It is more blessed to give than to receive.
JESUS THE CHRIST
The ritual of animal sacrifice was widely practiced in many early cultures. To be effective, the sacrifice had to represent a genuine loss—expressing the willingness to give up a real attachment. Only by consciously sacrificing the life of a healthy and productive animal was the offering considered meaningful.
In the ancient Indian scripture the Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna teaches Arjuna that duties performed as a sacrifice do not create bondage. “Whatever you do, make it an offering to Me—the food you eat or worship you perform, the help you give, even your suffering. Thus will you be free from karma’s bondage, from the results of actions, good and bad.” This kind of sacrifice is known as yagna. Real freedom, the Gita teaches, comes from mentally practicing the Yoga of detachment— willingly giving up attachments by disciplining the senses and mind, and sacrificing the outcome, or fruit, of actions.
In daily life, the continued recurrence of certain preyas reflects strong attachments. Sometimes it seems almost impossible not to give these thoughts, desires and emotions your attention, but you can lessen the enslaving power of these deep samskaras. The surrendering of your attachment for the preya can begin by the fashioning of a small prayer in whatever form or tradition is most comfortable. No one knows better than you which attachments are the cause of your dis-ease. Simply make an offering of your fear, anger or selfish desire into the fire and light of eternal wisdom, ever-burning within the cave of the heart.
Silently repeat a meaningful prayer. For example: “Dear Lord, right now I am worried. This concern really has a hold on me. I’m attached to it, but I hear You through the buddhi, and don’t want to continue serving this fear. I want to serve the shreya. Therefore, I offer this worrisome thought back to You, the Origin of all. Please accept this offering as the loving gift of a dedicated and humble heart. Consume it in the fire of your light and lead me for my highest and greatest good.”
Your fear, anger and self-willed desires constitute an inherent power that belongs to you. Depending on your action, this power can manifest in either the contracting and debilitating form of preya or the expansive and liberating form of shreya. Whenever the buddhi advises you that what is appearing in your awareness is preya, welcome, witness and honor the preya and offer it back, as a genuine sacrifice, to the Origin from which it has come. This conscious act of renunciation and sacrifice effectively transforms the power of the preya into strategic reserves of energy, will power and creativity. At another time, when the buddhi suggests that you think, speak or act in service to a shreya, you’ll find that you have the power at your disposal to do what is to be done.
You learned in grade school science class that energy can appear in either the potential or kinetic form. The electricity in the wiring of your home is available for any use you choose. When you turn a light switch to the “on” position, energy appears in the form of light. This is the kinetic state because the energy is being used or expended. However, when you turn the light switch to the “off” position, the energy remains in the potential state—ready to be used at the flick of a switch.
The inherent power of fear, anger and self-willed desire can also be stored potentially or expended kinetically, and it is your personal attention that determines in which state the energy resides. If the buddhi defines a particular thought as shreya, it is suggesting that you transform the state of that thought energy from the potential into the kinetic by taking some appropriate action. In other words, you are encouraged to think about the shreya, speak in service to the shreya, and take some physical action in service to the shreya.
Such emotions as fear, anger and greed are not inherently bad or negative, for if they’re handled skillfully, they can become helpful resources. If the buddhi recognizes them as preya, you are being asked to renounce your attachment to them so that their intrinsic power can be transformed and stored for your future use.
After years of practice in focusing the mind-field down to a point, and meticulous experimentation and observation, ancient sages understood the relationship between desire, action and consequence. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad they shared their insight:
You are what your deepest, driving desire is.
As your deepest, driving desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.
BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD
The laws of physical science state the same truth as the Upanishads: energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but it can be transformed. Viewing Yoga as a sister science, the ancients experimented with controlling, conserving and transforming the energy of thought. Through trial and error they realized that when they renounced a single desire the energy of that desire manifested in a different form.
Recognizing this process, imagine what would happen if twenty gallons of crude oil directly from the fields of Saudi Arabia were pumped into your car’s gas tank. It would wreck your engine. Crude oil is simply of no use in a combustion engine. To become an appropriate fuel for your automobile, the raw oil must first be refined.
Each of us has the capacity to employ a refining process that can transform the raw, inherent power of every thought, desire and emotion. When the buddhi intuitively advises that the unusable, destructive and constrictive power of a particular fear, anger or self-willed desire is appearing in your awareness in the form of preya, you, as a Yoga scientist, have access to a mechanism for capturing and transforming that power. This refinement process is accomplished by consciously and willingly renouncing your attachment to the preya. In classical Yoga texts, the employment of this discriminative faculty is referred to as viveka.
Remember, every gross and subtle object—including the preya—is a manifestation of the One Divine Reality. In every moment, the buddhi is always present to advise you that it’s not in your best long-term interest to give the preya your continued attention. If you consciously or unconsciously choose to serve the preya in thought, word or deed, you will experience some form of physical, mental, emotional or spiritual dis-ease.
Through your personal sadhana, you will quickly learn that the transformative power of Yoga Science is a combination of conservation, ecology and banking. When you acknowledge that every relationship and action is actually a means for your spiritual unfoldment, great resources accrue to you in the subtle world.
Recognizing that desire is the fuel for human action, the ancient sages conceived a scientific formula that might well be called the spiritual equivalent of Albert Einstein’s E=MC2. The formula they discerned was D = E + W + C.
Every desire is composed of three basic components: energy, will power and creativity (consciousness). When you align every thought, word and action with the wise and good counsel of the buddhi by serving the shreya, you’ll be led for your highest and greatest good. When you willingly and consciously surrender your attachment to the merely pleasant, comfortable, familiar and attractive preya, you really give up nothing of value. The intrinsic power of the preya is not lost to you. Instead, your voluntary act of renunciation and sacrifice (yagna) automatically transforms the preya into internal reserves of energy and will power and opens the doorway to the superconscious mind—your access to the Divine source of intuitive wisdom and creativity.
Conversely, when you go against the advice of the buddhi by serving the preya in thought, word and deed, your internal strategic reserves of energy, will power and creativity are diminished.
As Eknath Easwaran insightfully observed, the major crisis of our culture today is not one of IQ—intelligence quotient. Rather, the problem we face individually and collectively is one of WQ—will quotient. In twenty-first century America, countless people possess the intellectual capacity to make brilliant decisions, but because they are habituated to serving the preya, their reserves of will power have become bankrupt. Without sufficient will power to exercise discrimination, their reserves of energy and creativity are similarly diminished. The more these reserves are depleted, the more frequent and severe the tension, stress, anxiety and pain.
As in banking, our personal balance sheet always reflects whether deposits or withdrawals have been made. The choice of solvency or bankruptcy is up to each individual.
In modern life you need energy, will power and creativity to fulfill your many duties and responsibilities. You have obligations to yourself, your family, friends, business associates, society, the animal kingdom and the good earth Herself. You need a tremendous amount of energy, but where are you going to get all this energy? A certain amount comes from the food you eat and air you breathe, but the demands of modern life are tremendous, and you may sometimes find yourself without the reserves necessary to fulfill all your obligations.
Yoga Science teaches that the creative energy you need is always available in the form of your thoughts, desires and emotions. A ready supply of power arises within you daily in the form of fear, anger and greed. If you do not expend this power kinetically in the present moment, you can consciously conserve and transform it for use at another time. Yoga Science offers a systematic, practical method for conserving and transforming energy. It’s very simple, and all it takes is knowing how to direct your attention appropriately, based on the intuitive wisdom already within you.
Sadness, like fear, anger and greed, represents your inherent power. Everyone deals with an occasional case of the blues—what might be termed mild depression. When the blues start playing their sad, low-down melody, you have an opportunity to make great progress on the spiritual path. As a Yoga scientist, honor and welcome the emotional dark cloud, surround it in the healing light of consciousness and ask the buddhi whether indulging this mood is a preya or shreya. Then, with all your strength, serve the wise counsel of the buddhi.
Remember, sometimes it’s natural and helpful to feel sadness. It’s part of being human. When we lose a loved one or face a major change in life, it’s perfectly normal to mourn the loss. During those times, the blues can be a shreya—if you’re also mindful to serve ahimsa and not harm yourself.
But there comes a time when the mourning period ends and continued grieving becomes an unhealthy preya. When the buddhi advises that singing the blues is doing you harm, it’s time to sacrifice your attachment to the familiar and comfortable. This conscious act of renunciation can give you the courage to open your heart again.
Any mild depression begins with a desire that cannot be fulfilled. When the desire is repeatedly thwarted, the fiery emotion of anger arises. When that anger cannot fulfill the desire and can find no appropriate expression, it is repressed. Repressed anger becomes depression.
In the opening verses of the Bhagavad Gita, as the metaphoric battle at Kurukshetra is about to commence, Arjuna asks Shri Krishna to drive him onto the battlefield to survey the two opposing armies of the impending civil war. Arjuna was the greatest general of his time, but all his previous military engagements had been fought against foreign enemies. Now, however, Arjuna finds himself pitted against his relatives and revered teachers. His cause is undeniably just, yet because of his thwarted desire to protect those to whom he is attached, he is suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of deep despair that temporarily renders him incapable of fulfilling his duty.
