January 26, 2024
People ask what they must do first in order to lead a spiritual life. It is not as though you are a completely blank canvas. You are made up of knowledge you have acquired, and the things you have done during your life. So in wanting to lead a spiritual life you must start from where you are. Since we are not on the same platform, the same stage, the answer must be different for every individual. Yoga cannot be practiced part by part. One has to practice everything. From the first day that you decide to leave the spiritual life, you must do everything, even though you do it imperfectly at first.
What ever you do it must be whole - body, mind, heart, life - everything must be involved in it right from the first day. At the same time the spirit must be kept bright, pure, clear. If the spirit of the spiritual life, the spirit of yoga, does not touch a part of your being, there is the danger that it is in that part you will make some mistakes.
Specialization in yoga means partial development and therefore there is no yoga. Yoga means integration, perfection! But this perfection can be visualized as perfection in stages. So you start practicing the yoga postures in a small way - today! You start doing some small service in a small way, study some Scripture without understanding very much. Repeat a mantra or meditate imperfectly. I am not entirely perfect, but I've started on all fronts.
That is what Swami Sivananda taught us in his Integral Yoga: right from the first day of the practice of yoga you can do everything - i.e., whatever you know at the present moment - without considering that you know everything, without thinking that you have obtained perfection, without despairing or becoming discouraged, without comparing yourself with anyone else.
Today you are doing what you know, what you can and what is 'whole'. You study, meditate, do some japa and asanas. Where there is an opportunity, do some service. You lead a fairly disciplined life. While doing this, one little defect here and one little difficulty there, comes into view. You try to rise above these things and overcome them. When you have taken that step, the next step comes into view! Thus one goes on developing infinitely, throughout life. That is yoga.
Power corrupts, but only corrupt men seek and assume power.