- By Caitlyn Borowsky, Student & Karma Yogi

What have we been up to so far this Spring at Niwas?
 
Planting, dreaming and preparing Annapourna Garden.

We began this season with planting onion seeds in mid-February followed a few weeks later with a variety of flowers. So far, we are grateful to be nurturing four types of onions, three varieties of lavender, viola, lupins, ornamental oregano, two varieties of snap dragons, portulaca, asters, chilli peppers, and petunias. On the Piscean New Moon we sowed the seeds of basil and tomatoes, which will become delicious Niwas tomato sauce in the last weeks of Summer.

In addition to planting and tending to the seedlings, we are thoughtfully setting the garden and ourselves up for success for the growing season. We are not only tending to the Land in anticipation, we are also tidying up our own actions and energies to make space for the manifestation of abundance and beauty, so we may spend this next cycle offering from a place of simplicity and full-hearted love.

We are preparing the garden beds to hold and nurture new life by clearing the remnants of last year’s crops and using those remnants to feed the compost which will cycle back to the Earth. Currently, 'Niwas feels much like a space of transformation, regeneration and preparation. Personally, I am am feeling Spring’s frequency of optimism and opportunity, especially as I walk through Annapourna Garden, hearing and dreaming of the possibilities that are on the horizon. 

- by Swami Yogatirthananda Saraswati (Switzerland), From YogaMag November 2001

Starting the month of sincerity meant putting into practice what I had seen in the preceding three months about serenity, regularity and absence of vanity. It is not enough to have insights and understanding if the ideas do not become part of everyday life. If this training in the ITIES is to have any meaning, it definitely implies the sincerity to live according to a new understanding. Sincerity comes after absence of vanity, because sincerity is the hard work after lofty ideas.

​But how to live sincerely? For me, it meant harmonizing thought, word and deed. To make thinking, speaking and acting one unity. The tool, the path is sincerity but the result also is sincerity. Sincerity is a constant effort to strive for and reach this unity of thought, word and deed, but once achieved, the resulting sensation and satisfaction is one of sincerity.

The mind looking for facility often encounters conflict. If thought, word and deed coincide and constitute one harmonious entity, then there is smoothness or flow. For instance, I want to write a letter and I do not do it because it is difficult or unpleasant. The result is uneasiness, conflict or even guilt. But if thought is followed by action, no matter what, without intervening thoughts, without prevarication, then there is no conflict, no waste of energy. Sincerity makes the action follow the preceding thought or word. Sincerity implies honesty because to think one thing and to do another is dishonest.

I became aware of the monkey mind, the image so often given in books on yoga or meditation. The mind is like a monkey jumping here and there. And while the mind jumps around, the gap between thought, word and deed grows. If the monkey mind were still, the letter would be written immediately. A synonym for sincerity is artlessness. The jumping of the mind is artful and crafty, but to harmonize thought, word and deed it takes 'only' a sincere will.

In order to stop the jumping mind and to unite thought, word and deed, it is necessary to know the thought, to control the word and to adapt the action. I saw that behind the thought there was a desire, and by using the SWAN theory, by writing down Strengths, Weaknesses, Ambitions and Needs, I could tell that the ambition was the desire behind each thought.

I also looked differently at the first sloka of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras - 'Yoga anushasanam'. I quote now from a talk by Swamiji on 'Mind and Mind Management' in Aix-les-Bains, France, 1997: "The word yoga means awareness of the inner personality which is manifesting in the outer world. Anu means subtle, shasanam means to rule, to govern, to be in control of. Therefore, according to Patanjali, yoga is a form or method of governing the inner nature. It is a method of directing the inner nature harmoniously so that it can manifest externally."

I found here all the ingredients of sincerity: the will to know the desire behind each thought, the will to choose the right word and the will to act in harmony. This is of course difficult; it requires absolute honesty and no fear in the face of unpleasantness, of personal weaknesses and shortcomings, of age-old behaviour patterns. While trying to live in all sincerity I felt I was getting to the question of the attractions and repulsions underlying behaviour.

The letter that needs to be written, but still remains in the head and not on paper, is just one of many examples. Pleasant/unpleasant, good/bad, these pairs are a hindrance, an obstacle to sincerity; they come in between thought, word and deed. Yoga offers, of course, all the necessary tools to avoid the pitfall of opposites. So do the four main points for a yogic lifestyle recommended by Swamiji: practise a minimum of half an hour's sadhana every morning and evening, commune with nature, vibrate positively, and be aware of the internal as well as the external environment.

The result of the month of sincerity was to write down everyday desires, with the following aim: To become aware of desires; putting the resulting thoughts into words, in order to accept them without judging them; to check which accepted desire/thought I acted upon, which desire reappeared day after day, or which desire disappeared; if a desire persisted and there was no action following then there was conflict, either inner conflict or conflict with others.

The coming and going of desires, the fleeting nature and very often futility of desires was strengthening the sankalpa in a wonderful way.

The month of sincerity was a difficult month. The beginning was so very clear - harmonize thought, word and deed and you will live sincerely. But I was surprised to find myself among the SWAN theory and Patanjali. I felt I had missed the meaning of this month and gone astray. For the first time, I felt the need to check with what Swami Sivananda had said, and found reassuring confirmation: "Let your words agree with your thoughts. Let your actions agree with your words. Let there be harmony among your thoughts, words and actions."

To think, to speak, to act -
No more;
To know the time
To speak your thought
To act upon your word.
To know the wish
That willed the thought
Which spoken out
Will lead to action.
To find the unity of all,
To consciously create
The harmony of all - No more.
To know Thyself. Walk on, In all sincerity.

