Tapas: Living With Inner Fire & Passion

Let's explore the yogic niyama: TAPAS. "Fiery Discipline". Imagine engaging the passion of diving into our goals. Imagine using the fiery power inside to burn away all that no longer belongs. Let's explore how to apply this inner power to propel us on our journey. Part 8 of The Yogic Path Series

Transcript

So today we are looking at tapas.

This is the eighth class of our Yogic Path in the Light series.

It's based in the eight limbs of yoga described by Patanjali and his yoga sutras.

And the first two limbs,

Like if you're new to that idea,

Patanjali basically thousands of years ago,

All of these schools of yoga were popping up,

Thousands of schools of yoga all over India,

All over southern Asia.

He wanted to kind of try to figure out what did they all have in common.

Because they just basically,

I mean my understanding,

The world according to me,

Is that something strange happened in the world and a real darkness came over it.

So this yoga became the medicine to help us get back onto our human path,

Onto our true path.

And so all these schools popped up based on all these teachers who had maybe revelation or had insights or how to heal.

Some were very physically based,

Some were very spiritually based,

Some were very socially based.

But how do we get back on path?

How do we not let the darkness kind of engulf us?

How do we get back into that space of light and wisdom and truth?

So he went around and he studied all of these different schools of thought and he summarized them all in the eight limbs of yoga.

And some of the limbs are what we're accustomed to seeing in yoga like asana,

Pranayama,

Dharana,

Like focus,

Dhyana,

Samadhi,

Bliss,

States,

Things like that.

But the two first,

The foundation of all the schools of yoga are the yamas and the niyamas.

And these are the way we live.

And this is a part of yoga that we often forget that we can do all the postures we want,

We can do all the breath techniques,

We can do all the meditation,

All the candle gazing,

We can do all of these things.

But if our mind is filled with incorrect information,

If it's filled with what I wanted to say was lies,

Like if it's filled with misinformation,

Incorrect data about the world,

We can do all the postures we want,

We can do all the practices we want,

But we're building on a false foundation.

And we're just going to keep falling over and over again.

So the yamas and the niyamas help us to actually create our true foundation,

Create our true path.

From there,

We may practice asana,

Pranayama,

Meditation and all that,

But we have to have a solid foundation because our mind is how we experience the world.

We think we just go out and have experiences,

But every single experience we have is processed and interpreted by the mind,

By the brain.

So the quality of our processor is everything.

This is literally our entire experience of the world is what's told to us.

Because we know this,

We can each have the same experience,

We can witness the same happening.

And we'll all go away with a different takeaway,

Because our brains are all so different.

So the yamas and the niyamas help us clear the mind of all the nonsense and all the darkness and all the things that really take us off our path.

And again,

This isn't like a generalized,

This is right and this is wrong.

It's just all about what is your path.

Every single one of us has this unique incarnation,

This unique DNA signature,

This unique reason for being here.

And all yoga is,

Is it just helps us bring us back to that truth,

So that we can be our unique selves.

So the yamas,

These were the first five talks we did in this series,

Are all the things that help to,

It's almost like they're the things that say,

Okay,

Here are the distractions in life,

Let's avoid them,

For all we're worth.

So say something like ahimsa,

Like non-violence.

If you find yourself in situations where you constantly have to be violent to protect yourself,

You're not on your path.

You need to make a change.

Satya,

If you find yourself having to lie,

If you're having to do this,

Something's a muck.

You need to make change because you're like in the weeds,

Things like that.

So these are the yamas.

Today's topic,

Tapas,

Is one of the niyamas.

And the niyamas,

They are the things we do focus on.

These are the things we dive into,

We put all of our energy into,

Because that's where we expand.

It's all that whatever you think about expands,

Where your focus goes,

The energy goes,

All that.

Those are the niyamas.

The yamas say,

Clear the way,

So that now we can focus on what we really want in life.

We can really grow and we can expand and we can become like the great humans that we really are.

So the first one,

The first niyama that we did was saucha,

Which is purification.

You know,

It's just really just living your life without any of the other,

Without any of the other,

Really.

Last week,

We did santosha,

Which is contentment.

And this is tapas.

And tapas is Sanskrit.

So there's many,

Many,

Many interpretations of it.

But one of the main ones is self-discipline.

Others are spiritual austerity,

Inner fire,

Fervor,

Passion.

And what tapas really is,

Is that inner grit that helps us to actually do what we want.

It's that little something something inside that says,

No,

I am going to do this.

I am going to,

Whatever that thing is that has that passion inside that says,

No,

You are not convincing me I'm not going to do this.

