We are now beginning our segment on “tapas” – one of the 5 Niyamas or internal duties of a yoga student. “Tap” is the Sanskrit root for fire. “Tapas” can be understood as burning desire.
What is it that gets you onto the meditation cushion or yoga mat? What is the thought, or burning desire – that drives you to carve out time to meditate?
“Tapas” can be a double-edged sword, it can be what gets you onto the cushion – but it can also drive such fervor and intensity that the equanimity of practice gets lost. It is up to each of us, to develop and refine our own tapas: to develop the skill to turn the fire up or down, and to develop a sustainable, clean-burning fuel of desire.
I’ll share a little of my own experience with tapas, which is a story that is not unique.
Nearly 10 years ago, in 2015, I was in my mid-20s and burning with desire for success and self-mastery. I’d struggled with burning out, and heard that meditation would give me better focus and endurance. So I did my first 10-day meditation retreat – which was more like a meditation bootcamp. As prescribed, I came away doing an hour of meditation each morning and evening, hoping to burn away my impurities and become a more lean, efficient and successful version of myself.
Several years earlier, I had developed a burning desire for hot yoga and power yoga. I would jog 3 miles to the local studio, do hot power yoga, and jog back. I had a lot of energy and expectations, and wanted to make something of myself.
As I experienced large disappointments in my late-20s, I doubled down in my fervor for self-improvement and self-mastery – and ended up getting cooked.
None of this is a surprise. When I was young, and to this day, I struggle with using too much fire to cook. I like the immediate, intensity of a large flame – and usually end up burning my food and have the extra work of cleaning a charred pan.
As I turned up the fervor of both my ambition and my meditation practice, the disappointments became greater. The frying pan of my body was getting charred, there was an acrid smoke of burnt oils – and I had become like a crazed and unskilled surgeon, wildly cutting this and that.
Luckily, even though I was flailing in the deep end – on some level I was still practicing. Slowly, but surely, I gained clarity and insight – and began to discover how much sorrow, and the resulting self-hatred, were actually driving my practice.
Oh boy. Not fun when you realize that is what is driving your practice. I thought I was going to become a Michaelangela or the youngest enlightened female Buddha.
So, I took off my surgeon’s robes, put down the scalpels, turned off the fire – and took a break from practice to process my sorrow and grief – before returning to my practice, with a little more skill and experience.
I share this story – because, like I said, it is not unique. We see yoga-related injuries in the studios often, usually repeated stress injuries in the wrists or shoulders. In football, we see concussions. In cross country running, we see stress fractures in the shins. In meditation, we see young men (or women like me) – striving for self-mastery and developing meditation-induced dissociation, mania or psychosis.
So. Use your fire, wisely.
How do we do that? Let’s get started with noticing how and where we feel our tapas. Tomorrow we will cover practical methods for how you can turn the fire up or down.
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