Practicing Svadhyaya or Self-Study to Make Peace with your Past

Hello friends, Welcome to June!  I’m publishing this just after Memorial Day.  As I spent some time silently honoring individuals who have served in the military, I sat with this word “Memorial,” and alternate words like Memory, Remembrance, and Reflection.   

And then it struck me that we could all use a little more reflection in our own lives. I mean how often do you take the time to sit down, contemplate, and perhaps take pride in your own accomplishments?   This led me to recall a concept, described in the Yoga Sutra, called Svadhyaya which means Self-Study, to explore further.

So today I invite you to take a stroll down memory lane, honoring your growth thus far.   Or just ponder all that is wonderful about you!   

And even if you’re not feeling particularly satisfied with your status at this stage of your life journey, I invite you to read on.  I’ll offer some concepts rooted in yoga philosophy, that encourage self-study as a means to achieve contentment.  And I’ll share some lessons learned from my own personal exploration odyssey.

Svadhyaya

During my yoga teacher training course, I learned the word Svadhyaya.   This is translated from Sanksrit, as self-study or, the education of one’s self.   Svadhyaya is one of the 5 Niyamas, which is the second of the “8 Limbs of Yoga.”  The Niyamas act as guidelines on how to live a meaningful and purposeful life. They also serve as a prescription for moral and ethical conduct and self-discipline.  These are written about in detail in the “Yoga Sutras of Patanjali” which is a collection of verses on the theory and practice of yoga.  Feel free to read more about the 8 Limbs here.

We are Divine

Numerous books and teachers prescribe self-study as a personal growth tool.  There are several advantages to learning what makes us tick in order to improve our productivity or patience or problem-solving, I’ve written a little on this here.  But today I’ll focus on this one aspect of Svadhyaya – to dig deep into our minds and souls to eventually excavate the Divine within us. 

Deborah Adele writes in her book, The Yamas & Niyamas – Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice,

“We are, at the core, divine consciousness.  Around this consciousness, we are packed in ‘boxes’ of our experience, our conditioning, and our belief systems.  These boxes are things like how we identify ourselves…our preferences and dislikes, our fears and imagination.  All of these boxes are informed by country, culture, gender, town, family and personal experience.

[When] we suffer it’s because we forget we are really the Divine.  [When we] courageously [unpack] the box to find our true identity as Divine itself, we [embrace] the joy of this jewel of self-study (svadhyaya)”

Deborah Adele, The Yamas & Niyamas – Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice

The word Divine is also translated from the Sanskrit sutras as ‘God’.  This is described as Atman in some texts on Yoga and Hinduism.  But the idea of God inside us is not exclusive to yoga.  It’s called Buddha nature in Buddhism, and the Holy Spirit in Christianity.

Parable – Where is God?

I understand this is a little heavy, so I’ll lighten it up with a quick story or parable which I’ll paraphrase from Adele’s book. 

The story goes like this – After God created people, he realized they would be constantly bothering him.  He asked his council who suggested places to hide like Mount Everest, or the moon, or under the Earth.  He said, “No, eventually they will find me.” 

Finally, one advisor whispered a suggestion in his ear, and God shouted, “Yes, perfect!  I’ll hide inside each human – they’ll never find me there.” 

I had a little chuckle when I read this and I hope you did too.  Sometimes I experience a personal disappointment where I cannot imagine myself housing a pure or divine spirit inside, but countless sources tell us he (or she) is there, waiting for us to rediscover him or her.  

Reconnection

I’ll shift gears for a moment – while pondering ‘remembrance’, I recalled an old friend.    We were so close in college, but life took us different ways and we lost touch.  For some reason, probably providence, he had been on my mind lately.   I felt personal guilt that I had not reached out previously.  I battled internally with what I’d say to him, or if I should reach out at all, I mean it had been 10 years.  But I overcame my struggle and composed a thoughtful message and told him how much his friendship meant to me at that phase in my life.  And hit send.  And while I felt a little apprehensive after, wondering if he’d write back, I experienced this enormous relief.  I felt so much lighter just releasing and honoring that memory of us.

Can you think of someone to reconnect with?  Write it down, take a moment to block out a time or your calendar if you need to – I can tell you from experience that you’ll feel better after, and you may possibly make their day! 

Evolve or Transform

Building on that story: one reason it was so hard for me to reconnect with my friend is that, for me, college is a season of my life that I’d usually rather forget.  I went a little crazy in my college years, and made plenty of bad decisions.  After I graduated, I moved across the country and that flight was like a separation of the ‘old me’ and the ‘new me’.  Have you ever done that?  Clean break so to speak?  

