Yama and Niyama are the basic rules of conduct [social and personal] for enlightened living. They are the first two limbs of the Ashtanga [eight-limbed] Yoga according to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras [2.30 and 2.32]*.
Yama [abstinences or external discipline] includenon-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, non-excess and non-covetousness.
Niyama[observances or internal discipline] include purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study, and surrender to indwelling omnipresence.
Yoga is rooted in the notion of developing a positive personality. Therefore ethical discipline or the practice of correct conduct is necessary for success in yoga. This is the basis of yama and niyama, the two moral backbones of yoga. They define the attributes to be practised in everyday life by a spiritual aspirant.
To dwell continually in good
thoughts, is to throw around oneself a psychic atmosphere of sweetness and
power which leaves its impress upon all who come in contact with it.
Where there is sterling faith and
uncompromising purity there is health, there is success, there is power. In
such a one, disease, failure, and disaster can find no lodgment, for there is
nothing on which they can feed.Even physical conditions are largely determined
by mental states, and to this truth the scientific world is rapidly being
drawn.
Disease comes to those who
attract it, to those whose minds and bodies are receptive to it, and flees from
those whose strong, pure, and positive thought-sphere generates healing and
life-giving currents.
If you are given to anger, worry, jealousy, greed, or any
other inharmonious state of mind, and expect perfect physical health, you are
expecting the impossible, for you are continually sowing the seeds of disease
in your mind. Such conditions of mind are carefully shunned by the wise man,
for he knows them to be far more dangerous than a bad drain or an infected house.
If you would be free from all physical aches and pains, and would enjoy perfect
physical harmony, then put your mind in order, and harmonize your thoughts.
Think joyful thoughts; think loving thoughts; let the elixir of goodwill course
through your veins, and you will need no other medicine. Put away your
jealousies, your suspicions, your worries, your hatreds, your selfish
indulgences, and you will put away your dyspepsia, your biliousness, your
nervousness and aching joints. If you will persist in clinging to these
debilitating and demoralizing habits of mind, then do not complain when your
body is laid low with sickness.
To follow, under all circumstances,
the highest promptings within you; to be always true to the divine self; to
rely upon the inward Light, the inward Voice, and to pursue your purpose with a
fearless and restful heart, believing that the future will yield unto you the
meed of every thought and effort; knowing that the laws of the universe can
never fail, and that your own will come back to you with mathematical
exactitude, this is faith and the living of faith.
He who puts his hand in the
fire must suffer the burning until such time as it has worked itself out. Neither curses nor prayers can avail to alter it. Hatred,
anger, jealousy, envy, lust, covetousness, all these are fires which bum. And
whoever even so much as touches them must suffer the torments of burning.
Love,
gentleness, good-will, purity, are cooling airs which breathe peace upon the
soul that woos them. Being in harmony with the Eternal Law, they become
actualized in the form of health, peaceful surroundings, and undeviating
success and good fortune.
A thorough understanding of
this Great Law which permeates the universe leads to the acquirement of that
state of mind known as obedience. To know that justice, harmony, and love are
supreme in the universe is likewise to know that all adverse and painful
conditions are the result of our own disobedience to that Law.
Such knowledge leads to
strength and power, and it is upon such knowledge alone that a true life and an
enduring success and happiness can be built. To be patient
under all circumstances, and to accept all conditions as necessary factors in
your training, is to rise superior to all painful conditions.
The cause of all power, as
of all weakness, is within; the secret of all happiness as of all misery is
likewise within. There is no progress apart from
unfoldment within, and no sure foothold of prosperity or peace except by
orderly advancement in knowledge.
You say you are chained by
circumstances; you cry out for better opportunities, for a wider scope, for
improved physical conditions, and perhaps you inwardly curse the fate that
binds you hand and foot. It is for you that I write; it is to you that I speak.
Listen, and
let my words burn themselves into your heart, for that which I say to you is
truth: You may bring about that improved condition in your outward life which
you desire, if you will unswervingly resolve to improve your inner life.
I know this pathway looks
barren at its commencement, but if you undertake to walk it;if you perseveringly discipline your mind, eradicating your weaknesses, and
allowing your soul-forces and spiritual powers to unfold themselves, you will
be astonished at the magical changes which will be brought about in your outward
life.
As you
proceed, golden opportunities will be strewn across your path, and the power
and judgment to properly utilize them will spring up within you. Genial friends
will come unbidden to you; sympathetic souls will be drawn to you as the needle
is to the magnet; and books and all outward aids that you require will come to
you unsought.
