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The Practice of Ahimsa — by Connie Habash
When you think about the concept of non-violence, what do you think of? Protest groups, Martin Luther King, Gandhi? Do you think of not hurting other people, or maybe getting rid of some of the television shows that air nightly in those electronic boxes of ours? Well, non-violence is really a lot more personal than all of that. It starts right in our thoughts, our homes, and on our yoga mats. And it has everything to do with how we treat ourselves.
In yoga, non-violence is the first ethical practice discussed in the Yoga Sutras, the essential text that much of modern yoga has evolved out of. Non-violence is called Ahimsa, and it literally means "to not be lion-like" or "not to kill". It is the practice of restraint of any violent or negative impulses that could harm another.
Frankly, it's relatively easy to think about not physically harming someone or something else. For most of us, we know we shouldn't hit other people or animals, or harm the environment, and we even may think about "not hurting a fly". It's concrete and palpable, and thus easy to understand non-violence in that context. In my opinion, the most challenging aspect of Ahimsa is to not harm ourselves. And it goes far beyond physical harm, although that can be a subtle issue, too.
One of the problems with an idea like non-violence though, is that whenever you think of it, what do you think of? Yep, you think of the violence that you're not supposed to do. So I like to think of Ahimsa as Kindness. BKS Iyengar describes Ahimsa as having "a wider positive meaning - love." So Ahimsa is really about kindness and love to all beings, and in particular in this article, we're looking at kindness and love to ourselves.
This is when it gets challenging, because the practice of Ahimsa - Kindness and Love - takes discipline. And we may be pretty good at disciplining ourselves to go to work, to make our bed, to do the dishes - but how good are we at disciplining ourselves to be kind and loving to ourselves?
I use the word discipline very intently here, not as the form of punishment, but as the form of discipline that includes 1) practice and 2) restraint. After all the years of negative self-talk, self-criticism, doubtfulness, aggressiveness towards our bodies, stress, and overwork, it takes a good chunk of discipline to change our inner attitude to one of kindness and love for ourselves. We have to practice replacing the negative thoughts with positive, supportive ones. We have to practice being mindful and kind to our bodies, rather than ignoring, abusing, or misusing them.
Whenever you have a bad habit, you know how hard it is to change it - it takes discipline to change it and replace it with a good one, and replacing those negative, self-defeating thoughts and behaviors with self-kindness and love is the practice of Ahimsa.
This practice also involves the discipline of restraint. Sometimes discipline is holding ourselves back from doing something, rather than trying to make ourselves do something. If you're the type of person that over-schedules, drives yourself to exhaustion, and does exercise to excess, maybe even to physical injury, then the practice of Ahimsa may be to discipline yourself to back off, say no, rest, or relax.
However, if someone were more likely to just stay at home on the couch, or go back to sleep rather than give their body the movement it needs, it will take both restraint to keep themselves from crawling back under the sheets, and practice to get outside and take a walk, or get out the yoga mat and do some poses. Those things may be more kind and loving to yourself than continuing to sleep.
But even in the practice of Ahimsa we have to be careful. The old sneaky mind can fall back into its habits of self-criticism, causing self-harm with our thoughts. If you find yourself beating yourself up for once again overdoing it in your workout, or snapping back at your child, can you embrace yourself with compassion, kindness and love instead of castigation? I think we learn to do better the next time with being kind and forgiving of ourselves rather than self-punishing. Rather than put the energy into how much we have fallen short of being "good enough", getting frustrated and angry with ourselves, we can focus on how we can handle the situation better next time, creating positivity out of a negative situation.
The bottom line is that when we can practice Ahimsa with ourselves, it's easier to start practicing it with other beings. When we're able to love ourselves as we are, forgive our mistakes, and treat ourselves with kindness, it becomes natural to treat others similarly. A good internal habit supports a good external one. Whenever you practice Ahimsa with yourself, think about how you can be as kind and loving towards someone else over the same issue. Then you'll see that we're all just human beings, trying to do our best and to support each other in that process.
And if you find it easier to practice kindness and love towards others, then start there and consider how you'd treat another person when you find yourself being less than perfect. As Mr. Iyengar says, "This love [Ahimsa] embraces all creation, for we are all children of the same [Divine Being]." If we can remember ourselves and others as children of that same Spirit, practicing Ahimsa just might come a little easier.
Copyright 2001, 2003, by Constance L. Habash