Only when we have our unpleasant moods under control, we can fully develop the pleasant ones. For example, one minute of anger can destroy the fine energies and chemicals known as prana, ojas and tejas, which are obtained through long periods of deep meditation. Of course, nothing works better to remove a negative emotional field than to cultivate a positive one. Each of the agreeable rasas is a potent antidote to the disagreeable rasas, though each of them also has its own little problems that may lead to unpleasant moods. The sadhana of the pleasant rasas thus not only means to stay in these moods for a long period of time. It also means to work with their limitations.

Love

Love is called the “King of Rasas” as nothing brings as much joy as the Rasa of Love [Shringara], and nothing brings as much pain neither. Love is the very purpose of this universe, but only universal love is truly painless. Nevertheless, love between two people is an important exercise in mastering universal love. Love means total surrender and this is difficult for the ego when the object of love is the universe, whatever one dislikes included. Obviously, love often doesn’t work out well between two people. In the US, around 45 per cent of all marriages end in divorce. The Indian tradition of arranged marriages and joint family houses is not without problems either, but it pays to look at the advantages.

In a love marriage, the choice is based on likes and dislikes, so that love is always in balance and it can end anytime as its object undergoes natural changes. Every morning people wake up without knowing if they will be able to meet their partner’s expectations. In an arranged marriage, love becomes an act of Dharma and is never questioned as long as Dharma is maintained within the relationship. Thus, when a person feels loved unconditionally, to maintain the Dharma of love and be a proper husband or wife becomes much easier. Feeling secure in love also removes the urge towards unhealthy forms of attachment, such as jealousy or partner dominance. Young people who marry out of love should have the wisdom to marry out of Dharma instead and both keep their love hidden inside as their own little secret that they were lucky enough to discover. It means that they will easily distil true love out of the aesthetic level, a highly important but still secondary and fleeting aspect of the Shringara Rasa.

Within the nuclear family ideal of the West, two people are condemned to be with each other for most of their free time and thus need to be able to fulfil all needs of the other, which is obviously not possible. In the joint family of India, if your husband isn’t funny, maybe his grandmother is. With more people around, both jobs and enjoyments are easily shared and child care especially becomes a natural game as opposed to being experienced as unbearably oppressing by many Western women. While in India, more and more women are now working, it pays to understand how the traditional job division between man and wife left each with their own domain of expertise, responsibility and satisfaction. If modern couples want to avoid having to deal with a long practical agenda every time they meet, they should avoid sharing all jobs. Instead, if the wife takes care of the laundry and the husband cleans the dishes, there is no need to talk about it, or argue about it.

Last but not least, when we lose faith in the divine, faith in marriage is also lost. When we can see our husband as Krishna, Shiva, Ram. or our wife as Radhe, Parvati, Sita. then their qualities will be allowed to develop. Only then will the love between two small people become the great force of nature that binds everything together.

In Love Sadhana, we exercise our capacity to love. For a day or more, we will love everything we meet. To the Bhakta, everything is God and loved as God. Bhakti is the highest Love Sadhana.

Joy

While the greatest Joy [Hasya] originates in the feeling of being loved, humour is another main source. Life is an illusion, so why take it seriously? The biggest delusion is Mr Ego and thus ego is the best possible object of our jokes.

However, if we laugh at the ego of others, we must be careful. There is nothing wrong with a little teasing and satire certainly has a role to play in society. But sarcasm contains too much value of the Rasas of Anger and Disgust. Only pure humour can produce true joy and this mostly happens by laughing at ourselves. We cannot consciously produce laughter, but if we can make others laugh at us, we will also be able to laugh. Pure laughter is infectious, relaxing and healthy — clowns are healthier than most doctors.

Joy Sadhana means that for a certain period of time nothing is taken seriously. Laughing Yoga which has become so popular is a minor derivative of it. True Hasya Sadhana is very difficult. It is so easy to take life seriously and if we try this Sadhana we will soon find that life will come up with some serious lessons indeed. To be very serious about not being serious at all requires nothing less than truly letting go of our ego. The benefit: nothing less than eternal happiness.

Wonder

When we feel to understand everything, life becomes a bore. The Wonder [Adbhuta] Rasa is important for our wellbeing because it keeps our ego in proportion. The moment you feel like your problems are too much to bear, just look up at the sun or the stars and feel how small you really are. As you become less significant, so will your problems.

