Lesson 3 - Importance of practice and detachment
In
Lesson 2 you learnt the classification of mind patterns. In this lesson you
will understand the importance of Yogic practice or Sadhana and detachment in
controlling the five fold mind patterns and attaining Samadhi.
The mind is always under the influence of three gunas and hence
fluctuating at all the times. The mind can be made standstill by two core means:
- Consistent Yoga practice or Sadhana
- Detachment
It is very important for a Yoga student to understand that the state of
Samadhi can not be achieved with few month's practice. One must continue
practice for years or even lives together. Many people begin their Yoga practice
with great enthusiasm. However, after a while become inconsistent. They
get occupied with inertia towards their practice. Their personal and
professional life starts getting higher priority than Yoga. They start skipping
the practice. Such inconsistent practice will yield you nothing. Sometimes after
practicing Yoga for few years the practitioners feel that they are not getting
any fruits of their practice and then they give up. Such attitude must be
banished at once. You should be ready to practice until the final goal of
Samadhi is not attained. Do not let anything else to stop you. Be regular and
determined towards your practice.
Another important factor that helps to attain Samadhi is detachment.
Detachment refers to becoming free from material pleasures and sense objects.
All of us have tendency to cling to material world. Family, friends, money,
luxuries, prestige, fame and what not. We often run behind one or the other
material pleasure thinking that it will bring us happiness. However, pleasure
without sorrow simply doesn't exists. For example if you are wearing a new
diamond necklace then along with the pleasure of looking beautiful you also get
a free gift of sorrow arising from the theft of the necklace. This exists for
each and every material thing. Thus the only way to avoid sorrow is to remain
detached from the concerned objects.
You might be wondering as to why to remain detached? The reason is that if
you engage yourself in the constant play of pleasure and sorrow then you will
never be able to concentrate on your practice. Each pleasure or sorrow will give
birth to enormous amount of mind patterns. How can such mind be standstill?
That's why you need to adopt detachment.
Many people wrongly interpret detachment as abandoning the normal life and
going into forest. That's not true. In order to practice true detachment one
must understand Karma Yoga. As per Karma Yoga we all have right to
do karma or work but we do not have right to demand the fruits of our
work. Let the God decide about the fruits. Once you adopt such attitude in
whatever you do in your life then detachment comes naturally. Then you don't
crave for material pleasures.
You will find that there are many people who read and study about Yoga but
some make progress sooner whereas some don't seem to progress at all. Why such
difference when all have studied the same principals? The answer to this
question lies in the intensity with which one practices Yoga. Your progress is
directly proportional to the intensity of your practice. The intensity can be
categorized as mild, medium and strong. The stronger your desire for
self-realization the quicker your progress will be.
Just to summarize this lesson:
- Constant practice and detachment are essential for attaining the state
of Samadhi
- Yoga must be practiced regularly and persistently
- Unless you detach yourself from the material objects you can not stop
patterns arising in the mind
- To detach yourself from the material world one must adopt Karma Yoga
- Your progress is directly proportional to the intensity of your practice
May the Peace be with you.
Bipin Joshi is an independent software consultant and trainer by profession specializing in Microsoft web development technologies. Having embraced the Yoga way of life he is also a yoga mentor, meditation teacher, and spiritual guide to his students. He is a prolific author and writes regularly about software development and yoga on his websites. He is programming, meditating, writing, and teaching for over 27 years. To read more about him go here. More details about his Kriya and Meditation online course are available here.