I experienced an awakening.  In that moment, I understood yoga.  The previous 16 years of study, practice, and teaching were all preparation for that moment.  I was immediately reminded my own guru’s experience from 1970.

Before this, I had practiced yoga for 20 years and was an experienced Hatha Yoga instructor.  Even though I was extremely flexible and performed postures with great ease and understanding of the core principles of yoga, I had never entered such depths of unity.  The true meaning of yoga was revealed to me experientially.
~Yogi Amrit Desai, 2018

The book I started writing in July, took a turn for the better in August.  Then this awakening happened and I stopped writing.  I knew that the book needed to be based on this awakening.  After two weeks of guiding students using this new understanding of yoga that I had received, I began to write.  That was September 4th.  I wrote the following on Facebook that day:

God moves in mysterious ways…NOT!

I find that God is clear and concise.  The mystery comes after I put mental effort into what God has said.

This morning my beloved book that I’ve been writing rewrote itself while I watched in bed.  All that’s left of the original book is a chapter in the rewrite.

If you’ve been in ANY of my classes these last two weeks, you have heard ONE theme: You deserve to be free.

Gurudev’s quote below sums it all up and is actually IN the rewrite.

Mysterious ways? Hardly.

The more you are willing to experience all that life brings—facing it without running, blaming or avoiding in any way, the more fearless and free you become.  – Gurudev

Six days later, I received a phone call from R. Vance in Ireland.  We talked about the book I was writing and my experience.  He said, “Ramdas, it doesn’t sound like you’re writing a book.  It sounds like you’ve designed a course that will change the course of people’s lives.”  I stopped writing the book, again.  I struggled to start writing again because I knew he was right and the gravity of it all was overwhelming.

I have always been afraid of being successful.  Succeeding at anything, in any way, has been a looming fear in my life.  Interesting, that moment of awakening revealed to me the purpose of yoga.  The purpose of yoga is not union.  Yoga is union but that is not its purpose.  The purpose of yoga is not to recognize the True Self.  Swami Kripalu wrote in The Science of Meditation (available at www.naturalmeditation.net), “In fact, the real practice of yoga begins only after self-realization.”  If the real practice of yoga begins only after self-realization, that self-realization cannot be the purpose of yoga.  Self-realization, is how yoga works.

The purpose of yoga is to be free.  Free of fear, anger, and doubt.  For years, I have struggled to put into words what is that yoga can do for you and there it is.  Yoga’s purpose is to free you from fear—anger and doubt are just fear in other forms.

I have been afraid of success for my entire life.  I needed to write a book that would free people from fear, anger, and doubt.  I used what I was planning to write on myself, that was September 13th.  Today is September 19th and I just finished mapping the last chapters of the book.  I immediately tried to sabotage myself so I couldn’t succeed.  I could not follow through with the sabotage, the book worked!  The old fears and the old patterns have no power over me.

This is what I offer to you.  Not a book that will help you conquer fear, no.  Not a book that will help you tame your anger, no.  Not a book that will erase your doubts, no.  This is a book that Will let you see the unreality of your fear, anger, and doubt.  If you read it and follow it step-by-step, your life will never be the same.

Jai Bhagwan