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Where we begin
In our spiritual lives, we train in patience and compassion, to cast a gentle gaze upon others and the world, to wrestle kindly with our weaknesses, and to see the arc of our journey unfolding in good time. We learn, we teach, we open yoga studios or home practices, and we organize festivals. We pacify the body, we breathe, and we meditate. This is all appropriate and useful - it makes us more loving, keeps us sane, and connects us ever more deeply to the source of life.
But in our era, the long-distance race of spiritual awakening is being run on an ever-shortening material pathway. The rivers by which we would sit and dissolve are polluted. The forests to which we would retreat to find the self are clear-cut and burned. The mountaintops we would ascend to meditate upon are being destroyed for coal. We are doing our asanas and meditations and lectures on an earth that howls for balance. There is a grave disjunction between the time it takes to nurture stable self-reflection, and the pace at which we are destroying the mirror.
We don't have the training or resources to present the facts of ecological crisis here. We can refer you onwards, to the best and indisputable resources we know on: climate change, overshoot, peak oil, carbon footprints, and carrying capacity. If you are not familiar with this material, take some time to digest it, as we have.
The question is: what do we as a spiritual culture have to offer at such a time? What is our unique heritage? The avenues seem daunting because they are limitless, but we are sure of something - like Arjuna, we must act, perhaps with great risk and confusion, in a world we hardly recognize. We know something else in our bones: ecological sanity and
our unfolding awareness of yoga to all things are the same actions. We have an intuition, an emotional
depth, and an ethos to contribute, and this contribution above all others will bring our efforts of personal responsibility, political activism, and community action into deep perspective.
What We Can Do
Santosha is one of the attitudinal obligations of the yoga practitioner. The common translation is "contentment", but the ancient commentaries suggest something deeper, defining it as "not coveting more than what is at hand". It is the voluntary sacrifice of those things that awareness does not require and that things which death will snatch from us anyway. It is
a key sentiment to ground our ecological awareness, because our present disaster is the reflection of our past discontent. If yoga as theory and practice has something truly unique to contribute to the battle for ecological sanity, it is in this principle of radical contentment, which elevates austerity to a form of integral pleasure.
We now know that we must solve our crisis not by dressing up the corpse in smarter consumerism, but through the abolition of consumerist discontent. We will need to embody austerity, but it need not feel penitential - as the policy makers fear it might, and thus never mention the word. Austerity is actually the pleasure of enjoying the movement of the body in space, the taste of unadulterated and local food, rejuvenation in your place of residence instead of abroad, pleasure in silence, pleasure in service, pleasure in used clothes and scavenged pots and pans. There is great pleasure to be had in the abundance of not needing much. This pleasure of life shines ever more brightly through the thinning veil of what we thought we needed.
Making a Pledge
The pledges for you to choose from on
our pledge engine are invitations to the pleasures of simple spiritual life. Some of the pledges we suggest may be beyond your capacity at this time. They are listed not to elicit guilt, but to provoke your imagination. We always move one step, one gesture (mudra) at a time. It's a journey we have no choice but to start upon, and no choice but to finish.
When you commit to the various pledges below, your choices (and, optionally, your name) will become public record.
In your heart you'll be accountable to your community, and thus become a source of inspiration to others. Twice a year we'll e-mail you to comment anonymously on how the pledge has gone for you, and we'll assemble that data into display of our communal commitment.
Finally - a word about how to take this pledge: this is not an online survey or an ephemeral checklist of temporary altruism. It is a paperless, travel-free rite of initiation into the oldest lineage of Yoga and life itself: the lineage of the Earth. The strength of the action will be a reflection of the intention, so, we encourage you to meditate as you consider the options, and to pray for guidance and strength as you choose amongst them.
Know that you're not alone in your concern or your devotion.
Please Click Here To Go To The Santosha Pledge
Click Here To Read the Community Pledge Sheet
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