The Experiment

Just for a moment, stop and think about the wide variety of relationships you have every day. Think of your spouse or partner, your child, parents, siblings, friends, extended family, pets, people you work for or with, and those you do business with (like the banker, supermarket cashier, auto mechanic, carpenter or plumber). Now, consider more remote relationships with your local, state and national government officials, all the celebrity types you know through the internet, television, radio, films and recordings. You have relationships with the house or apartment you live in, your work, tools, car, computer, clothes and the environment. Then add the thousands of other, more intimate relationships you have with your body, the food you eat, your breath, your senses, as well as your countless thoughts, desires, memories, imaginations, emotions and concepts. Let’s face it, in every moment of every day we have a new relationship!

And every single relationship requires us to take some kind of action. Essentially, that’s what having a relationship means. When we have a relationship, it means that a thought, desire or emotion is commanding our attention and requiring us to respond. Relationships imply action, just as action implies a relationship, and our choice of which thoughts to think, which words to speak and which actions to take will determine whether our relationships bring us happiness or sorrow.

We experience pain and dis-ease in our relationships because most of us merely adopt the goals, fashions, ideals and habits of our family, tribe, religion, age, gender, culture or society, without really knowing ourselves first, both within and without.

This leaves us ignorant of our Divine nature and Its Perfect wisdom, and dependent on the suggestions of others––outside of us. As each new generation takes on the handicaps of the previous generations, humanity continues to look outside itself for new objects and relationships that––it is hoped, or expected––will bring the desired happiness and contentment. Unfortunately, what we often wind up with is stress, anxiety, frustration, burnout, anger or even depression.

This beleaguered state is not new. Six thousand years ago, certain wise people had already understood that our ignorance is the root cause of the pain experienced in dealing with life’s constant and inevitable changes. In response to their dis-ease, these women and men began to experiment with knowledge received intuitively through a daily meditation practice and came to know that although change is indeed constant and inevitable, responding to that change with pain and bondage is not.

In Sanskrit the word lila is used to describe the vast, joyful and spontaneous playfulness of creation. The word “play” implies fun, and lila is the Supreme Reality’s game that we are well equipped to enjoy. Whether we understand the word play to mean a theatrical production or the everyday events of an infinite cosmic game with defined rules and regulations makes little difference––we are the players.

As skilled thespians we’re required to play a variety of roles as perfectly as we can, but no truly accomplished performers identify so completely with their roles that they forget who they are. Likewise, the skilled athlete is never so consumed by the winning or losing that they forget how to play the game. As Shakespeare says, “The play’s the thing!” We merely need to know how to play well and then to enjoy it.

The foundation of ancient Yoga Science was originally formulated to guide human beings through every relationship and circumstance––to transform life’s “play” from a dreary noun into an exhilarating and rewarding verb.

But even though we may have learned to meditate, we all have challenges in our lives with different kinds of relationships. When we find ourselves speeding through life at 100 miles an hour, our mind’s autopilot is immediately activated. As a result, we forget about the philosophy and Science of Yoga. We forget that we are essentially spirit having a human experience. We forget to remain in the witnessing state of Consciousness. We forget the importance of coordinating the Four Functions of the Mind. Consequently, the Ego and Reptilian Brain (fearful of losing control or being totally annihilated), seize control of 95 percent of our thoughts, words, actions and experiences.

When we recognize and contemplate this debilitating, self-inflicted, personalized form of human bondage, one very helpful practice is to consciously examine and experiment with the vocabulary we choose to use every day. You see, it is our unexamined vocabulary that ultimately colors the thoughts we think, words we speak, then the actions we take and the consequences we experience.

As many of you remember from the Foundation Course, by examining, experimenting and editing the vocabulary we use, we can discover if, like other spiritual seekers, we too have become addicted to using the word problem unconsciously to describe any particular karma that the Ego doesn’t like, or claims is undesirable, untimely, unacceptable, unwanted, too complicated, time-consuming, unfair, distasteful or unreasonably challenging.

That simple realization provides the earnest spiritual seeker the detachment, discrimination and will power necessary to re-establish the witnessing state, which in turn, provides us the ability to see things as they are, not as they appear; to see and to know that the concept and energy of a problem is dark, heavy, injurious, harmful, unkind and debilitating––a force that is actually antithetical to the highest yogic principle of ahimsa: non-injury, non-harming, non-violence.

When I first realized how compromised my own mind had become, I immediately sought the counsel of one of the most trustworthy books in my library: the thesaurus. Then, upon reading the synonyms for the word problem, I immediately knew “I”, the Higher Self (rather than the personality), did NOT have a problem. Rather, I knew, and knew that I knew that the kind of relationship I was having was actually a situation! And upon hearing the word situation in my mind, I immediately felt lighter, more kind, more loved and loving, inspired, energized, creative, optimistic and self-confident.

And I thought that this experiment, experience and realization was well worth sharing with you.

Meet the author