Taking back the power- through Self-mastery
These myths reflect our ignorance and our inability to deal with life from a position of inner strength. Instead of responding effectively and confidently to the pressure and challenges of modern life, we find ourselves playing the role of victims. Only through self-mastery can you use the power of your inner resources to create a loving, fearless, and joyful life.
Like two sides of a coin, self-mastery has two aspects that cannot be separated: self-awareness and self-discipline (skill). Having one without the other is like trying to eat milk with a fork. It is the dynamic interaction of these two elements that gives us the power to live life the way we choose.
As our self-awareness deepens, we become more aware of the power and beauty of our personalities. As we grow in our ability to observe, we discover the hidden relationship between body, mind, and spirit. We begin to see that mind is already creative. We find that we do have the wisdom to choose the right course for ourselves. We find the inner strength that is unaffected by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Self-awareness means to consciously experience the different dimensions of our finest instruments, our minds and bodies, and experience at the deepest level their relationship to our true self, the spiritual core of our being.
All of our awareness is useless without the skill to use it. Self-discipline is the other half of self-mastery. Each one of us has skills, and everyday we use self-discipline. But because we aren’t aware of what we do, we become skilled in ways that create problems for us.
Let’s take a simple example. For many of us, flossing is a habit that many of us learned in childhood. For those who didn’t learn that habit performing it seems to be a chore they have to remember. When they meet you at a party and naturally discussion turns to gingivitis, they look in amazement when they hear that you floss every day. “My how disciplined you are!” they remark. You can’t get it, as you don’t consider yourself to be that much disciplined. After all, you know all the things you would accomplish if only you had more discipline.
To be skilled means that we practice until that particular set of things becomes a habit. The key word is practice, but practice what? If you want to be a batsman you practice batting, if you want to become accountant you practice accounting. But what do you practice when you want to become skilled human beings? Unfortunately, we seldom think in these terms. Formal education fills our head with facts, figures, and systems but it doesn’t teach us how to use the most important tools that we have, the powerful inner resource of our own minds.
We need a systematic, practical approach to help us develop our inner skills. This is the essence of this our program build on yogic traditions. It provides us with the concepts and tools that allow us to live our daily lives with awareness and discipline, with skill and power. It is the practical science of self-responsibility.
Taking Control
Because we aren’t skilled human beings, we feel powerless and ineffectual and become more dissatisfied and cynical about ourselves and our ability to make a real difference in life. We never realize the unlimited resource of power and abilities, but it doesn’t come in pill, it isn’t dispensed by a therapist, and it isn’t and it isn’t activated by crystals hung around the neck. We ourselves, already have this resource. But we must develop the knowledge and discipline to use it. This is what it means to be responsible. Think of responsibility as two concepts: “response” and “ability.” One obvious dimension of response is the capacity to respond rather than react. When we react to something, we are not making a conscious choice, but acting out of habit.
Let’s take an example
I imagine you have one of those workdays when nothing seems to be going right. No matter what you tried to do something or somebody would come along and throw water on your plans and frustrate your efforts. Finally you leave for home. You get into your car, pull out on the highway, and some jerk pulls out right I front of you. You crowd up behind him, lay on the horn, scream obscenities, and give hand signals expressing your anger. It’s only then you notice several antennae on the car and a license plate that says “State Police” in small letters before the numbers.
If you hadn’t been in reaction, you probably would have chosen a different set of behaviors. Your emotional state led you right to reacting in ways that might very well prove to be troublesome. The stronger the emotional reaction, the more predictable our behavior becomes, the less creative we are, and less freedom we experience.
Not too many years ago, western medical science insisted that we had little control that happened in our bodies, and even less control over disease. Fortunately, in the early 1960s we found that by using biofeedback we could control and change physical events in our bodies that, according to the experts, were uncontrollable. Suddenly we were learning how to consciously regulate blood flow, control the firing of muscle neuron, and even change brain- wave patterns. Almost overnight, everything science had told us about the “involuntary” nervous system was being questioned.
