Some of the most valuable life lessons I have learnt on the yoga mat.

Just last week as I was about to get in a preparatory posture for another one, my guru stopped me. He said that I should go into the next posture directly. Trust me, something which was routine for me became very difficult. After this he explained the phenomenon and told me that my body is used to a certain rhythm. When we break this rhythm we suffer pain. But so is our life. If it gets into a strong rhythm any minor deviation causes pain. In fact real life is not only about routine and predictability but managing deviations too. We all have to manage many difficult and unpredictable situations in our lives. Choice is ours, whether we do it calmly and enthusiastically or suffer the pain. He said that Yog is nothing but simple principles of life, instead of commonly believed ‘yogasanas’ alone. Unless we apply these principles to our real life we have not really understood and benefited from Yog.

Last week there was an article about Indian Special Forces in a magazine. One of the things they are taught during their training is to break their physical and mental routines like sleep time and duration, eating time, resting time and duration, ability to think straight etc. This is done in a force that is also trained to observe highest level of discipline and a life based on standard operating procedures.

Not only in the forces, even we are instilled the virtues of routine and discipline right from the day we are born. We are educated about many things, knowingly or unknowingly, like sleep time, wake up time, eating time, brushing time, school time, office time and the list is endless. Any logical thinking person will say that all these things are essential to live a normal human life. Then what about Yog? What about the training in Special Forces?  Do we need to be disciplinarians or free birds? Both have their virtues, to my mind discipline first.

After all if we remove discipline from our lives we will become like animals – eat when you want, sleep when you want, do whatever you want, no order in whatever we do – and the society will become a jungle. As I see, societal life is completely dependent on everybody maintaining discipline in lives and everybody having a significantly predicable routine.  But as we mature in our disciplined lives we also start becoming ossified without ever realising it. Till the time life follows a predictable path it is fine. But life hardly ever follows predictable patterns at all times and often takes us in unchartered territory. That’s when the discipline and routine are tested.

To explain my thought I shall give some simple examples:

• We follow traffic rules on the road and drive on left side. It is expected that all vehicles follow the rules. They do so also. But one vehicle suddenly comes on the wrong side unexpectedly. Unless other drivers are prepared to accept this break of discipline, routine and predictability there will be a crash. It does happen sometimes.
• We have an important meeting at 4 pm. We reach on time. But the other party gets held up in traffic and is late by few minutes. How do we respond to this change of situation and predictability? We get angry, fret, use cuss words and when the meeting actually starts we are not in control or we maintain equanimity?
• We are used to finding objects of daily use at our homes at specific places. One day children disturb the arrangement and when we want to know the time we don’t see our timepiece. How do we respond? I have seen many people losing their temper badly on these everyday issues.
• I normally sleep early but one evening there are guests at home leading to my sleeping late and next evening I have to take a late night flight. How does my system respond to this change? Don’t we see some people fresh as flower despite this and some looking haggard and tired?
• I have a stable job, but suddenly either I lose it or get relocated to a far off place having difficult climate. How would I respond? Someone like me may fret and fume but for a friend who is in defence services relocation or even an early retirement is part of predictable routine. In fact many of them may get bored if they have to spend long years at one location.

The reason I have given these examples is to show how not only our bodies but also minds get used to a particular rhythm, routine, predictability in life. Without our realising a certain amount of inflexibility creeps into our system. As soon as there is a change, we respond violently in our minds and sometimes in our actions. But a person whose mind and body are used to a life of uncertainty, unpredictability, and change in routines will not only ride the storm but flourish in it. So a person who sleeps early may be fresh as flower after two late nights, a defence personal may relocate in a matter of hours, someone navigates traffic on Indian roads with equanimity and someone else keeps cursing all the while driving.

My Little Thought Of Life today is that the society and individual lives are dependent on us being disciplined and following the set rules. But we have to keep our minds and bodies trained for ability to respond well to change in routines and rhythms. If we sleep early, it makes sense to sleep late some times. If we are used to everyday gym or morning walk we need to skip it once in a while and learn to live without the guilt of doing so. In fact every single thing that has become a set routine and has created an element of predictability needs to be shaken once in a while. I have seen many people living very disciplined lives with many things hard coded in their minds – not only about timings but also about how should others conduct, right behaviours, right food, right ways to live, eat, dress etc. – and in almost every such case I have found them to be unhappy most of the time since the world does not conform to their ways and they find it very difficult to accept any deviation from their own thought process. It is therefore very important that every muscle of our body and every nerve of our mind is prepared and trained for a change in rhythm instead of coming under stress with any deviation. As it is said, only constant in life is the ‘change’. Yog once again has given invaluable life lesson. Just like in Yog we need the discipline to come on the mat regularly to learn the virtues of flexibility and deviations, in real life too discipline is essential but so is also the ability to retain flexibility.

To my friends and readers I wish a disciplined but flexible yogic way of life that is able to navigate sudden twists and turns with ease, all the while enjoying this beautiful journey of Life.