Are you at risk from YOGA RAGE!!!

You have just finished meditating, your yoga class or reading the Power of Now. Your mind is as still as mountain lake at dawn, Your body is relaxed. Everything is in its place, life brims with meaning. You are bissfully peaceful…

… and then something happens…

…Perhaps something small, a condescending plumber, an internet glitch, a child being difficult, or a boss acting like a child. In a moment the peace is gone, replaced with gut churning YOGA RAGE! The world is now brimming with incovenience and everything is in the wrong place.

Of course Yoga Rage is not quite road rage. It won't make the headlines because it rarely leads to shootings or stabbings. More likely there is  passive aggression that spills over into  sharp remarks instantly regretted, but which may have consequences that can last a lot longer.

In fact if you have yoga rage you can almost congratulate yourself. Not for losing it, but for having something to lose in the first place. If you have learned methods to quieten your mind, and you value the awareness that comes from such practise you are part of a very small but growing section of the population.

Yoga rage always comes with taking something from the outside personally. Something goes wrong and suddenly it's all about ME, and I HAVE EVERY REASON TO BE PISSED OFF. It seems perfectly reasonable in the moment.

In the big scheme of things whatever went wrong is really is not very significant, but when you are in it, yoga rage can take you a long way from your values or aspirations.

The peaceful states that come from Yoga, meditation, trance and other methods come from a concentration in which the sense of the little ME dissolves in concentration. You concentrate on yourself to go beyond yourself.

The problem is that this can be very self referential. In an extreme it can lead to:  Go to Yoga, feel good and defend yourself (savagely) against anything that brings you down.

Consumer bliss will always be brittle because it is so self centred.

One characteristic of the Intimacy Experience is that you focus your awareness on someone else. It was never about the little ME. Whenever you meet someone it is a reminder to go beyond your little self and gently invite them to come too.

Meditation moves naturally from the cushion to the street, to the office, to the kitchen and it goes without saying to the bedroom. 

It does not mean that there will not be tough days when life throws more at you than your equanimity can deal with. Still if you want to stabilise and strengthen your personal practise then the best thing you can do is include more people in it.

Of course the Intimacy Experience is not the only way to do this, service has a similar effect. I'd like to support some friends of mine who are working with orphans in Tamil Nadu. If you come to an Intimacy Experience in February I and mention Surya I will pass on any fees you give me to their humanitarian project. This applies to my self defence workshops as well.

We are nothing on our own.