This is my path.

This is what I want to do.

And I'm going to do it.

That inside,

That's tapas.

So even the idea of self-discipline in our world in this,

And the reason this is called the yogic path in the light is because in many of the other talks we've done,

Especially in the chakra 2.

0 series,

Either an audio on insight timer or a video on my YouTube channel,

We talk a lot about this idea that a lot of these ideas like even like tapas self-discipline,

It's like it's been co-opted to the dark side or something to make it like self-discipline.

If you don't have this inner fire,

There's something wrong with you.

And it all and it just is used to create guilt and shame and all these things like,

Oh,

I just don't have a lot of self-discipline because I'm a loser or something.

It's like,

That's not what self-discipline is.

And when you look at this in the light in the truth,

And again,

I'm not doing some weird judgment between dark and light.

I'm just saying,

In the truth,

What self-discipline really is,

Is discipline comes from the root disciple,

Which means it's something you're passionate about.

It's something you want to grow in.

So like,

Let's say you decide you want to play the piano,

You just love the piano.

Well,

You're going to dive into the study of piano.

And what does that mean?

Well,

You're going to play a lot of piano,

You're going to explore a lot of composers,

You're going to do scales,

You're going to play with fourths and fifths and interesting intervals and you're going to just dive in.

This is being a disciple of an art.

There's no external person with a stick saying,

We must practice your piano,

We've got to practice your piano.

It's like,

No,

It comes from inside.

It's this thing inside that says,

I love this,

I can hardly wait to get home to get all whatever I have to get done so that I can sit down at my piano and dive in and explore it.

When someone has this passion for something,

That is self discipline.

Because I have this passion,

This discipleship inside of me that nobody else has to tell me to do.

It's driven from the inside.

And this is where it got funny in the world.

It says,

Wow,

That person really has a lot of self discipline.

Like it's a virtue that that person doesn't have,

Like that,

You know what I'm saying?

Like there's something really weird about what we do,

We use this to use it against other people.

For example,

There are people who are passionate runners.

They're just made to run.

They love running.

They're like built as gazelles.

They get out there,

They get running.

And they're just like,

Yes,

Like every cell of their body is alive.

These are the people that talk about runners high.

These are like,

I just,

I can't even function unless I've run 10 kilometers or 10 miles or whatever.

So then we observe them and say,

Wow,

They have so much self discipline.

And what we're saying is true.

Because they are passionate about running.

They don't force themselves to run.

They don't say if I if I don't run this thing,

I'm going to gain weight or I'm,

I'm a loser.

We don't use this.

We don't use tapas to to hurt ourselves.

Tapas is an inner fire.

It's connected to your third chakra.

It's connected to whatever your personal mission is in life.

What is it that you love to do?

What is it that brings you joy that lights you up that you want to dive in?

Do you truly want to dive into and expand into?

That's self discipline.

And when we can do that,

The challenges and the reason tapas is a niyama that we actually have to study this that we actually have to embrace it as part of our yogic path is this world is so curious that it's almost like we're trained to be distracted.

No,

No,

No,

No,

You have to make sure you work 80 hours a week.

Otherwise,

You're a big loser.

Oh,

No,

No,

No.

You've got to make sure that you attend all these family functions,

Even though you don't like them.

Nothing against family functions.

But there's a lot of weird expectation from family.

All these things.

It's like you got to do this,

You got to do this.

We sit on our phones,

And we play and we do this like this endless distraction from what this soul wants to be doing.

And so in many ways,

Too,

We have an addiction to comfort that we think and maybe it's from generations of suffering.

Like I'm not judging this.

There's lots of reasons to say you know what,

I'm just going to kick back for this lifetime because I fought 400 wars and I'm done.

Who knows why we're so addicted to comfort.

But that addiction to comfort is the opposite of tapas.

That when we take the easy road all the time,

And I don't mean the called road,

Or the inspired road,

I mean the easy road.

I mean,

As soon as things get a little uncomfortable,

We do something to alleviate the discomfort.

And maybe we just drown ourselves in Netflix,

Maybe we have a drink,

Maybe we take drugs,

Maybe we eat chocolate,

Maybe we drink coffee,

Whatever it is,

Maybe we go shopping,

Who knows what we need to take that edge off of life.

But that edge is where the tapas lives.

So in our society,

This comfort is so dangerous.

Because the problem is,

It can easily turn into stagnancy.

It can turn into stagnancy of thought,

It can turn into stagnancy of our physical bodies,

It can turn into stagnancy of our life's path.

