Some people think that their freedom is in trying out everything that there is. The one who is trying is the one who is not happy with one thing, therefore he will check another one. For example, I never try out all these restaurants around here, I don’t need to because I am content with my food. I will seek something else if I am not happy with what I have. And I may think that to try out everything is my freedom, so I go and look at some many different things. And in all that time I spent on trying out, I could have focused on one thing and deepened my knowledge or experience.
Also, when I try out things naturally I see some validity in them too. At the end of it all there is a big confusion because I have seen validity in so many things. When I actually want to do something for myself, there are so many points that seem important that I don’t know any more which point I should take and work on. I end up confused and that means energy-less. Because I cannot put myself into what I do and I don’t have faith in it, nothing works. Thus the master key to a success is faith. If you don’t have faith in who you are and in what you are doing, you are a lost being who will not get anywhere.
I am not talking about Yoga practice, I am talking about life. Yoga practice is only part of your life. Understand that fully and it doesn’t take days or hours, it takes only seconds to realise that a person in doubt will get nowhere. That is an absolute guarantee. You should rather be aware of your doubts arising, see that you’re riddled with them and put them aside. When you do that, faith will arise in yourself. Now we are talking about totality.
Some people know what they want and they follow it through. When you follow something, it means that you don’t follow other things. When I was a young man, I wanted to be a musician. Then I fell into the Yoga and I could have continued to play music, but I dropped everything. I mean everything, I only did Yoga from the moment I woke up to the time I went to sleep, so at the time I was studying yoga I gave it my complete attention.
Nowadays every day I go drumming on the beach for the sunset. I want you to understand what it means to give something your absolute consideration.
But let’s say that you want to try more, or you’re unsatisfied with something. I give one example very often because it is from someone I have a great respect for. S. N. Goenka says that if you want to find water, you dig a well and you keep digging until you get to the source. But if you make little attempts, go a little bit there, go a little bit here… you will not get anything. So you need to have faith because why would you come along and start digging a well in a first place. When you lose your faith, you say: “No, let me try another place”, and you can go on many new digging holes, but you will not get anything.
Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre
Yoga Master Teacher Sharat Arora
Article derived from the “Yoga & Ayurveda” Intensive Yoga Course
At the Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre in Dharamkot, Dharamsala, September-October 2012