The recognition that the west had in 60’s about the control that we have over what happens in our bodies was something the yogis have known and demonstrated for more than 4,000 years. It is beginning to have a impact in modern society, we find a anew philosophy and practice of medicine emerging called “holistic health,” which involves the whole person – mind, body, and spirit – in creating health and wellness.
What greater magic is there than to discover that you have the power and knowledge to become free of ulcers or high blood pressure, or eliminate headaches that you have had for years, or live your life without anxiety or depression?
Physicians and health-care experts generally agree that a high percentage (about 70 to 80 percent) of our disease are psychosomatic. This does not mean that our symptoms (ulcer pain or headache) are imaginary; they are certainly real enough, and real physiological changes do occur. The term psychosomatic means that our emotional, mental, and behavioral habits play a subtle but critical role in creating the conditions which allow disease to develop. But then, the opposite is also true. If we become aware of how the mind and body work together, and become skilled in using the mind to direct our emotions, we can heal or minimize many of the diseases from which we suffer, and even prevent many of them from developing.
High blood pressure is the most commonly known problem in our society these days and it is almost always a stress reaction of the vascular system and not caused by an organic disease. Because we don’t know how to control our emotional reactions or maintain inner balance, we can’t control our blood pressure. A doctor treats us with medication to lower our blood pressure, but that doesn’t eliminate the disease or solve the problem, it only manages the symptoms. If this is the only course of action you take, you are engaging in disease maintenance program, not becoming healthy. We have seen that even arteriosclerosis, hardening of arteries, can be reversed with proper diet, exercise, and self-management techniques without the use of medicines.
But it is nowhere written that we must wait until we have heart disease or some other problem to help ourselves. Although we might have not learned these skills while growing up, no one prevents us from learning them now. Why not teach ourselves and our children to use the power of our resources. Now is the time to become skilled, not after the heart attack.
These myths reflect our ignorance and our inability to deal with life from a position of inner strength. Instead of responding effectively and confidently to the pressure and challenges of modern life, we find ourselves playing the role of victims. Only through self-mastery can you use the power of your inner resources to create a loving, fearless, and joyful life.
Like two sides of a coin, self-mastery has two aspects that cannot be separated: self-awareness and self-discipline (skill). Having one without the other is like trying to eat milk with a fork. It is the dynamic interaction of these two elements that gives us the power to live life the way we choose.
As our self-awareness deepens, we become more aware of the power and beauty of our personalities. As we grow in our ability to observe, we discover the hidden relationship between body, mind, and spirit. We begin to see that mind is already creative. We find that we do have the wisdom to choose the right course for ourselves. We find the inner strength that is unaffected by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Self-awareness means to consciously experience the different dimensions of our finest instruments, our minds and bodies, and experience at the deepest level their relationship to our true self, the spiritual core of our being.
All of our awareness is useless without the skill to use it. Self-discipline is the other half of self-mastery. Each one of us has skills, and everyday we use self-discipline. But because we aren’t aware of what we do, we become skilled in ways that create problems for us.
Let’s take a simple example. For many of us, flossing is a habit that many of us learned in childhood. For those who didn’t learn that habit performing it seems to be a chore they have to remember. When they meet you at a party and naturally discussion turns to gingivitis, they look in amazement when they hear that you floss every day. “My how disciplined you are!” they remark. You can’t get it, as you don’t consider yourself to be that much disciplined. After all, you know all the things you would accomplish if only you had more discipline.
To be skilled means that we practice until that particular set of things becomes a habit. The key word is practice, but practice what? If you want to be a batsman you practice batting, if you want to become accountant you practice accounting. But what do you practice when you want to become skilled human beings? Unfortunately, we seldom think in these terms. Formal education fills our head with facts, figures, and systems but it doesn’t teach us how to use the most important tools that we have, the powerful inner resource of our own minds.