Perhaps the chains of
poverty hang heavily upon you, and you are friendless and alone, and you long
with an intense longing that your load may be lightened; but the load
continues, and you seem to be enveloped in an ever-increasing darkness.
Perhaps you complain, you
bewail your lot; you blame your birth, your parents, your employer, or the
unjust Powers who have bestowed upon you so undeservedly poverty and hardship,
and upon another affluence and ease.
Cease your
complaining and fretting; none of these things which you blame are the cause of
your poverty; the cause is within yourself, and where the cause is, there is
the remedy.
The very fact that you are a
complainer, shows that you deserve your lot; shows that you lack that faith
which is the ground of all effort and progress.
There is no
room for a complainer in a universe of law, and worry is soul-suicide. By your
very attitude of mind you are strengthening the chains which bind you, and are
drawing about you the darkness by which you are enveloped.
Alter your
outlook upon life, and your outward life will alter. Build yourself up in the
faith and knowledge, and make yourself worthy of better surroundings and wider
opportunities.
Be sure, first of all, that
you are making the best of what you have. Do not delude yourself into supposing
that you can step into greater advantages whilst overlooking smaller ones, for
if you could, the advantage would be impermanent and you would quickly fall
back again in order to learn the lesson which you had neglected.
Perhaps you
are living in a small cottage, and are surrounded by unhealthy and vicious
influences. You desire a larger and more sanitary residence. Then you must fit
yourself for such a residence by first of all making your cottage as far as
possible a little paradise. Keep it spotlessly clean. Make it look as pretty
and sweet as your limited means will allow. Cook your plain food with all care,
and arrange your humble table as tastefully as you possibly can.
If you cannot
afford a carpet, let your rooms be carpeted with smiles and welcomes, fastened
down with the nails of kind words driven in with the hammer of patience. Such a
carpet will not fade in the sun, and constant use will never wear it away.
By so
ennobling your present surroundings you will rise above them, and above the
need of them, and at the right time you will pass on into the better house and
surroundings which have all along been waiting for you, and which you have
fitted yourself to occupy.
Perhaps you desire more time
for thought and effort, and feel that your hours of labor are too hard and
long. Then see to it that you are utilizing to the fullest possible extent what
little spare time you have.
It is useless
to desire more time, if you are already wasting what little you have; for you
would only grow more indolent and indifferent. Even poverty and lack of time
and leisure are not the evils that you imagine they are, and if they hinder you
in your progress, it is because you have clothed them in your own weaknesses,
and the evil that you see in them is really in yourself.
Endeavor to
fully and completely realize that in so far as you shape and mould your mind,
you are the maker of your destiny, and as, by the transmuting power of
self-discipline you realize this more and more, you will come to see that these
so-called evils may be converted into blessings.
You will then
utilize your poverty for the cultivation of patience, hope and courage; and
your lack of time in the gaining of promptness of action and decision of mind,
by seizing the precious moments as they present themselves for your acceptance.
As in the
rankest soil the most beautiful flowers are grown, so in the dark soil of
poverty the choicest flowers of humanity have developed and bloomed. Where
there are difficulties to cope with, and unsatisfactory conditions to overcome,
there virtue most flourishes and manifests its glory.
Michelangelo [1475–1564], was anItaliansculptor, painter, architect, poet,
and engineer of theHigh Renaissancewho exerted an unparalleled influence
on the development ofWestern art.
Considered as the
greatest living artist in his lifetime, he has since been held as one ofthe greatest artists of all time. His versatility in the disciplines he
took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for
the title of the archetypalRenaissance man,
along with his fellow ItalianLeonardo da
Vinci.
A number of his works in
painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence.His output in every field during his
long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches,
and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the
best-documented artist of the 16th century.
Two of his best-known
works, thePietàandDavid, were sculpted before he turned
thirty. Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works infrescoin the history of Western art: the
scenes from Genesis on theceilingandThe Last Judgmenton the altar wall of theSistine Chapelin Rome.
Leonardo da Vinci, [1452–1519] was anItalianpolymath.
He was a painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, musician, mathematician,
engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, astronomer, cartographer, botanist,
historian and writer.
He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time
and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived in the
Western world.He is
referred to as the Father of paleontology alongsideGeorges Cuvier.
His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the
Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of theRenaissance Man, a
man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive
imagination".
