Detachment (vairagya) in Yoga
Yoga is more than asana postures but for some yoga is asana postures because that is how they were introduced to the practice. Asana postures are attractive because they seem to demonstrate being shapely and physically fit. Subsequently many merge or mix the asana postures with Western developed body exercises which were designed to tone muscle, bring fat into conformity and increase gland efficiency.
That is not yoga as it was defined by Swatmarama, Patanjali and Krishna. One who feels that yoga is asana postures may never be exposed to the practice as it was defined by ancient ascetics in India. But if one comes to know the truth about that, it might be a disappointment to find out that one must do much more. Yoga is for the physical and subtle bodies and for what is termed as the atma or bare spiritual self.
The most advanced part of yoga concerns this atma or bare spiritual self but some yoga authorities say that there is a self while others deny its existence. Still yoga culminates in finding out about the reality or unreality of that assumed self.
Detachment is a part of yoga, where the yogi should develop an attitude, a psychological posture, which allows him or her to be detached even when performing efficiently and caringly. Imagine what it would be like, to be fully attentive to doing something for someone, and yet, be totally removed from being accredited for the action, so much as that one follows the convention of receiving accolades but one does so for the occasion and not because one hungers for recognition.
Consider this incidence. Recently I completed a yoga book titled Kundalini Self~Tantric. I composed the formatted text file which I converted to a Pdf. This was sufficient to bring the book into publication as a paperback.
After doing that I usually strip away the formatting to make it into a simple text file which I format with html codes. Once these codes are completed I bookmark certain phrases through the book. Then I hyperlink those phrases to construct a clickable index for the publication. The resulting files are used to create a kindle and also an epub file.
A problem arose when during the hyperlinking phase of the work. The software used to create the html file crashed. After the crash, the file was nowhere to be seen. In the folder the name of the file was listed but as having zero kilobytes. The computer wiped out the entire file.
There was no trace left, which meant that hours of tedious work went up in smoke.
What was I you do at that stage?
Start crying?
Start abusing the computer?
Start cursing?
Call a friend and lambast the issue by phone?
Regret that it happened?
Curse the providence of it?
As a yogi, I should be detached?
But how?
How should I manage the disappointment and feeling of loss of hours of desk labor?
Who should I sue, the computer manufacturer or the software producer?
How long should I be irritated about it?
What exactly is detachment and how should it kick in in a circumstance like this?
Would to application of detachment make me a happy camper instead of an annoyed disappointed writer?
-
Detachment in this sense is a soothing balm all over the self. It is the acceptance by the sense of identity that its machinations have failed after ions of enforcement, and now it may accept providence as the figurehead.
This is a tedious affair and a very gradual aspect to tread on the path of noticing incremental improvements in different settings and situations. One may remember and realize, how bad their reactions would have been in some situation, or how inconsolable they acted when their will is not done.
I want to dearly and intimately augment my sense of seeing myself as utterly dispensable for any circumstance I partake in, in particular family situation which is so present and so natural. How will my compulsions deal with my-self at that moment (just around the corner) when I transition permanently out of this present form?
This whole show from this perspective ought to come to a stop, and will I be able to just turn my back on circumstances and their perceived effects on my social self? Should I become able to exercise sufficient detachment, I might here-now and thereafter preserve the interest of the self, and not victimize it by what is now a natural impulse to gloat over successes or wins and shun defeat or losses.
Detachment is a fundamental live illustration of advancement when it comes to transcending and genuinely understanding and accepting reality as distinct from one’s essence. Yoga when considered in this most singular application of the terminology of the word is quintessential for demanding and allowing a discerning of the self from all other forms of energies; including emotions of attachment and multifacetedness of relations.
Furthermore, attachment is really just entitlement from the stand point of this yoga that pushes for soul segregation and isolation from all else. So I may ask myself the degree and depth of my condition for now seeing me in a position to actually claim anything whatsoever including this very body, an aggregate of materialistically consumed community propriety. So I may ask how not to increase my delirium of identifying, growing, protruding and lording, before the curtains are finally drawn on this act.
-
From LinkedIn:
-
More from Linked In
-
Caroline Barnes Well, I'm glad you didn't lose the whole thing. I'm afraid all that technical jargon is a foreign language to me!
-
Michael Beloved Html is the basic language of computers, the simplest thing they read. Each web page has html with or without other languages. Computers read that and then show the page but it does so in split seconds. A docx or doc file is what Microsoft Word creates as an editable file. That is what replaced the type written page from the mechanical typewriter era. Hyperlinks is like when you click on some text or an image, and it jumps to some other place in the same site or to another different site.
While in print books (physical products), the index is based on finding page numbers to selected topics, in eBooks ( digital products) the index is based on location of the topic, so that there are not page numbers. When you click on an index topic, it jumps to where that topic is in the file instantly. That jumps occurs because of the index entry being hyperlinked or automatically tied to another location in the file. -
Michael Beloved A simple explanation of html (hypertext markup language) is that for a computer to produce something like this:
Yoga is anybody’s guess.
Yoga will be the cause of World War 3
It has to be given this below, where the enclosed p code tells it to begin one paragraph after seeing <p> and to close that paragraph just before seeing </p>
<p>Yoga is anybody’s guess.</p><p>Yoga will be the cause of World War 3<p>
The inventor of html is at the following link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee -
Dr Sujata Vaidya It is time the world woke up to the fact that Yogasana...... and Yog (yoga for the foreign tougue) not to be put in the same context at all. Yogasana is a part of the Ashtanga (eight limbs/sections) of Yog principle.
-
Sandrine Lubrano Di Ciccone Beautiful article, I often think of this concept of vairagya, but in practice, in everyday life if I am honnest, detachment often running far away from me, and I often say to myself :"but where is my yoga? Where does he disappear?" sometimes things which happen are so sudden, in this case I feel far from perfection☺, but sometimes I feel also so connected to my Self that detachment is a part of me, I am able to accept what arrive or not, even if it's not what I had expected. But it's not easy everyday, the questions you are asking to yourself in the commentaries are what I am asking to myself at each moment when difficulties arise. Your article is interesting for that, always be able to ask about ourselves. Beautiful day to you.
-
Dr.Vishal Kad To know Yog Philosophy, One should read Rajyog by Swami Vivekanand.
-
Yogarishi Deolal Mahabir Very enjoyable string. @Michael Bhai, I just remember to my self, provoked by your article, that vairagya and abhyasa goes along together. Something you mentioned also reminded me that to the Yogis this world is and illusion and to the worldly people steeped in maya, things like Atma etc. (including the old fashion word 'god') is and illusion. @Dr. Vaidya, I am also wrestling with what to call the yoga of the ancient that Vyasa in his commentary on Patanjali refers to as samadhi. Knowing Vedic Astrology (Jyotish) I have learned to be content with who has arrived at the samadhi science and who is yet to discover 'real yoga' and also accept those who can only arrive at Bhoga.
-
Marilyn Weyher Good questions, Michael. I still have a long way to go where detachment is concerned and I have only met one person in my lifetime who was truly detached as far as I could observe. Definitely something to work towards.
David Sandercott What ever happened ... happened because it needed to happen ... no need to let that make you go unconscious and forget who you are. Stay in the Bliss :)
David Sandercott Really fun and thought proving article thank you.
David Sandercott Would you be so kind to tell me what you think of my latest article on Kundalini
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dive-deeper-your-kundalini-meditation-practice-david-sandercott?trk=pulse_spock-articles
Patrick Zeis I think many people misunderstand detachment as meaning resignation. Detachment doesn't mean that one becomes a recluse, is uninterested in helping others, and refuses to take actions that produce positive benefits. Detachment should mean renunciation or letting go of the desire for the potential positive outcomes that come from beneficial actions. The goal of spiritual seekers should not be to produce positive karma but to produce no karma at all, and this is done through detachment and renunciation.
olga Jimenez Through my practice everything is revealed and expressed that I need to be
Michael Beloved David, Since you requested I looked at your article. My honest opinion is that it is a mix of various loose ends. In any case, Keep on writing!
Michael Beloved Patrick,
Very clear -- what you said.
Thanks!
Caroline Barnes This doesn't mean you lost the whole book does it Michael?
Quintus Andradi The true meaning of yoga is to link or connect. You the image and likeness, to Him that is Supreme. This is called Raja Yoga.
Michael Beloved Caroline,
I lost the html file with many indexed hyperlinks. I still had the .docx file which I again deformatted and reformatted in html and re-hyperlinked. I was using Expression Web html editor. It crashed and the file just disappeared.