We need a systematic, practical approach to help us develop our inner skills. This is the essence of this our program build on yogic traditions. It provides us with the concepts and tools that allow us to live our daily lives with awareness and discipline, with skill and power. It is the practical science of self-responsibility.
Taking Control
Because we aren’t skilled human beings, we feel powerless and ineffectual and become more dissatisfied and cynical about ourselves and our ability to make a real difference in life. We never realize the unlimited resource of power and abilities, but it doesn’t come in pill, it isn’t dispensed by a therapist, and it isn’t and it isn’t activated by crystals hung around the neck. We ourselves, already have this resource. But we must develop the knowledge and discipline to use it. This is what it means to be responsible. Think of responsibility as two concepts: “response” and “ability.” One obvious dimension of response is the capacity to respond rather than react. When we react to something, we are not making a conscious choice, but acting out of habit.
Let’s take an example
I imagine you have one of those workdays when nothing seems to be going right. No matter what you tried to do something or somebody would come along and throw water on your plans and frustrate your efforts. Finally you leave for home. You get into your car, pull out on the highway, and some jerk pulls out right I front of you. You crowd up behind him, lay on the horn, scream obscenities, and give hand signals expressing your anger. It’s only then you notice several antennae on the car and a license plate that says “State Police” in small letters before the numbers.
If you hadn’t been in reaction, you probably would have chosen a different set of behaviors. Your emotional state led you right to reacting in ways that might very well prove to be troublesome. The stronger the emotional reaction, the more predictable our behavior becomes, the less creative we are, and less freedom we experience.
Not too many years ago, western medical science insisted that we had little control that happened in our bodies, and even less control over disease. Fortunately, in the early 1960s we found that by using biofeedback we could control and change physical events in our bodies that, according to the experts, were uncontrollable. Suddenly we were learning how to consciously regulate blood flow, control the firing of muscle neuron, and even change brain- wave patterns. Almost overnight, everything science had told us about the “involuntary” nervous system was being questioned.
The recognition that the west had in 60’s about the control that we have over what happens in our bodies was something the yogis have known and demonstrated for more than 4,000 years. It is beginning to have a impact in modern society, we find a anew philosophy and practice of medicine emerging called “holistic health,” which involves the whole person – mind, body, and spirit – in creating health and wellness.
What greater magic is there than to discover that you have the power and knowledge to become free of ulcers or high blood pressure, or eliminate headaches that you have had for years, or live your life without anxiety or depression?
Physicians and health-care experts generally agree that a high percentage (about 70 to 80 percent) of our disease are psychosomatic. This does not mean that our symptoms (ulcer pain or headache) are imaginary; they are certainly real enough, and real physiological changes do occur. The term psychosomatic means that our emotional, mental, and behavioral habits play a subtle but critical role in creating the conditions which allow disease to develop. But then, the opposite is also true. If we become aware of how the mind and body work together, and become skilled in using the mind to direct our emotions, we can heal or minimize many of the diseases from which we suffer, and even prevent many of them from developing.
High blood pressure is the most commonly known problem in our society these days and it is almost always a stress reaction of the vascular system and not caused by an organic disease. Because we don’t know how to control our emotional reactions or maintain inner balance, we can’t control our blood pressure. A doctor treats us with medication to lower our blood pressure, but that doesn’t eliminate the disease or solve the problem, it only manages the symptoms. If this is the only course of action you take, you are engaging in disease maintenance program, not becoming healthy. We have seen that even arteriosclerosis, hardening of arteries, can be reversed with proper diet, exercise, and self-management techniques without the use of medicines.
But it is nowhere written that we must wait until we have heart disease or some other problem to help ourselves. Although we might have not learned these skills while growing up, no one prevents us from learning them now. Why not teach ourselves and our children to use the power of our resources. Now is the time to become skilled, not after the heart attack.
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