And we find ourselves just circling,

Just circling and circling and circling and repeating patterns.

So this is one of the really interesting things about tapas.

Because oftentimes we hear about the samskaras.

And that's a big,

Big topic.

But in short,

The samskaras can be looked at as patterns that maybe they come from past lives that we're repeating.

And so we're repeating these patterns.

And oftentimes,

We don't even know why we're doing it.

We don't know why we keep repeating this,

Why don't I have the ability to change this in my life,

Even though I really want to?

Why don't I have the ability to speak my truth in that moment?

Why don't I have this drive to do this?

Why am I stuck?

This is a sign that we're stuck in a samskara.

Tapas is the fire that burns us out of that samskara.

That's what helps us rise out.

Because the samskara can be like a mental groove that is so deeply embedded.

And we are in that groove,

We are in that rut,

And we can't get out of it.

So if we live according to the rule of comfort,

We never get out of it.

Because the groove,

We may hate the groove,

But it's so familiar.

It's comfortable,

Even if it sucks.

And that's one of the challenges with samskaras or patterns or anything we want to call them.

So then all of a sudden,

So we have this yogic path,

And we're conscious of this because this is a big deal in yoga,

This freedom moksha freedom from these karmic cycles that we keep coming back to sort out over and over and over again.

How do we become free of them?

So we sit and we listen,

And we try to connect with our truth.

What is my satya?

What is my path?

What is the way through?

And we listen,

And perhaps we have an answer.

And maybe the answer is,

Begin this practice.

And it could be anything.

And this becomes a sadhana.

And sadhana is a daily practice that expands our spiritual path.

It isn't just something we do every day.

It must be a little challenging,

Because it has to ask us to grow spiritually.

So in the yogic world,

Sadhana could be a yoga practice.

It could be a physical asana practice.

It could be meditating for 10 minutes a day or an hour a day.

It could be doing a Kundalini Yoga Kriya every day.

That could be my daily sadhana.

One of the challenges is like I teach Kundalini Yoga,

So that's my reference,

But the sadhana is a Kriya.

A Kriya is just a set of exercises that has a specific goal.

There are certain Kriyas that you'll do,

And you'll be like,

Oh,

I don't like this Kriya.

And we don't like it normally,

Because it's probably touching something inside of us.

Maybe it's moving our liver that has emotions stuck in it that we don't want to let go of or we're uncomfortable with.

Or maybe it's asking us to ask more of our body than we normally ask of ourselves.

Or maybe the Kriya has all kinds of stillness in it.

And we like to be busy,

We like to distract ourselves with piles and piles of energy.

And this Kriya is asking us to sit in all of these quiet postures and it's driving us crazy.

The message is always,

Then that's the Kriya you have to do.

That's the Kriya you choose for your daily sadhana.

Which is not what we want to hear.

It's like,

No,

No,

No,

But there's this other Kriya that I'm really good at.

And I'd like to do that every day,

Because it's in my comfort zone.

It's within the world that I enjoy.

So if I'm like super physically active,

And it's like,

You know what,

I'm going to choose a sadhana where I've got to run 5k.

And then I've got to do this physical thing.

And then I've got to go to CrossFit.

And then I've got to do that.

We do those things out of joy.

Definitely do things out of joy.

But that's not a spiritual sadhana.

The spiritual sadhana for that super active person is to sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day.

That's the challenge.

Maybe you've come to a place in your life where you're exceptionally sedentary.

Maybe you've battled with depression,

Maybe you've struggled with illness or injury or something like that.

Or maybe you just simply come out of a family where physical exercise isn't part of it.

Well then maybe your daily sadhana is just going for a walk every single morning,

No matter what.

But this only comes from within.

This guidance cannot come from someone else.

It can't come from me.

It can't come from a book you read.

It can't come from an article you read.

It can't come from a teacher.

It can't come from society.

It has to come from you in meditation between you and your highest wisdom when you ask,

What is the best step for me next?

And if the answer is,

Go for a walk every day.

And you're like,

Because maybe you're struggling to get out of bed.

Maybe you've got knee pain,

Maybe whatever.

But that little seed inside of you that says,

Trust me every day,

Even if all you do is walk around the block,

Come home and have a cup of tea.

Just do this one thing.

This is a spiritual sadhana.

It's the thing that makes you drag yourself out of bed because you promised your soul that you were going to do this because this is your soul's path.

And then of course,

What happens?

You do that and it gets a little bit easier.

And then maybe you meet someone when you're walking and they're walking their dog and well maybe they become friends.

And your life starts to expand in all these interesting ways.

