Yoga and peace

To be at peace in the world we must be at peace within ourselves.

Occupy the present
Image by Bryan Helfrich. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

In recognition of Yoga Day U.S.A. on Saturday, January 21, Engaging Peace offers some reflections on yoga as a means for discovering and cultivating inner peace.

The Sanskrit word for peace is “shanti.” Many students of yoga are familiar with the phrase “Om shanti, shanti, shanti” as a blessing for peace.

Another word for shanti is equilibrium, as in mental balance. When we feel at peace, we are in balance, and have a sense of equanimity. It’s easy to forgive others and to let go of our own ego-driven desires when we are in balance.

As athletes, martial artists, and yogis know, to be in balance is to be in a position of strength. Inner peace is not weakness; it is a source of resilient energy.

The practice of yoga promotes contentment, or “santosha.” Would we see so many wars around the world if nations and societies experienced contentment? No, war is fueled by discontent–greed, hunger for power and resources, and fear.

Peace and contentment arise from a willingness to respect others and to live with humility. The greeting and closing used in many yoga classes is “namaste,” which means “I bow to you,” or “I honor the light within you.”

Would war’s acts of violence and inhumanity even be possible if warriors honored the light within their opponents?

Let us all find ways to cultivate peace within ourselves. Yoga is but one path for doing so. Find the path that works for you, and enjoy a life of serenity, balance, and contentment.

Then share your sense of peace with others so that it may grow throughout the world.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti.  Peace, peace, peace.

Pat Daniel, Managing Editor of Engaging Peace and Kripalu Yoga Teacher

“Disastrous rise of misplaced power”

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison:  Today, just before Tax Day in the U.S., we again welcome guest contributor John Hess, who writes about the financial consequences of war.]

In the mid-1960s, I saw the initiation of social programs that promised to transform and improve America, making it truly the land of opportunity and giving it the rough equality that we like to think it should have.

Graph of military spending by country, 2005
Military spending by country, 2005

Those social programs were far from perfect, but they were a promising start. Yet that promise was never achieved because of Vietnam, a war that sapped the country’s resources and took them away from social programs and into destruction.

The same is true today.  The U.S. has already spent some 1.1 trillion dollars on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, with no end in sight.  Indeed, we are spending roughly $8 billion a month in Afghanistan alone, and it is estimated that we will spend at minimum another $125 billion if we do not withdraw until 2014 (if then).

You all know what that money could do if even half of it was spent here: public higher and k-12 education, infrastructure, Medicare and Medicaid, and on and on.

I am no great fan of President Eisenhower, for I know of his reluctance to honestly deal with segregation and integrating schools.  Nonetheless, Eisenhower was a warrior, one greatly sobered and humbled by the savagery and slaughter of WWII.  Though he did little to nothing to stop its growth during his tenure in office, he gave us a famous warning in his “Farewell Address”:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

That military-industrial complex weighs so heavily upon us today.  The Tea Party movement has shown how effective grass-roots efforts can be at cutting budgets, but has chosen to attack vitally important social programs, not the overbearing military-industrial complex.

What will it take to get tax-payers to preserve needed social programs while stopping the engines of destruction?

John Hess, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston