Today was my first day of yoga teacher training! But before I get into that I need to wrap up the final piece of advice from my first posting. Plus, I have to brush up on my Sanskrit.
We have talked about friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and now finally, "disregard toward the wicked" (Refer to the first posting and to the "yoga journey" tab so you know what the heck I am talking about).
If you know someone is just plain mean, there is no sense in trying to offer advice; they will just be rude and take it as a way for you to make yourself look better then them. A wicked person fails to see the good in anybody, even good in the good. So let the good remain good, and let the wicked be. Don't waste your time trying to make evil people happy because they will only disturb the peace within you. You must resist giving advice to someone who will only turn around and say "Oh, well aren't you just perfect?" So much for trying to be helpful.
So, what about the sinners? Aren't they evil people? Further along in The Sutras in Book Two, Sutra 20, it says that we should have mercy on the sinners. I flipped back and forth a hundred times reading these two seemingly opposing ideas. How can we disregard the wicked but have mercy on the sinners? Aren't sinners wicked people?
It wasn't until I stopped flipping back and forth and went on a walk with my dog that I was able to really digest this. Wicked, don't bother...Sins, forgiveness. I pretty much repeated it until it just came down to forgiveness and maybe we reach out to people who have sinned because they will ask for help. BINGO!
Catholics ask the Father to tell them how God will forgive them for their sins. Who are those people? Many times, just ordinary people who think they've done something bad. I am an ordinary person, and when I think about my life, I guess I have sinned. Isn't it all relative? I may not pray for forgiveness, but I will certainly reflect on my past behaviors and make sure that I do my best to be a good person now. I am not an evil person. I am just a person that made some bad decisions in life, and I don't think that it is fair for anyone to judge me based on the past. No one is perfect, and if you think back on your life, when have you "sinned"?
What is a sin? Let's switch the word "sinned" with "experienced regret". When have you "experienced regret"? Regret can tear us apart. It rises in the back of our throat and we try to swallow it down, for it only to be brought up again. You can't change the past. You can only improve the present and the future.
Many of us are full of regret. The next time you know someone has "sinned", we can only hope they regret it, and that they will accept our help when we offer it, and remember that we all have regrets we need to let go of.
*daily consumption of yoga has a positive effect on your overall well-being
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