Because we trusted that inner guidance that said,

This is your path.

This is the thing to do next.

But we really have to access tapas to do it.

It's the tapas that gets us out of bed and puts our shoes on.

It's the tapas that when we are super hyper,

Super high achievers,

Super A-type personalities that makes us sit down.

And it's tapas that makes us sit still.

So this isn't always about becoming active or challenging ourselves physically.

It's just about what brings us into balance,

What brings us into clarity.

I remember one time I have a tattoo,

I wore the wrong sweater to show it to you.

But I have a tattoo on my arm here.

It's a feather.

And I felt this need to get this feather tattooed on my arm.

And I thought it was all about mastery because the feather represented this teacher that I had used to teach about with Saraha's stories and it was a long story.

But and then after I got the tattoo,

I went to see this Irish friend of mine,

This older lady,

She was so interesting.

And I showed her the tattoo and she looks at me,

She says,

Did you know that in native cultures,

They'll hold an eagle feather in court?

Because if they hold the feather,

They must always tell the truth.

And at that time of my life,

I realized that that's why I had the feather tattooed on my arm.

Because my tapas was to always,

I needed tapas to always tell the truth.

Because I was a people pleaser and I wanted everyone to be happy.

And I didn't want anyone to be out of their comfort zone.

I didn't want to cause any trouble with anybody.

So I would tell these very white lies,

Not in a manipulative way,

Just in a safe way.

I would just sort of let someone else's reality rule even though that wasn't really my truth.

And so then I had tattooed this fat,

This beautiful multicolored feather on my forearm.

And I remember I was dating a guy at the time.

And especially in relationships,

I would struggle if my truth would cause issues in the relationship.

That was my worst Achilles heel.

And I remember we would be having a conversation.

And I would go to say something and my eyes would see the feather.

And I would have to dig deep inside of me to find that fire inside of me.

It's like,

Katrina,

Your truth matters.

You matter,

Your path matters.

Do not pretend that his truth is your truth.

What is your truth?

And I had to dig deep to find the strength to say my truth.

Tapas isn't just about on the mat,

Doing yoga,

Meditating.

It's everything in life.

It could be taking a breath,

Maybe anger is an issue for you.

And tapas is that power inside that says,

Okay,

If I get angry,

I'm going to take 10 deep breaths before I say anything.

Whatever it is,

Yoga has to be applied to life.

Otherwise,

Why do it?

Like,

Who cares if you can sit cross legged or stand on your head?

Like,

Who cares?

It's not interesting.

But when we can actually apply this to life,

This is really,

Really important.

It's an interesting thing when we connect tapas with that inner truth and our soul's path.

Because this is really important that it's always connected to our satya.

Because again,

We've been told,

There are a lot of right ways of living.

It's all the things about this is the right way to eat.

This is the right way to exercise.

This is the right path of yoga.

This is the right way to meditate.

Like there's a million right ways to do things.

The path of yoga is so very specific that oftentimes our tapas,

It really is our own journey.

Nobody else needs to approve of the places we put our energy into,

The places we put our passion into.

And the truth is,

Sometimes sharing our path with someone else actually takes us off our path.

It dilutes the tapas.

You know how you can be sitting on your own?

And you're like,

You know what I'm going to do?

This is what I'm going to do.

And if we can just stay with that,

It's a joy.

Because the niyamas,

They are literally your experience with God,

Your experience with your soul.

The niyamas have nothing to do with anyone else.

They are just us.

And the challenge sometimes is when we share our inner path,

When we share this vision I have of myself with another person,

The very act of putting it into words makes it smaller.

And then the other person might go,

Really?

I mean,

You've done this before.

And did it really work?

Really?

Like,

Yeah,

I heard that too.

But you know,

I think it's a bit of a fad,

Don't you?

So it's a really interesting thing to enjoy this tapas to enjoy this inner fire ourselves,

Like to really,

Really deeply understand that our spiritual path is only ours.

And that is actually what keeps that fire burning the best.

That we don't even allow anyone else's opinions about it.

We just enjoy our own spiritual path.

And I'm not saying you never talk about it.

But we just have to be careful sometimes if you find yourself all excited about something,

And then the fire just goes out for some reason.

Just check if you had to share this with someone else.

Did that put the fire out?

Did that make us lose?

Because there's a really curious thing that we're supposed to be living for other people or that our path is supposed to make sense to other people.

It's not we really are.

It's funny we were doing it.

We were in a talk yesterday,

I think.

And we were talking about it was like a zoom class.

We were talking about the joys of being unique.

