There is a principle in Yoga known as tapas.  Tapas is typically seen as asceticism.  It comes from the word tapa which means mental or physical pain.  It also means heat.

One very respected Yogi, Swami Satchidananda, interpreted tapas to mean, "Accepting pain as an aid for purification." This doesn’t mean that inflicting pain on oneself somehow pays a debt that magically leads to purification. Rather, it means accepting the pain that naturally appears now and allowing it to guide you. Accepting it automatically changes your relationship with the sensation of pain.

You try to avoid the painful past because you’re trying to avoid pain. If you’ve changed your relationship with pain, there’s no need to avoid it. Again, this doesn’t mean you need to go grab a hammer and smash your thumb right now. When you begin to recognize that pain is just intense sensation and that all sensations change, pain becomes just a momentary thing.

The next step is recognizing the pain is not the enemy but the guide. Pain is the body’s way of saying, "Pay attention here." As you pay attention to the pain, it will naturally guide you into relieving the pain.

Please don’t believe anything I’ve written. Instead, experiment with it yourself using this little experience.
 

 

As I said in the recording, you’ve already begun to change your relationship with pain end it was very easy.

What To Do Bhagwan?

As a country, United States of America is in pain. We’re in pain for so many reasons. It’s easy to move in and out of pain on an individual basis, like with the neck rolls. It’s much more difficult on the level of society. I’m not really sure how to do it, I only know that it needs to be done.

As I’ve contemplated this over the last week and watched as US society continues to deteriorate, I’ve asked myself over and over again, "What should I do?"

I’ve contemplated and meditated. I’ve studied scripture. With each effort that I’ve made, the sense of despair that I felt would only increase.

But that was exactly the problem: Effort. How much effort did you use to release the tension felt in the neck? None. You effortlessly moved into the sensation and you rested there.

I have been trying to fight for what I want to see happen. This is not the way tapas works.

This Is The Way

You move into the pain. You sit with the pain or you dance with the pain. Either way, you do not fight with it.

What to do Bhagwan? Revisit the pain. Stay with the pain. Be with the pain. How to do that on the level of society?

Move into the pain again and again and again. I can sit with pain forever. I will say their names daily until the pain ends.

I will breathe with the pain. I will listen to it. I will not run from it nor will I allow any around me to forget it.

What Is Tapas?

Tapas is accepting pain as an aid for purification. Purification means that the past no longer affects the present. The present is experienced as it is without the distortions of the past.

No Torture

Notice that the neck rolls didn’t turn into some kind of torture; rather, the experience became peaceful and restorative. The same must be true of social pain; otherwise, it would just become torture.

There’s also a need to reset in peace and stillness; so, along with the pain, there is a need to rest and restore.

What Can You Do

Speak up! Share the painful truth without claiming that everything will be OK. Just speak the truth.

Share your meditation as well.

Jai Bhagwan

ॐ नमः शिवाय