One should not adopt pessimistic attitude on the attainment of meager results of our actions.
~ note on Swami Hariharananda Aranya's Yoga Karika II.70
In his major commentaries on the Yoga Sutras, Samkhya-Yogacarya Swami Hariharananda Aranya says that by “contentment” (among the five niyamas) is not meant a lack of striving or ambition. Rather, Patanjali advises us to strive with optimism, but to be happy in whatever present station we inhabit at the same time. To the Western mind raised with capitalism as the default, this sounds like a contradiction, but the divine view taken by the yogi allows for this. The yogi practices a sort of metacognition which allows the intuitive intellect to watch contentedly as the rest of the mental-sensory apparatus goes about its work; this budhi capacity may guide the objective consciousness toward better or higher ends, but it does not need to feel anxiety about it. This is because, whatever the actions engaged in may be, the yogi’s higher mental functions are making use of those circumstances in a godly direction. If our efforts do not bear the fruits we hoped, we may still gain by them on other levels, for example by learning what not to do, or discriminating between what is worth our time and energy and what is not.
While this is true of our purely outward-facing activities — our work, our hobbies, our family lives and friendships, our health, and so forth — it is doubly so of our inner efforts. That is, our sadhana is moving us along despite any feelings of frustration or disappointment we may feel when obvious results are not forthcoming. I’m retreading old ground, here, but it builds to another observation.
There’s a lot of popular conversation, these days, about trauma, depression, anxiety, ADHD, dysphoria, and other mental health and nervous system disturbances, disorders, and differences. Taking advantage of healthcare resources, when and where available, is basic wisdom. Not only should there be no shame in this, it ought to be encouraged among our loved ones and in the culture at large. Yogis in particular need to think hard about this, as we tend to be independent types who both do not like to be told what to do and believe that, at least mentally, we ought to be self-sufficient. But, so long as we are in this world, with these bodies, we will have needs which will require the help of others to fulfill.
It has been observed in all of the Yoga traditions that we are most often brought to the spiritual path by a recognition of our own suffering. Yoga is itself a course of treatment for a diagnosis of existential suffering which cannot be otherwise treated. We may try deadening ourselves through drugs or by trying to intellectualize our own experience away, but none of this reaches the root of the trouble. The outside help of healthcare professionals and sympathetic friends, though invaluable, does not reach the heart of the problem, either.
Karma, so much misunderstood and abused, does not give us permission to blame people for their every misfortune. Rather, the law of karma appears to indicate that our past actions bear fruit in the form of the circumstances in which we are born and our natural lifespan; our responses to our circumstances, the actions of others, and the brute facts of the natural world determine what happens during our lifespan, and whether or not we meet a premature death. All of this, too, is karma, insofar as all actions are, quite literally, karmas which will either bear fruit quickly (in the life in which the karmas are done) or slowly (in future births), and the actions which others take will similarly determine the fruits they must eat. So, karma is an incredibly complex web and not a straight line.
Our circumstances of birth do, however, include our bodies, our minds, and the interface between them: the physical nervous system and the subtle energy system. And these determine almost completely how we experience life in the world.
For instance, a person with autism, even one who is fully verbal and overall able to support themselves in the world, will nevertheless experience the world (in the sense meant in last week’s post) as a much more hostile and alien thing than the average allistic will. They will not automatically be joyless and cold (despite stereotypes), let alone anti-Cosmic, but will almost certainly have a pervasive sense that they do not belong. This is automatically interpreted negatively, as a bad thing, a disorder. And we may say that it is a dis-ease, but a feeling of disease is not identical to the underlying illness or injury. That is, quite often, the same symptoms may arise from, and so be pointing to, a different problem in one person versus another.
I am saying this, as it were, from the inside. My own autism has caused me no end of trouble. But that very trouble is a large part of what turned me toward the spiritual path. The constant feeling of alienation — attested to equally by the Buddha, Patanjali, Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Upanishads, many Christian and Hermetic mystics, among others — was a major motivator in seeking out a cure which would truly get to the root of things and ensure that such suffering could no longer arise again in any future life. Alienation and suffering are certainly not unique to autism, but autism is one of the karmic fruits which bring them to the forefront of conscious experience enough to demand attention.
I do not mean by any of this that autism — or anything else, for that matter — is inevitably or even primarily a “spiritual calling”. Such ideas as Indigo children which make this claim are dangerous, forcing autistic or ADHD children into the position of empaths, healers, and saviors for adults who would be better off developing their own emotional intelligence and helping their children to constructively address their sensitivities and capacities. At its worst, this is a form of narcissism justifying itself through a pseudo-spiritual worldview which still centers the little ego and its petty concerns. But these things can be part of a constellation of factors which together bring a person to the Way. In my own case, the sense of difference foisted upon me, my preference for my own company, difficulties understanding the priorities of other people, sensory overstimulation, and intense focus on areas of special interest to the detriment of other areas of life all combined with early paranormal experiences and a broad interest in getting to the bottom of existence and consciousness to form a gestalt which brought me to various forms of experiential and esoteric spirituality. Yoga and Tantra just happen to do the best job of addressing my questions and my needs with robust yet readily applicable techniques while serving a simultaneously therapeutic function of nervous system regulation.
It is a complex combination of the bodies and minds with which we were born and the experiences which come to us both by accident and through our own actions which bring us along, or move us away from the goal. It is for this reason that preserving health is so important in the Yoga traditions, but also why it is not overemphasized. The body overall, the nervous system in particular, and the mind which operates through them, are all instrumental, which is to say that they are important but not the real point. They combine with the world to become the context in which we seek the reality of ourselves. Through the skillful means of sadhana, even our traumas, sensitivities, and apparent weaknesses can by reframed. They may not disappear in this lifetime, but their very presence can fuel our efforts in a myriad of ways, spiritually, intellectually, and creatively. Thus can “evil karmas” be turned to good ends.