Dear Yogis,
I tried this week to explain Hammurabi’s Code to a 7-year-old.
It came up because they’ve been dealing with the age-old dilemma of difficult situations on the playground. In the process of smoothing out the rough edges of a child, growing up tends to present all of us with the same challenge: how to respond to another’s violence.
Hammurabi said, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Often, a person’s knee-jerk response when told, “They hit me / kicked me / bit me,” is:
“Well, did you hit them back?!”
But this elevated little 7-year-old always responds the same:
“Of course not. You’re not supposed to do that.”
I posited aloud, “Well, Hammurabi said that an eye warrants an eye.”
“What does that mean?” they asked, confused.
“It means if someone hurts someone’s eye, it’s considered fair that their eye be hurt too.”
It brought up a memory: a friend living in Saudi once told me she felt safe walking at night — not because people were kind, but because any man who tried something, would have his hands cut off. So… no crime.
I looked down at the child’s tender eyes and remembered the time they were one and head butted me so hard in the nose that I bled everywhere and had a black eye for a week. And yet, there was such unconditional love that only comforting them felt warranted. Not punishing them.
I continued, “Some say an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. So you are probably right in your conviction to remain kind.”
You might be wondering — what does this have to do with yoga?
Everything.
Yoga offers us the chance to master the highs and lows of the mind so we can rest in our true, peaceful, blissful nature. That requires wisdom around how we deal with other people — because other people affect the mind.
Sartre said plainly: “Hell is other people.”
And while that’s not always true — some people are absolute heaven — it’s also true that those who trigger us, challenge us, or make us uncomfortable are often our greatest teachers because they hand us a hall pass to hell–it’s up to us to take it or not.
The teacher is in the trigger.
We are moving through the wild playground of life on earth, in human meat suits, in perpetuity. From time to time, the universe sends someone to slap you to see how you’ll react.
What I mean is what the yogis have taught for thousands of years:
Peace is an inside job.
All the enlightened masters taught this.
Jesus said: “If someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other.”
He didn’t mean to welcome abuse.
He meant what the yogis mean — maintain indifference in the face of wickedness.
It’s a superpower.
He went so far as to say if they take from you, give them more than what they took. This is a teaching exercise.
These difficult moments offer you a lesson:
What throws you off your path?
What pulls you away from your values, your peace, your self?
Here’s the secret:
Inner peace requires unconditional love.
Not love because someone is beautiful, smart, or kind.
Not love because they deserve it.
Love — just because they exist. Love – just because you exist.
So the masters gave us all these tricks to humble ourselves enough to realize there’s something more valuable than hitting them back, or taking their eye. (This comes in subtle forms like getting in the last word, showing them what they are missing, being petty, proving that they should be jealous, that they should have treated you better, proving you’re right, holding grudges–so on and so forth)
What is more valuable is your peace of mind.
Someone with peace of mind is the richest person on the planet. That’s what self-realization looks like, but to truly get there, we must study ourselves. Implicitly. Honestly. With love.
Every person you meet teaches you something about yourself.
Even those who mistreat you.
How someone treats others is a reflection of how they treat themselves.
Most people aren’t self-aware — they’re just “other-aware.”
They’re playing their insides out on the world around them.
But we don’t control what comes at us.
We control how we respond — and what we accept as true for our internal state. We accept the love we think we deserve.
When you can get to a place where someone hurts you and you love yourself enough to love them — even if you walk away and never see them again — that’s mastery.
That’s freedom. That’s peace.
It’s different from walking away in anger, while they still haunt your mind for years.
One is self-liberation. The other is spiritual imprisonment.
So self-study, the focus of this month, means going into the world and observing:
How do I respond when things are hard?
What am I learning about myself through others?
Can I forgive myself?
Can I forgive them?
Sometimes it doesn’t always look like journaling or reading sutras.
Sometimes it looks like being triggered — and choosing peace.
Sometimes it looks like feeling all of your anger — and offering it compassion.
Sometimes it looks like forgiving yourself and others again and again until love flows naturally.
This is svādhyāya (self-study).
And it’s a major part of the yogic path.
In this way, we discover who we really are and this is one of the most profound teachings of yoga.
Peace and Love,
Amanda and the good folks at Revolution Yoga
Originally shared in our May 2025 newsletter.