Yoga for a World Out of Balance by Michael Stone

Author:Michael Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

CHAPTER SEVEN

ASTEYA: NONSTEALING

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar . . . it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

ONE OF THE ways that we can move from viewing yoga as a social service to a form of social action is to take the core teachings of yoga and employ them as a mode of seeing through the social and institutionalized forms of duḥkha that we find within and around us. Offering meditation workshops and āsana classes is the first step in returning the mind to its natural state, waking up the intelligence of the body, and bringing more awareness to the ground of reality as it presents itself in this embodiment. It’s important, however, that we don’t reduce the causes of suffering exclusively to the personal realm. The social fabric that supports greed, hatred, and confusion penetrates our beliefs and worldviews in so deep a manner that psychologically, the division between personal and social is a false one.

You and I are each corners of the social fabric, and as such, our practice must include the social sphere and its workings within and around us. A thorough investigation of duḥkha in all its manifestations can’t only be personal, because when we work on the personal level, we also work on the social level. Likewise, the two-way-street model should apply to our social and ecological views as well. It’s not just that yoga teachings should be put to work on global issues, but that yoga also has much to learn from the excellent social and psychological approaches that many activists have already employed to effect social change and awareness. We must work together. There is no blueprint for the way yoga might tackle global warming or deforestation, suicide or theft. As I’ve pointed out throughout this book, the yamas are only basic guidelines; how they manifest in the social sphere is going to be a vast and complex challenge for each and every one of us who sees practice as a form of engagement rather than transcendence. When we work to transcend (perhaps “transform” is a more appropriate term here) the habit energies of mind, body, and body politic, we turn toward the world, not away from it. In turning toward the social and ecological spheres, we are, in turn, turning toward our own minds and bodies.

Yoga teachings are true only when they are appropriate in given circumstances. Even though I may experience deep stages of meditative samādhi, I still have to get up and buy vegetables, source water, and speak with others. We are never divorced from our social and ecological background, because the background comes through in all of our activities. When we believe that our personal enlightenment is beyond context and outside of any social functioning, we’ve fallen into a trap. Yoga revolves around the teachings on causality (karma) reminding us that our actions have an effect, that everything we do plants a pattern.

Individual change cannot effect

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