The foundation of perfection in bodhi yoga
The psycho-emotional impeccability of a yoga is, first and foremost, the art in all circumstances to maintain optimal energy relationships with the outside world and with oneself.
The practitioner conducts a strategic inventory of his life. He makes a list of all the negative emotions that he experiences and in general everything that he does. And then he decides what should be changed from the above in order to give himself a break in the expenditure of energy.
Only those behavioral structures that are not essential for survival and well-being are subject to a strategic inventory.
In the strategic list, a sense of self-importance, self-pity and fear of death appear as the most energy-intensive factor, hence the efforts to eradicate them.
Of course, at first it’s not easy to understand what exactly is being discussed and how to make such an “inventory”. In fact, we are talking about certain stereotypes of response to the world around us – stereotypes that are unreasonably energy-intensive and motivating behavior, from the point of view of a yoga reckless and meaningless. Even an ordinary person sometimes feels the absurdity of his reactions and actions, especially if he easily succumbs to the mood of the minute or the innate impulsiveness of his own temperament. In such cases, we often repent, but our sanity lasts for a short while, and soon everything repeats with an offensive monotony. In addition, in our psyche there are a lot of ridiculous and unnecessary stereotypes, the presence of which we are not aware of. However, it is precisely these stereotypes, being unconscious, that pump out strength from us every day, making life so tiring and painful.
Impeccability does not reveal its true essence to a superficial gaze. To more clearly determine the nature of this special state, it is easier for us to turn to well-known terminology and call it the “dissolution” or “overcoming” of the ego and all the negative psycho-emotional states produced by it. Such a discipline is widespread and well known in almost all directions of mystical and occult schools, especially in the East. Each school, of course, offers its own modification of the process, its own metaphysics and metapsychology, explaining and justifying the way of “renunciation of the ego”, each direction considers its technique the most effective, but in essence it is one and the same thing. Orthodox yoga, Tibetan teachings of Kalachakra, ancient schools of Buddhism, Taoism, Zen – they all proclaim different theories, both ontological and psychological, declare different goals of their disciplines, but with respect to the ego they are always unanimous and categorical: ego and negative emotions are the main obstacles on the path of spiritual practice.
The ego, or the idea of a separate, individual “I”, gives rise to the whole complex of psychological activities of the modern individual. This is a true generator of motives and goals of all human civilization. First of all, the ego forces the person to purposeful activity or to abandon the activity if it is not motivated for the ego. Therefore, one of the first steps in overcoming the power of the ego is the well-known practice of the so-called “disinterested action”, that is, the practice of taking actions with complete indifference to their “fruits” – encouraging, rewarding, satisfying any expectations or ambitions achieving the goal.
This principle has been strongly promoted in the ancient Bhagavad Gita, and has since been known as the “Kshatriya ethics of disinterested action.”
He received special development in karma yoga, but is used in almost all schools of Indo-Buddhist mysticism. Chinese mystical doctrine also includes it as an important element from ancient times.
The achievement of impeccability is achieved through overcoming negative emotions and transforming the basal psycho-complexes of the ego (fear of death, feelings of self-importance and self-pity).
Is freedom from negative emotions (NE) possible? People are so hopelessly stuck in them that even the very idea of liberation from NE causes irritation in them. They imagine themselves without NE and are perplexed, but how then to live – to turn into a log that does not feel anything? They are so addicted to NE that they cannot even imagine anything outside of them, although in fact many people have had short-term outbreaks of faint EPs, especially in early childhood.
Ask any person – does he experience NE? He will answer – “of course,” sometimes I experience it. The word “of course” reflects an unshakable conviction that it is otherwise impossible. And the word “sometimes” is self-deception, because people experience NE or NF not “sometimes”, but continuously. The stronger the habit of experiencing NE, the less a person is aware of their presence, and soon only a wild surge of aggression, accompanied by a heart attack, he will recognize as NE, and for the rest of the time he will believe that he does not have NE.