The feeling of any loss or gain is the delusion of duality. It means that you have forgotten your true Self. True freedom comes only when you are willing to break out of the confines of a conditioned mind hobbled by limitation. Whenever you feel the blues draining your energy, focus and creativity, and your attention is locked on your own sorrow, remember to ask the question, “Who am I who is feeling this emotion?” Then, from the fullness of the Eternal Witness, seek the Divine wisdom of buddhi and place yourself in service to its judgment. At such times, it’s especially helpful to undertake some selfless service by dedicating your efforts for the benefit of another. By sacrificing the preya of sad and hopeless emotions you can build reserves of energy, will power and creativity.
Your own attention—what you choose to give your attention to and what you choose to remove your attention from—determines your future. Attention is the engine of transformation. You already have all the necessary equipment. You don’t have to buy anything. All you need is to be awake and to do what your discriminative faculty advises.
If you’re a person who worries a great deal, and is often angered by situations and relationships, or besieged by desires for physical pleasure or material possessions, it means that you are a very wealthy individual. Your fears, anger and self-centered desires represent a powerful natural resource. Their latent power can bring you the health, happiness, creativity, productivity and loving, nurturing relationships you seek—if you are willing to make use of your attention as an internal mechanism for transformation.
Imagine for a moment that you’ve discovered a vast deposit of gold ore in your backyard. Without employing a mining operation and processing plant, you’d never benefit from your potential wealth. Similarly, without a philosophy of life that can turn your preyas into usable energy, will power and creativity, you will never realize your greatest potential.
During the early days of our sadhana, Jenness had lingering doubts about the mechanism that transforms the power of desire into creativity, will power and energy. Could it really be so simple? As a Yoga scientist, she decided to set up an experiment to determine if, by consciously giving up some small habitual indulgence, the energy of that habit could be transmuted into a creative resource in her life.
Jenness had developed the pleasant habit of enjoying a cup of hot tea with sugar and milk every morning. After consulting the buddhi regarding the effects of the sugar, caffeine and irritating tannins, she chose this as her test of the yogic formula D = E + W + C. She renounced her attachment to the gratifying tea ritual, began substituting the shreya of plain hot water and patiently watched for evidence of transformation.
Weeks later, Jenness had a conversation with a close relative who possessed precise knowledge of how to push her emotional buttons and always enjoyed doing so. During this particular exchange, however, Jenness suddenly found herself relaxed and loving, skillfully evading the usual pitfalls and frustrations. The meeting was actually quite pleasant and enjoyable—despite the fact that many sensitive issues were discussed.
Almost immediately, Jenness realized how the conversation had become so unexpectedly satisfying. Remembering her attachment to the tea ritual she had renounced, Jenness experienced an epiphany. “Aha,” she humbly mused to herself, “now I know the transformative power of sacrifice through my own experience.”
Consciously releasing the power tied up within small desires can increase your energy, will power and creativity— in ways and at times you most need help. The simple, yet courageous act of letting go, automatically activates a mechanism that transforms the mental energy of attachment.
Yoga Science urges you to recognize that you always have choices, and that there are definite and specific consequences for each and every action. Moment by moment, the sages advise you to serve the shreya and surrender the preya. Only then will life become truly meaningful, creative and fulfilling.
1. While centering yourself in the Eternal Witness within, welcome, acknowledge and honor the thought, desire or emotion.
2. Consult the buddhi to determine whether the thought, desire, or emotion represents the shreya or preya.
3. If the thought, desire or emotion is shreya, serve it in thought, word or deed.
4. If the particular thought, desire or emotion is preya, after acknowledging, welcoming and honoring it, willingly and consciously surrender it back to the Origin from which it has come. Do this in whatever way is natural and comfortable for you.
By the willing and conscious removal of your attention from the preya, the inherent power of the preya is transformed in the subtle world into strategic reserves of energy, will power and consciousness.
Sit quietly in a chair with your eyes closed. Bring your attention into the center of your chest and silently repeat the word “yes” ten times, making mental note of your emotional response. Then, with your attention still centered in the chest, repeat the word “no” ten times and evaluate the difference between the two experiences.
Most people find that giving attention to “yes” has an expansive, optimistic and liberating quality, while “no” feels heavy, contractive and burdensome.
Whenever you have a choice to make between the passing pleasure of preya and the perennial joy of shreya, just say “yes” to the Divine counsel of the buddhi and your thoughts, words and deeds will always lead you for your highest and greatest good.
The ego is likely to suggest that if you say “no” to an appealing preya you’ll be denying yourself a genuine treat. So, don’t say “no.” Rather, view your sacrifice of preya as saying “yes” to the will of the Divine Reality. Saying “yes” to both serving the shreya and to surrendering the preya means never being deprived of anything worthwhile as you’re led for your highest and greatest good.