Patanjali Yoga Sutra Knowledge Sheet 75
Contd. from knowledge sheet 74
Shoucha and santosha come together. If there is no shoucha there can be no santosha. Constant touch or overtly in touch with other people, hugging other people all the time, if you are doing this, then you are not letting your energy to be your energy even for sometime. You are always trying to be in association with somebody. So you are lost. You do not know who you are. You do not know yourself. So keep some distance and some time for yourself. Learn to know what your real strength is, what your real weakness is, what is your true spirit. This is shoucha and with shoucha comes santosha, happiness.
You can come home happily and say, "Today all the job I did flopped. There was no success in any of the work I did today." You can say with a smile "anyway everything has flopped". So at least do not let the mind also flop. You should have the guts to say "Come what may I am not going to give up the smile on my face because I am much more than the event, the circumstances. Everything comes and goes, but I continue in spite of all the situations".
Just turn back and look at your life when you were a kid. How many times have you cried? You cried as though hell has fallen on your head. You thought that was the end of the world and then sobbed and sobbed and then went off to sleep. So what happened afterwards? You are still alive. Remember those moments when you broke up with your boy friend or girl friend or when someone passed away in your family. What happened to you? You felt as though you were shattered. In reality nothing happened to you.
The other day, a lady from Italy came to see me. She told me, "Guruji, I lost my daughter not even six months ago. But I am going to parties. I am just being normal. I am not sad. Is something wrong with me? I feel so guilty even to smile. When she was gone I was very sad, no doubt, but I still go to parties. Of course, every mother has that little pinch inside". I said, "Never mind, go. You do not have be a masochist, thinking about the sad event all the time". She said, "But people expect me to be sobbing all day. I cried for a whole month. I felt all that pain. But I am moving on with my life now. But people expect me to be sad all the time".
This is true. People expect you to be sobbing all your life. This is what is considered as normal. If someone has the courage to move ahead, we think that something is wrong with that person. I tell you there is nothing wrong. In the places where Tsunami struck (on December 26, 2004) and people who were hit so badly, after doing the Breath Water Course, the Navachetana shibir workshop and Sudarshana Kriya, people were singing, smiling and dancing. Many would not understand this. These people who were so paranoid to even look at the sea, in just two-three sessions of meditation began singing, dancing and they wanted to carry on with their lives. The traumas have been left behind because our very nature is joy, happiness. The sadness or sorrow is only in the circumference. It is like a cloud covering the light that you are. The nature of your being is joy. That needs to be uncovered. Whatever calamity befalls on anyone, one can always come out of that and all that one needs is determination : Santosha, the second niyama.
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(This is part of a series of knowledge sheets based on Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's commentaries on Patanjali Yoga Sutras.)