However much science has discovered, it will never be able to unravel the mystery of existence. Spirituality is the best antidote against modern day emptiness. Western science is entirely based upon sense perception by its own choice. Spiritual science goes beyond the senses towards a reality that is no less real because of our inborn inability to limit it to our own conceptual understanding. While blind faith causes many problems, blind scepticism is no less culpable. The only way to discover some truth about this universe is through the direct experience offered by yoga. Yoga and meditation replace conceptual knowledge with wordless knowing. Wonder Sadhana means to deny the intellect any claim in understanding anything. Whatever happens is never judged or labelled. True Adbhuta Sadhana requires mastery of thought, brought on by advanced meditation practices. Only the thoughtless state can bring truth. If you want to experience something miraculous, just make the effort of meditating nearby a holy person. If nothing wonderful happens inside, you have either chosen the wrong person or are insufficiently able to meditate.

Courage

While the Courage [Veera] Rasa is mostly associated with the heroes of old, we all need to be heroes in our daily life. Just as the knights in shining armour, we all need to regularly train our abilities. Sadhana especially requires great courage — it is the training needed to develop our human nature.

Courage is based upon self-confidence, which is usually seen as an aspect of our ego. If courage however is based on the false identification with our body – which is the ego – then it will be limited to the limits of our body. If we take the credit personally for whatever great deed we have done, then our self-confidence turns into pride. It will cause us to overestimate our abilities and our downfall will be near. To keep our self-confidence free of ego, we must possess the humility to give all credit to God. Every Sadhana is Courage Sadhana. However, true Courage Sadhana means to undertake a particular challenge in selfless service, without anybody knowing about it, neither before nor after. If you can also forget about it yourself, it is even better.

Calmness

The Rasa of Peace or Calmness [Shanta] was not regarded as a rasa for a very long time, because true Shanta is without emotion. True Shanta comes only in the highest state of meditation called Samadhi, when mind, ego and intellect are gone. However, everybody can and should exercise some level of Shanta, because without it you can’t survive. Most people become crazy for life when they stay without sleep for just a few days.

Learning meditation means to learn how to stop thinking. Whenever a bad mood develops, it will enable you to escape from it into calmness and develop a more positive mood. In life, peace will come when we focus on our spiritual needs rather than on our material, mental and personal desires. We should practice Dharma and especially pay our debts to ancestors, teachers and their teachings, as well as to the universe. Caring for others brings peace. Whenever peace is gone, slow down your breath and it will return.

Peace Sadhana is nothing more or less than the yogic path. Shanta is the rasa of preference to the saint. Fasting from whatever attracts attention brings freedom and therein lays peace.

The post Yoga of Nine Emotions – III appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Disgust

The disgust rasa [Vibhatsya] is an overall feeling of dissatisfaction with yourself and the world around you. If you are simply dissatisfied with the world, you get angry. But if the feeling also includes you, you are disgusted. This feeling is also the essence of a state of depression, though in prolonged depression, other unpleasant rasas may occasionally manifest.

The feeling of disgust often leads to bad behaviour towards others. When this mood is dominating, the person has really given up. The king [the ego] has forsaken the country [the body]. Thus, the intellect loses its power and mind and is freed from control, which frequently leads to unhealthy behaviour. The desires of the senses easily get the upper hand, producing bad body chemistry and disturbances in relationships.

Very often, personal mistakes lie at the bottom of this feeling. The shame causes you to loose self-confidence. The cause may also be other people: the feeling of not being loved, the feeling of being cheated and humiliated, the shame of not being able to defend oneself. Bad-blood chemistry is also one of the main causes of the disgust rasa, especially if you cannot see what event directly triggered it. It is frequently preceded by constipation due to bad food and/or sleeping habits. Disturbance of the liver function through alcohol abuse or food addictions decreases natural blood purification.

The disgust rasa typically manifests as a downward emotional spiral. It causes adharma, actions that go against the laws of nature. These actions usually produce more bad-blood chemistry, which further cements the feeling. In cases of prolonged depression, this means that blood purification is a requirement to get out of it. Fasting, sweat baths, clysma – all elements of panchakarma are highly recommended in this case. And so is a change of lifestyle.

While other disagreeable rasas such as anger or fear still have some function, some value in communication between people for example, the feeling of disgust really makes no sense. It simply leads nowhere, except to the point where you decide it is enough and you direct your energy away from it. Whenever a feeling of dissatisfaction with self arises, the best thing to do is forget about it. Maybe it can tell you to get rid of some bad habits if those are at the root of it. But usually the feeling just needs to be dismissed to disappear.

The good news is that disgust sadhana is the easiest rasa sadhana. Promise yourself that today you will not allow any negative feelings or thoughts about yourself. It is no use to have inner arguments about it or discover the causes of these feelings. Whenever they develop, just tell them to wait until tomorrow and direct your attention elsewhere.

