Dear Revolution Community,
Every day of life we are faced with millions of choices: What to wear, eat, say, buy, react to. We have to choose how to be with loved ones, with enemies and in the world. If I just want to purchase a lamp for my house, there are 17,000 lamps online I could consider.
There is so much more information available to us sometimes, that the choices we make get muddled down by all the what ifs? What if this one is not the right material? What if this is toxic? What if the company’s practices aren’t good? The what if list can carry on for days, causing decision fatigue.
Now our practice of yoga- its goal is to connect us to the truth of the self. To the “atman” or inner consciousness, and that is something deeper than our thinking mind. (The mind that is agonizing over whether a white or teal lamp would look better in my living room and gets distracted by every bit of intel it takes in.).
The mind is the doorway through which we must step, to be able to reach the self. Yet, due to its programming, it can get hard to even hear what the inner self (which already knows all) has to say about the matter as it tries to speak through that closed door.
There’s a concept in yogic wisdom that guides the yogi to pair non-attachment (vairagya) and discernment (viveka) as a way to deal with all these choices we are faced.
What is discernment according to the yogis? It’s the clarity to see what is real (nitya) or unreal (anitya), what is the self vs not the self. Then non-attachment (vairagya) gives us the freedom to release what discernment has revealed is impermanent or not good.
In Katha Upanishad (1.2.12-13) it says “The good (śreyaḥ) and the pleasant (preyaḥ) approach the human being. The wise person, having examined them, discriminates (viveka) (using discernment) and chooses the good over the pleasant. The dull one chooses the pleasant out of attachment to the body.”
Choosing what is pleasant rather than what is good, can lead us into an endless cycle of suffering. Have you ever stayed with a partner you knew was not good for you, but it felt pleasant for whatever personal reason? How much trouble did you find yourself in because you chose what was pleasant instead of what’s good?
Or maybe a job was pleasant because of the paycheck, yet it made you utterly miserable? How much suffering did you find yourself in from that choice? If there was non-attachment, there would be the ability to walk away and choose differently. Not because the suffering was so intensely intolerable, but because you were able to simply discern what was good before things got so very bad?
I often tell my students that you’re not responsible for what comes to you, but you are responsible for how you respond to it and the choices you make around it.
The yogi is asked to use discernment to choose the thoughts, words, environments and actions that will lead them towards freedom, enlightenment, and peace through embodying the inner self and inner knowing.
So bring to mind something in your life that you maybe chose because it was pleasant, but know it is not good. Deep down, the consciousness always knows the right thing to do. We just have to clear out the air from the pot to get to that perspective. We do that through our practice of coming to the mat every day to do our Sadhana practice. It reveals the truth of who we are, so the world bogs us down less. That way the right choice always becomes crystal clear.
Peace and Love,
Amanda and the good folks at Revolution Yoga
Originally shared in our October 2025 newsletter.