Continue reading article here: ITIES 4-6: Sincerity, Simplicity, Veracity (yogamag.net)

This pandemic has been hard on everyone. Now, we are learning that it has been particularly hard on women, and mothers. Motherhood is beautiful and joyful, yes, yet it also brings big, new challenges every day as our children continue to grow and calls for much personal transformation to meet those challenges. Yet, I have found that oft times discussing the challenges is a bit taboo, since we are supposed to be "selfless, loving mothers," a flat characterization which can make us feel guilty if we are perceived as "complaining" about the tough bits of it. Especially since we know that so many other mothers are undoubtedly facing similar challenges, and yet we don't hear them talking about it. Now, throw in a pandemic that disproportionately affects women and mothers (as well as our elders and others), and the challenges can become greatly amplified.

As you know, I am a woman, and I am a mother. So, let me start by saying that even if you feel you haven't been able to be the parent you wanted to be over the past year, you are not alone. It has scarcely been possible. This pandemic has brought so much suffering to so many people in so many different ways; yet, at the same time, it has also brought a multitude of lessons and opportunities. Opportunities not so much to change, but to find acceptance of one's limitations and those of the situation. Opportunities to soften our rigid perspective. Opportunities to transform our suffering into softness.

We all know that parenthood is a total blessing filled with so much joy, love and connection. We are so grateful. But that is not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the challenges. I think we need a safe space for this right now.

Parenthood comes laden with a multitude of simultaneous pressures. I don't need to tell you what they are, you know. Yet, this is precisely what makes it the Yogic practice and lifestyle that it is. The pressure creates the opportunity. In Yoga, the analogy often given is that of a diamond. A diamond endures tremendous pressure from all sides, in the same way that parenting on top of work and everything else can feel like teetering on the edge of overwhelm a great deal of the time, especially when you have little littles. Yet, that pressure transforms a simple hunk of coal into a strong, precious and beautiful diamond. Simply through the transformational power of pressure. Swami Satsangi-ji of Rikhiapeeth has also said that sometimes all one needs to do in life to evolve is endure.

We are not really talking about changing ourselves. When it comes to the hard barrier of the ego, when it undergoes tremendous pressure and difficulty from all sides and becomes totally frustrated and completely exhausted, it is at that moment that it throws its hands up in the air and surrenders. And with that surrender, there comes a great softening and openness. And with that softening and openness, we do not so much change who we are through hard work and so on (after all, the qualities of the heart are already within us, we only need to connect with them), but our perception,  understanding and expression naturally tend to shift into the realm of the heart. From the suffering of the ego, into the softness of the heart.

Recently, having been home so much with my 3 and 1 year olds over this past pandemic year, whilst also trying to work a new job from a noisy and more-than-often-interrupted home office, on top of running the household with my partner, I had been starting to feel that immense pressure, fatigue, and frustration to the point where I knew that if I did not figure out how to deal with it in a more positive and Yogic way, that it could have a negative impact on my physical, mental and emotional health. So, being the Yoga aspirant that I am, I took time to stop. I just stopped. I rested. I reflected. I re-focused. And I let the kids watch a lot of TV while I did it.

In Yoga, there is a saying, "There is no noise in the marketplace, and no peace in the Himalayas. Both are within you." I thought about this a lot and what it meant for me and how to apply it in a practical way. I couldn't really do much to change my circumstances, they are what they are right now without a lot of wiggle room. However, something could shift within me. And then I remembered a seemingly minor incident that occurred while I was in the ashram during those 3 years of study.
I had been rushing off from one karma yoga activity to another, as I often was. I was literally running to try to get there on time. Somehow, I tripped when I was stepping up onto the curb from the road, stubbed my toe really, really hard taking a decent chunk of skin off, and fell. I looked to my right (feeling a little embarrassed and kind of hoping nobody was watching), and who was standing there witnessing the entire incident unfold was my Guru, Swami Niranjan-ji. Without saying a word, the message was crystal clear, "slow down. don't run." I have even heard Swamiji say before that, if you end up being late somewhere, better to arrive late and relaxed than to arrive on time and frazzled.

This incident suddenly felt so incredibly relevant. As a parent, I constantly find myself rushing all over again. Rushing from putting out one fire to the next, rushing from tidying this spot to the next, rushing from this appointment to the next, rushing to help manage the big emotions of my two toddlers, rushing to make meals and get everyone bathed, brushed and to bed, and then rushed to get everyone up, dressed, diapered and on time for preschool. Rushing, rushing, rushing.

In our tradition of yoga, it is often said that the speed with which you practice the asana does not impact the quality of awareness, meaning that the faster you go, you do not have to become less aware. Likewise, in parenthood, there is a lot to do all the time. We cannot always stop. Sometimes we may need to for a moment, but then we have to keep going again. So, how do we slow down inside and connect with this inner peace and stay there while there continue to be so many simultaneous demands on our attention, bodies, minds, and emotions as parents. 
​
I feel that it starts with a choice. A choice to prioritize my inner peace and happiness. And then, when I feel the coil inside me beginning to wind tighter and tighter, I remember. I remember my inner priority. I breathe through the tension, and breathe the tension away. I choose peace. I unravel my inner coil before it winds tighter. I remind myself that, while this moment is intense, everything is usually pretty okay in general. And I choose peace. I accept the limitations of the moment, and the limitations of myself. I let go of how I thought things should be, or how I wanted them to be. I focus my mind, my attention, my eyes and my ears on what I need to do externally the best I reasonably can without becoming angry or judging myself that I could not do it better. I slow down inside. I let go of the thoughts that begin to sprout in all directions, and let the resulting emotions rise and fall away. I do what I need to do, inside and out. Sometimes I fail. But, then I just try again. Just like I teach my kids to do.