The best antidote to dissatisfaction is the shringara rasa: love and beauty. Meet your friends and family and if that is no option, go for beauty in nature, music, home decoration and so on. Clean up the place, take a bath, put on new clothes and move forward. Further enhance your self-confidence through physical exercise with sports, asanas or martial arts. Spicy food will also be helpful.

Fear

The fear rasa [Bhayanaka] is expressed in worries, nervousness and anxiety up to real terror. It causes the mind to work very fast. The spreading panic then easily makes an elephant out of a mouse, reducing your ability to think rationally about life’s challenges.

Fear always concerns the future and fear sadhana must include understanding the nature of the future. If you evaluate your past, it becomes clear that good or bad luck often determined your success. Whatever plans you made, unexpected problems and opportunities always caused you to change your plans. It stands to reason that this will be no different for the future.

Fear sadhana requires to live in the now and do what you can now. Your responsibilities towards others may create a duty to make some plans, but this should be done without attaching too much importance to them. The main thing is to stay open-minded and flexible. Good planning may require some repetition, but when you find yourselves thinking about the same problem over and over again, you are worrying.

Truly, such worrying is of no use – often it prevents you from seeing the obvious solutions to your problems, or the opportunities that hide behind them. To a spiritual person, every problem is an opportunity for improvement. You always worry about losing things to which you are attached, whether you have them or hope to attain them. Fear sadhana thus requires you to evaluate your attachments. Nothing in this universe lasts forever.

Change is inevitable. Losing is part of the game. Substitute the feeling of fear for the unknown with the feeling of wonder. If life wouldn’t be full of surprises, it wouldn’t be worth living.

On the level of the body, the Vata [wind] dosha must be subdued. Avoid garlic, onions, cabbage and pulses unless properly cooked with Hing or Ajwain and sufficiently hot spices. Wearing a pearl necklace and taking pearl powder is very powerful. Drink water stored overnight in a silver cup. Make sure your blood sugar level does not get too low: this is no day for food fasting.

Many agreeable rasas counter fear. Practice calmness, especially by doing pranayama exercises that reduce the breathing rate. Meet your loved ones so that you feel more protected. Practice courage and focus by performing some physical exercises.

Doing fear sadhana means that for a day you postpone all thoughts about the future until after the sadhana. Whenever they develop, chant the most powerful mantra “Aum no problem, aum no problem”.

Sadness

The rasa of sadness [Karuna] may come as personal sadness, feeling of pity for others or true compassion. Compassion is a feeling of universal kindness, in which the sadness of sadness has largely been replaced by the deep understanding that we are all facing the same problem: the illusion of being individuals.

While the highest karuna is compassion, the original Sanskrit word karuna means “sadness”. This more popular meaning of the karuna rasa finds expression in many kinds of art, literature, and theatre in India. Sadness is a feeling that comes when you have to let go of attachments. In pity, you forget that other people’s problems are essentially the same as your own.

To directly counter any sadness, you must first understand that sadness may come but goes just as well. In adolescents, periods of sadness may come when you feel neglected and try to produce pity in others. Loneliness in general is a main cause of karuna. When you get older, sadness may come because of waning strength and beauty, of achievements becoming meaningless. If one accepts everything and finds meaning in all that is still left, then there is no problem. The same goes for sadness that may come when nearing death. If you believe that the end is near, then obviously sadness will come. If you believe in eternity, then you can still enjoy everything around as a beautiful life in progress.

Mastering this rasa means to convert our more self-centred sadness into genuine compassion. This involves the recognition that the suffering of others is also your own. Nobody has any problem that is not related to ignorance and ignorance is the fate of all who are not enlightened. If you can feel sorry for others without feeling any better than them, you leapfrog the pitfall of pity and open the possibility of experiencing the highest karuna.

True compassion is without discrimination and can be felt for humans as well as for animals, plants, or enemies. It makes you kind, extending loving kindness to every being you meet. It is the cause of many spiritual thoughts and ideas.

In case of sadness, it is good to cry. However, it is not advisable to let yourself sink into it. When a natural numbness occurs, nothing seems interesting and you are no longer able to find personal desire, you should try to devote your energy towards helping others. There lies the true healing. To prepare your body chemistry to do that, you can use fenugreek, saffron and pumpkin.

Karuna sadhana consists of pure karma yoga, devoting your energy entirely to the benefits of others, without any expectation. Any thoughts of personal loss are postponed until the period of the sadhana has been completed.

The next part talks about how to promote aggreable rasas.

