Happy February!Greetings Radiant Beings, Ahh, we have arrived in the month of love. It is most unfortunate that what we perceive as love is attachment. The reality is as long as we slumber in a state of passion, we will never awaken to the state of love. We have examined truthfulness, sincerity, faithfulness, and tolerance in the previous newsletters, and this time, we explore patience. Hopefully, you have been journaling while practicing brutal honesty and radical acceptance. In that case, you are starting to wake up from your slumber and realize how to move towards more loving relationships in this lifetime. If this is your first newsletter in this series (October 2022), please visit tysdayton.com/newsletters to review the previous newsletters. Now, we begin the journey of patience. Let's start by clarifying what patience is not; patience is not a passive quality and is certainly not a trait of becoming a doormat for others to step on. It is a quality worth building, no matter how often one must fall before cultivating it. It is a trait that all the great saints, sages, and yogis had, and that is enough reason to develop more patience in our lives. One of my favorite definitions of patience comes from Sri Yukteswar Giri; when explaining tapas, he states that tapas is patience. Standard definitions of tapas in the West are heat, austerity, and discipline. Please remember that, as with all Sanskrit words, the English language does not have adequate words to handle the actual meaning and understanding of Sanskrit words; therefore, Sanskrit words use many English words to try and convey the essence of the word. For this relationship study, tapas and patience are the same. If we explore patience or tapas in this manner, we recognize we are not trying to change people or situations for them to fit into our colored version of reality. We want people and situations to change now, but it never has and will never work that way. It is akin to a parent saying, "I only want what is best for my child" The truth is the parent wants what the parent's ego wants for the child because the parent does not know the past actions of the child that lead to the karma in this lifetime. We should all want to pay back our karmic debts and want that for others. Unfortunately, the ego wants something very different than what the soul wants, the ego loves the path of least resistance, and the ego loves to have confirmation that the world revolves around it. The ego will always opt for easy peasy. In contrast, the soul "desires" to pay back all debts and return from which it came, which is Satchidananda (truth, knowledge, and bliss). Remember, we all have pain; suffering is optional, and if we view the world from the "mindset" of the soul, it will attenuate and alleviate suffering because the soul has the patience to let everything occur in its own time as the timing of the Universe is always impeccable. When we consider the world from the ego, the world becomes a hard place to live. Patience is adjusting to whatever life (our karma) has presented to us in a manner that is loving and compassionate rather than with aversions (dwesha) or raga (attachment). The Bible has plenty of bible verses on patience. Here are a couple that illustrate the importance of cultivating patience. Proverbs 15:18 "hot tempers cause arguments, but patience brings peace ." We have all been in situations where our tempers have caused arguments that did not need to happen. We want the other person to act, say or do something promptly (our perception of prompt); when they do not, there is an explosion, and a quarrel ensues. Romans 12:12 states," Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." We want situations to end the way we want them to and when we want them to, and if everything ended the way we want it to, when would we get to practice being joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and most importantly, faithful in prayer? As H.H. Swami Rama says, "yoga is skillfulness in action" we cannot be skillful if we have skin in the game. When we bring patience into any relationship (including the one with ourselves), we bring calmness and tolerance. We will be much more skillful in all circumstances when we are calm and tolerant. The beauty of being adept in action also gets a disentangling of karma. Patience has been challenging; I am hard on myself and can be hard on others. I see where I want to be and want to be there NOW! Unfortunately, it does not work that way. The truth is I do know where I want to be, but I have many items that I must clean from my altar to get me there. It is like cleaning a dirty house; plenty of scrubbing can take hours, but I know it has to be done, so better to get started. If I can wash a few dishes in this lifetime, it will not have been a squandered life, and Divine Mother will welcome me back with open arms to work on that house again. The more patience I develop for myself, the more I cultivate for others, which means the more loving I am to myself and others. The first thing on the journey of patience is identifying triggers that make you impatient. Ask yourself why those are catalysts for you. Getting into the "WHY" of the agitators is fundamental as it will give you answers about yourself. The more you know yourself, the better you will be able to develop an action plan to handle those situations more objectively and move through your life more peacefully. Questions for Patience How often do you endeavor to make a change in others? How often do you attempt to change situations to make them what you want? Are there changes in people or situations that you are actively pursuing to change to fit your needs? Why are these situations and people uncomfortable that make you want to change them? What are situations and people in the past that you have wanted to change? How did it work out? Is there a particular person you want to change? Why? Do they mirror something in you that you dislike and want to change? Describe a situation where you ran out of patience. How could you have handled it more skillfully? In what situations have you historically had more patience? Who are the people you have the most patience with in your life? Who are the people you have the least patience with in your life? Have you ever been in a situation where someone was not patient with you? How did it make you feel? How did it work out?
Happy journaling and Svadhyaya; see you next month as we examine acceptance. In-Service, Ranjani
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