To gain more enjoyment in the material world, try existing in a sattvic state. Sattva means balanced: the energy of goodness, lightness and wholesomeness. According to the yogis, the other energies present in the universe are rajas, anything that causes a lot of activity, stimulation and movement, and tamas, anything heavy or inert that weighs us down.
The experience of embodying any of these energies can be easily explained through food. Think of the difference between gobbling down a piece of chocolate (rajas) and sitting there savoring each morsel, moving it around in your mouth and experiencing the different flavors on different parts of the tongue (sattva).
Rajas and the never-enough mind
Rajas, hyperstimulation, conditions us toward constant dissatisfaction: no matter what I consume, it’s never enough. We get to a rajasic state of mind through the things we choose to associate with: the music we listen to, what we read, what we do with the body, what we take in through the senses, what we see and what we hear. Sattva conditions us toward presence, which eventually brings us to contentment.
So yes, you can train your willpower through practice to come to a focused mind in any situation or energy state. But in sattva it’s much easier. It feels more natural and easeful to be patient, kind, loving and present.
I saw a funny meme this week that said: if you think everyone hates you, you probably need sleep; if you hate everyone, you probably need to eat. It rings true, in that there are basic needs that change the experience of the mind when they are met. But the yogis teach that it’s even more subtle than that. We have to consider the energy of what we are imbibing, too. Choosing sattva on a daily basis affects the quality of the mind and the human experience profoundly. The yogi knows that whatever we put into the body-mind vehicle, that vehicle becomes. Eat fast food for a few months and watch the body change. Eat healthfully and do yoga for a few months and watch the body change.
Criticism depletes our vibration
When we are in a negative mindset all the time (I hate everyone, everyone else is wrong) we are constantly criticizing. The problem is that when you’re criticizing, your focus is in another place and time. You’re focused on loathing whoever you’re meditating upon, and you’re not actually present.
My teacher told a story about one of his teachers, a swami, who was trying the sacred practice of criticizing no one. He wore a bracelet on one wrist, and every time he criticized somebody else or himself in his mind, he switched the bracelet to the other wrist. He didn’t realize how pervasive the habit was, how conditioned his mind was, until he tried to go a single day without switching the bracelet. It took him weeks of retraining the mind to get there.
We don’t realize how much of our mindset, how many of our critiques of ourselves and others, is simply a conditioned response to what has been put in over the years. It’s learned by observing our caretakers, our coworkers and our friends. It’s almost a way people in our culture try to relate to each other: by having a common enemy, a common complaint. This behavior really depletes our vibration. It fills us up with rajasic thoughts, so far from sattva. What our lineage teaches is that whatever progress you’re making on the path to finding yourself, you will destroy very quickly by being hypercritical all the time.
Don’t get me wrong: discernment is important. But it is a very different thing than criticism.
My scrunchie experiment
When I heard this, I thought, “Oh, I’ll probably be able to do the whole day right away.” I put a hair scrunchie on my wrist to switch. Within one day I saw the subtleties of how I was thinking about people who weren’t even in my life anymore: how they had harmed me, and how I was finding excuses to criticize them in my mind even though they weren’t around. I had lost the ability to be present. I had lost myself in the criticism cycle.
When I realized I was there, I switched the scrunchie to the other wrist, and it became a reminder to become present again, instantly. I noticed things I had been missing: the clouds in the sky, the people walking across the street, the presence of my loved ones in the car. I had been so absorbed in that low energy frequency.
Start with what goes in
Start with a simple practice. Only put sattvic things in your mouth: only healthful food. Or only say sattvic things: literally only kind, peaceful, beautiful words. These are great places to start.
Then it can get even more subtle: only allow your mind to fill up with sattvic things too. See how your perspective of the world changes, and how, when you’re filled up with goodness, it becomes so much easier to embody all the spiritual principles on this path of yoga.