Looking back on my life, unpacking my box, AKA practicing svadhyaya, I see this recurring pattern where I disappointed myself, and then made a resolution to completely change, or transform.  First after college, and then when I got married, and then when I became pregnant.  At each of these life stages I vowed to abandon my bad habits and begin anew. 

And while I did this with good intentions, now, I see the error in my ways.  With each of these so called “transformations”, I lost a connection to my past.  I wish I could say to my younger self that it’s okay to want to improve, but try to do it gently. 

I would encourage myself, and in writing this I hope I may encourage you dear reader, if this resonates with you, to instead, focus on evolving instead of transforming. 

Rediscover, not Reinvent

Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of my favorite daily devotional books, Simple Abundance, advises us similarly to ‘Rediscover, not Reinvent.’  Her book challenges the reader to rediscover their Authentic Self.  She writes,

“Authenticity is Divine growth; reinvention is substitution rather than evolution.  Authenticity is a natural, organic flowing from your soul’s inception to this moment and beyond…[despite] delay, disappointment, or denial…Authenticity is recovering the part of yourself you might have abandoned long ago. 

Don’t you want to meet her?  Then don’t reinvent.  Rediscover your Authentic Self.” 

Sarah ban breathnach, simple abundance

Perhaps this is a little intense, especially if you haven’t read the previous chapters, but the moral of the story is you don’t have to radically change yourself when you make a mistake or two.  You’re okay, you’re more than okay! 

Shadow Side

I’ve been reading about this idea of our ‘Shadow Side’ over the past few years.  It’s a metaphor that we all have good and “bad” sides within us.  Think of the villain Two-Face if you’re a comic/superhero follower.  Batman’s adversary, Harvey Dent, was once an upstanding citizen and District Attorney of Gotham City.  A terrible accident occurred with chemicals that marred the left side of his face and he went insane and took on the name ‘Two-Face’. 

The Shadow Side theory would posit that Harvey always had negative tendencies pulling at him, even while he was the good guy DA.  But once his face was destroyed, he reached his personal tipping point and succumbed to his destructive nature. 

We all have a light and a dark side.  And we never really suppress the dark, or transform in my previous example.  We live with it and acknowledge it, and overcome it daily.  Whether that’s something really heavy like an addiction or perhaps lighter like a bad habit.   Whatever it is, it’s part of us, like it or not, and that’s part of what makes us who we are, or unique. 

There is no one on earth that is perfect.  Some people may appear perfect by society’s standards like some celebrities or social media personages.  But we are all flawed.  And acknowledging these flaws with grace, and controlling them, if necessary, is the real test in life. 

Wolf and the Lamb

The same book about the Niyamas describe a Cherokee story that illustrates this idea in another way,

“The grandfather explains to his grandson that two animals live inside his heart, a wolf and a lamb.  When the grandson asks what he is to do, the grandfather replies, ‘Feed the lamb.’

We need to respect the wolf in us…Whatever we pretend isn’t there will unconsciously use us.  We must be willing to look at the selfishness and greed and anger that lies in us, but feed the greatness.”

Deborah Adele, The Yamas & Niyamas – Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice

The Niyamas would encourage practicing svadhyaya /self-study to feed our lamb.

Kintsugi

I am also reminded of the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi where broken pottery is repaired by mending the areas of breakage with a glue mixed with gold.  The broad idea behind this practice is that there is beauty in the broken.  Rather than throw an object away or even repair it to its original standard, the art of Kitsugi highlights the cracks with gold, a material worth more than the original, to honor its history.   

We are all pieces of pottery that have been and will continue to be cracked and chipped by life.  Instead of transforming us into a new bowl, let us consider how we can highlight our ‘battle scars’ with reverence. 

Easier said than done, I know.  Remind me this in a few years when I’m knocking on an aesthetician’s door requesting Botox for my facial wrinkles!

Scorpion

I’ll offer one final visual to wrap up my message.  This month in my yoga classes, we will be working toward a peak yoga posture called Vrschikasana, or Scorpion pose.  Scorpions have frequently been portrayed as symbols of evil in history, folklore and art.  But as you have read today, we can still find beauty in the “bad.” 

We will spend the first half of the yoga class strengthening our arms, shoulders, and core, and stretching our spine in preparation.  I relate this process to the discipline of Svadhyaya /Self-Study.  And when we finally contort our body to conform to this strange shape, a tremendous feat of strength, flexibility, and balance, we cease to relate to the Evil.  Instead, we rediscover the Divine with us. 

I hope this article has given you a few topics to reflect on this month.  We went over a lot – Svadhyaya, Divine Consciousness, Shadow Sides, Kintsugi!  If this is overwhelming, Maybe just pick one theme to meditate on.  And as you contemplate, be sure to do so with kindness.