Social Navigation

Safe social navigation with the yogi piloting or being piloted through the morass of social relationships, is even more difficult than doing yoga practice. In fact in the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna explained that Krishna is the only one who can properly teach the techniques of karma yoga, which is the application of yoga proficiency to social dealings. For Arjuna the application of that teaching was immediate. It was to a battlefield circumstance, not to loving a family and supplying money for it. It was not about having financial success and giving some of the profit to the temple or holy man.

For years now, I taught students about navigating the social relationships. Time and time again when I meet students, I realize that they are unable to safely negotiate the relationships all because of a resistance in human society, a retardative force.

Spiritual advancement is affected for better or worse by the successful maneuvering or the sloppy action in the social relationships. Hence it is imperative that an ascetic learn how to function socially. If he fails to master that, his progress will be sporadic and uncertain. He will never consolidate the spiritual practice, and as such his confidence that spiritual endeavor pays off and is worth it, will always be eroded.