yama: the diamond of integrity
Life rests upon an acute organic sensitivity to death. Misjudgement on a cellular level means death. 3,500,000,000 years of trial and error function as the painpleasure mechanism in every living cell, tissue and organ. This mechanism is an unerring ability to ditinguish between danger and safety, pain and pleasure. It tells us to move our hand from a hot stove; to put on a coat in winter; the diaphragm to contract when blood passing through the respiratory centre of the brain is low in oxygen. The guru within is embedded infallibly as cellular integrity. An integrity that rests upon the unnerring accuracy of the painpleasure mechanism.
To recover the inherent integrity of the body yoga practice can only do so through hearing the painpleasure mechanism speak. It speaks in a binary language: without ifs, buts or maybes. It knows only: pain or pleasure; yes or no. It is speaking to us all the time. We can learn to hear it by listening. As we hear it more clearly we respond to it more and more honestly. For the impulse of life to survive, to thrive, is deep and irresitible. It emerges relentlessly from every cell of our body, through every tissue and organ. It navigates through the painpleasure mechanism.
It is not knowledge that we need to practice yoga: but sensitivity to the painpleasure mechanism. Sensitivity to sensations in joints and muscles. Nothing more and nothing less than this is required. By becoming more and more sensitive and responsive to physical sensations we recover and express the inherent integrity of the body naturally and effortlessly. As we recover the inherent integrity of the body, its inherent unity with mind and spirit manifest and the deeper fruits of yoga ripen spontaneously without any need to put on derived conceptual clothing.
The methodology of yoga is not so much a set of techniques as it is the way technique is applied. This is called by Patanjali “yama” and has five aspects: sensitivity (ahimsa), honesty (satya), openness (asteya), presence (brahmacharya), and generosity (aparaigraha). Any technique must embody these principles if it is to invite the infolding of yoga: asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi. However honest reflection soon reveals that these qualities fluctuate despite our best intentions. They cannot be arbitraily imposed. Awareness of their fluctuation nourishes their presence by virtue of the integrating impact of awareness itself.
By using them as lenses, rather than commandments they invites us to feel, recognise, acknowledge, embrace and accept (yama) what is actually happening. Their value, then, is only secondarily as tools. If yama is regarded as a tool it soon becomes a whipping stick. We judge ourselves according to its presence or absence, and easily become snared in pride, shame and selfdeception. As tools they ensure effective action, but cannot be guaranteed. As lenses they bring us closer to life’s depths and subtleties, and turn out to be the fundamental qualities of awareness itself.
