Let Peace Begin With Me : Ahimsa

I went to catholic schools from 1-12 grade. My favorite parts of being in church was the stillness, the ritual and the music. I didn’t feel the presence of God in the teaching, in the action of the nuns, or the preaching from the pulpit. I felt God’s love pouring through the stained glass window like a rainbow of warm sunlight just for me. I didn’t even listen to the priest because they were not preaching from a place of humility and love. They were fire and brim stone. They reminded me of the Pharisees or religious scholars from Jesus’ day. They were not like Jesus. I have been meditating, pontificating, studying and praying about ahimsa. Today I awoke with a song from my childhood : “Let peace begin with me! Let this be the moment, NOW. With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow. With God as our Father, children all are we. Let us walk with each other, in perfect harmony.” This is Ahimsa! It is universal peace, love and harmony. This is a lofty goal, but definitely one worth practicing and aiming for. Sometimes we feel powerless in a world that has so much chaos and violence. We don’t even need to look beyond the four walls of our homes to see real life suffering. We can look within our own being and get overwhelmed with pain in that space alone. I believe that is just the place to begin. “Let peace begin with me! Let this be the moment NOW” If each human being stopped reaching for the speck in their brothers eye and returned to the plank in their own eye we would begin to move in the right direction. For as hard and long as I have tried, I have never been able to control another human being. I can teach them, love them, shape and guide them, provide for them, but I cannot control them because they have their own perfect plan unfolding. Every time I think I can or try to control them I slip into a role of trying to play God. Those are shoes I don’t want to and am not equipped to fill and so I practice surrender and love. This is Ahimsa. In Sanskrit the word ahimsa means non-violence or non-harming. In the yoga sutras, Patanjali writes that “Being firmly grounded in nonviolence creates an atmosphere in which others can let go of their hostility.” This practice begins with awareness. It is very important to be able to look at yourself through the eyes of compassion. Many times you are doing harm to yourself in the critical thoughts and attitudes of the mind. As I write these words, my son applies pressure to me to release him from his grounding. Would the non-violent thing to do be let him fly free or give him an opportunity to suffer a consequence for a poor choice so that in the future he will be protected from more harm? There are two sides to every story and two halves to every whole, but I think the glass is half full and all the world needs now is love sweet love. Love comes in the form of discipline at times and as grace and mercy at other times. The most important thing in each moment is to speak the truth in love. Much of my work in regards to ahimsa is holding my tongue. I vent more than I like to admit. For me, it is just alleviating my pent up frustration, but it is negativity and it is not necessary most of the time. I practice ahimsa by recognizing my own sin nature and doing my best in each moment to release what is not love to God and return to love. I do this with my breath all the time. When I feel anger or frustration rising in me. I breathe in the light of Christ and allow the expansion to fill me completely. I pause in the fullness of his presence. On the exhale I surrender and release what ever is causing harm. I empty completely. I pause and rest in the complete nothingness and trust that I am held in the almighty hand of a good, powerful, and loving God who is in control. I breathe in the light! I breathe out and let go… This is ahimsa! Many times I end my yoga classes by re-committing myself to speaking my own personal truth. Only that which is true, kind and necessary. What if every word you spoke today had to pass through those 3 filters? I think you would cause less harm to the people who you are in community with. What if every thought you thought today had to be true, kind, and necessary? You would dismiss so much mental chatter that you might actually begin to feel the peace that was intended for you. What if you could only do today what was true, kind, and necessary? You would find a rhythm that would radically eliminate busyness and striving and you would return to a deep sense of inner strength and power. This is ahimsa. In our practice of ahimsa, we must be gentle with ourselves. It is easy to beat yourself up for your imperfection in striving to attain this lofty ideal. A practice is something that you do every moment of every day. It is a process that will last a lifetime. There is no beginning or end, only moments in which to notice if you are abiding in love and peace or not. If not, begin again, and lovingly return. Develop compassion and love for yourself today. You are perfectly in progress! You will only begin to love others around you well when you have been loved well. Love yourself today. This is ahimsa. When we practice ahimsa we begin to address ourselves with compassion, curiosity and care. We start to notice the subtle ways we are being violent or harmful with ourselves. As we pay attention and start to feel self-love we begin to heal and move toward integration and peace. From this place of integration we begin to allow this light and love to ripple forward into all that we do. According to B.K.S. Iyengar, “with practice of ahimsa one rises above anger, hatred, aggression, fear, jealousy, resentment, envy, and attachment. With perfection of ahimsa one realizes the unity and oneness of all life and attains universal love, peace, and harmony.” This is my hope for our world. That through the peace in each individual heart we can become rooted, established, and connected in LOVE!