The Yoga of Relationship/ Seeing Yourself in Others

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

The teacher rarely takes the form we imagine it will/should/does for everyone else.
We must have alert senses to recognize the teacher when it arrives.

The teacher for me right now is Yoga Sutra 1.33. We have been exploring this sutra for the past few weeks in my class, so it is a teacher I chose in a sense, though the lessons are different from times I’ve marinated in this sutra in the past.

By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward those who are happy, compassion to those who are suffering, delight toward the virtuous and equanimity toward detractors, one’s thoughts are purified and the obstacles to self-realization are lessened. {Yoga Sutra 1.33}

The yoga of relationships. A recipe for how to live happily with other people.

I will post classes relating to each concept, but for now will share what is new for me this time around.

We can dredge up our own “stuff” on the meditation cushion, work it all out in silence, feel bliss on the mat and then walk out into life and freak out at the annoying person we meet.

This practice (YS1.33) is about staying in the love.

It’s also about perception.

We never REALLY know what is going on with anyone else. We perceive them through the lens of our own story (karmas and samskaras). So our reaction to people we perceive as happy/suffering/virtuous/detractors is really just our reaction to ourselves. You are a mirror. And so is everyone else.

For me, I have been really hung up on detractors lately. The internet ripe with opportunities to practice equanimity. I admit I have been struggling with it, with all of the posts about gun rights and who the most yogic yogi out there is. One practice that has helped has been the objective observation of material and of my reaction to it. The point of this Sutra is not to change other people, but to stay as relaxed as possible in our interactions so that we can be still enough to respond as our truest selves. So we still feel good after an encounter with a detractor, even though we disagree with him/her. This is HUGE! Also, it has helped me see who I thought were detractors as people who are suffering and show compassion. That feels so much better than contempt.

(Note: This Sutra parallels the Brahma-Viharas of Buddhist philosophy, so even non-Buddhist yogis refer to these ideas as the Brahma-Viharas at times.)

That is all for now.

Have any of you worked with this Sutra before? I’m interested in your thoughts, positive, negative and neutral.

LOVE, Kelly