The post Yoga of Nine Emotions – II appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

We may desire wealth, security, sensual enjoyment, name and fame, love and friendship, skill and knowledge or even enlightenment. But in truth, we are always after happiness that we hope the fulfilment of these desires will bring. So happiness is our central desire. Through Rasa Sadhana, this desire can be fulfilled without side-tracking. The main problem, however, is that we usually feel as if we have no control over our emotions. We don’t mind when we are happy, but when anger, worry, sadness or disgust arrive, we believe we have no power over them.

Mood management

Rasa Sadhana is a simple technique that increases our power to decide how we feel, step by step. In order to be happy, we have to first stop being unhappy. This way, the exercises first focus on getting rid of unpleasant emotions. For example, one morning, we can promise ourselves that we will not be angry. Whenever we feel angry, we can always postpone it until tomorrow. Then, when we notice that irritation develops, we will remember this promise. Thus, anger will become an object that we look at and decide whether we want it or not. It has no chance of catching us unaware. At that point, we understand through direct experience that we indeed decide to be angry or not.

The ancient knowledge on rasas offers us many ways to remove anger. Anger always comes when some expectation is not fulfilled. When we know we will come across a traffic jam when driving to work in the morning, we usually don’t get upset about it because we expect it to be there. But when we meet an unexpected traffic jam, then irritation develops easily. So the main question to ask when anger comes is “What did I expect?” It’s the sharpest needle to make the balloon of anger implode.

We can also ask ourselves, if whoever did something wrong to us, did it with the intention to harm us. Or whether they simply couldn’t avoid doing what they did. If we analyse our mistakes towards others, we will realise that they were mistakes indeed, not harm intended. And even if people intentionally harm others, it is still only because they believe they have to, out of self-defence. People who are extremely selfish believe it is necessary to be so selfish. This kind of analysis makes it easy to forgive and let the anger go. We will then rather feel pity for any wrong behaviour, understanding it as an expression of ignorance and/or lack of will power.

Another main question is “What is the cost of this anger?” The answer obviously is: Our happiness. Isn’t whatever caused the anger bad enough? Why add to the cost by also giving in to the anger and give up on our happiness? Nobody likes being angry. Not wanting to be angry is very natural. Then why give in to it?

Sometimes these questions may not be sufficient to remove anger. Persistent anger should never be suppressed, staying on our mind without being dealt with. Fortunately, anger is an energy that also depends on our body chemistry. By cooling down our body, it becomes easy to let anger go. Anger requires rapid breathing, so slowing our breathing helps. All yogic exercises that promote calmness will help.

Through anger sadhana, we gain confidence to control our anger. With this confidence and understanding that anger is useless and basically misplaced and undesirable, it becomes easy to counter it. Then slowly, we will be able to expand the period of our anger sadhana to few days, a week or a month until it becomes a permanent state. Some irritations may still develop, but lacking a biochemical basis and meeting a confident opponent, they will merely give a warning that something needs our attention.

Doing this sadhana does not make us defenceless — quite the contrary. We still have Mahatma Gandhi’s basic creeds to defend ourselves: truth and non-violence. We can justify our point of view in a straightforward fashion, but without violence in word, deed or thought. Whoever then does something wrong is simply met with our firm but friendly disapproval, which allows the other to realise the mistake and make amends. And if the other still doesn’t want to listen, we simply have to make it clear that if that is the case, we no longer can play together. Calmly putting the relationship in the balance usually does the trick.

Similar ways can be used to exercise control over the other unpleasant rasas of fear, sadness and disgust. For example, we can exercise to love everyone and everything. The next day, we are free again to discriminate as people usually do. In this way, we can work with each of the agreeable rasas. Of course, promoting the agreeable rasas is one of the best ways to get rid of the unpleasant rasas. Paying attention to art and decoration, music and good food, family, friends, feasts, festivals, pujas and meditation then becomes truly effective in enhancing our happiness, which is no longer disturbed by unhappy rasas.

Rasa Sadhana also increases spiritual understanding and allows reaching much deeper levels of meditation. When we are content, the ego drops off very easily. It is the ego that makes it difficult to accept the truth that yoga teaches. The ego is unhappy because it truly does not exist and knows it. From that unhappiness, desires arise, a want for things that we believe will remove the unhappy feeling or that will bring another feeling. However, things can’t remove our unhappiness, only we can. We just use things as an excuse to be happy or unhappy. We are happy if we allow ourselves to be happy and stay happy. That is the essence and the fruit of practicing Rasa Sadhana.

Knowledge of Rasa Sadhana still exists in many Indian families, but it is often fractional and unclear. My teacher revived this highly valuable yoga and it made me very happy to contribute to this revival.

Read about how to deal with other disagreeable rasas in the second part, and how to promote agreeable rasas in the third part of this series.

The post Rasa Sadhana: The Yoga of Nine Emotions – Part I appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.