And one person was saying,

Like,

I know,

I'm really weird.

I know,

I'm really weird.

And it's like,

What if we're all supposed to be so weird?

We all have our own little ship with our own little path.

And we have our own tapas on board that drives this boat forward.

And we just do it in sheer joy.

There's none of this,

You've got to do this.

You kind of look at your life and go,

Huh?

Okay,

I've lived this real sedentary life for a while.

I seem to be being called to some action.

Huh?

Let's do it.

Let's see what happens.

Like to just have complete curiosity about it.

If you're that super a type person,

That's just doo doo doo doo goal goal oriented,

I achieve everything,

You know,

And you're like,

Meditation,

Huh?

That would be hard.

Wow.

Oh,

You're really hard.

Well,

Let's see what's inside this crazy place.

Let's go.

It is a joy in it.

And it has nothing to do with anyone else.

And if it doesn't entertain us,

If we don't think that this would be an interesting path and interesting journey,

That's not our satya.

So important to keep this your path,

That there's not a soul on the planet that has to approve of what your path is.

And there is something so joyful about this because the tapas stays excited.

We keep that joy of a child that some person,

You know,

Like Darwin,

I remember reading Darwin's autobiography,

Which was hilariously short,

Because Darwin thought he was an idiot.

Darwin honestly thought that he was kind of adult,

Because Darwin absolutely just loved categorizing things.

That's actually what Darwin did.

Darwin's like given all this credit for all these things.

And even Darwin saying,

I didn't really say that.

The funniest thing about his autobiography is he writes very little because he didn't think he was very interesting.

But his kids filled out the autobiography.

There was like a later part of the book that his kids actually wrote about their dad,

Which was much more interesting.

Darwin's passion,

Darwin's satya,

Darwin's reason for being alive,

Was he loved categorizing things.

He loved looking at bugs,

And drawing them and figuring them out and then looking at leaves and looking at this and looking at that and looking at that.

And he just categorized stuff.

That was his whole passion.

And then he discovered patterns and he then he created this and created that.

That was actually Darwin's claim to fame.

We have this idea like what's my my mission in life?

Well,

If I could find my mission in life,

Then I could have some real fire behind it.

But sometimes I think we think our mission in life is supposed to be some great big save the world thing.

But what if your passion is just categorizing things?

And then Darwin,

We're still talking about him like it's a household name.

That's where our life is actually so simple.

We just look at the things we love.

What if your passion in life is simply playing the violin?

And you just allow yourself this freedom to go there.

That self-discipline will rise all on its own.

And the beautiful thing is when we actually engage in this sadhana,

Whether it's playing the violin,

Whether it's doing a daily kriya,

Whether it's painting,

Whether it's saying I'm going to take two hours a day to read the books,

Whatever it is,

Or I'm going to journal,

Or I'm going to take an hour a day,

I'm going to go for a walk,

I'm going to sit by the ocean,

Whatever it is that you say,

I'm going to do this every day.

The beautiful thing about it is we start to see the programs that rise that say,

You can't do this.

You shouldn't be doing this.

We see these patterns that rise and then we get to see the samskaras.

And we get to see the programs that have been put in our heads by society,

By our family,

By even our own past experiences,

Our past disappointments.

But when we have this daily practice,

Whatever it is,

Fueled by this tapas,

Fueled by this inner fire,

These things rise and we look at them and we say,

No,

I am going for a walk today.

No,

I am going to sit on my mat and do my yoga.

And it's like,

No,

But you can't.

Aren't you tired?

Doesn't your body hurt?

You're never going to do it anyway.

Why are you even doing this?

This doesn't make any sense.

Or even like,

Let's say you want to paint and you're going to paint every day,

Maybe you're going to write every day.

And then these things come up and they say,

Well,

It's not like you're going to make money at this.

It's not like anyone would ever buy this.

It's not like you're actually a good artist.

I mean,

What's wrong with you?

Why are you even bothering?

When we have this inner fire,

And this is a niyama,

So this is a clear path,

We can see these little distractions that pop up from the side of the road.

I always see our path like a road with these ditches at the side and then there's forest.

And it's almost like you're on your path and these things like crawl out of the ditches and say,

Why are you even bothering?

But when we trust this tapas,

When we trust this discipline inside this,

Our joy of discipleship of whatever it is that we're excited about,

We're stronger to look at this fear,

Or this voice of our parents or the voice of society or the voice of our teachers that maybe would talk us out of it and we look at it and we say,

I'm doing it because I feel passionate about it.

I'm doing it because it feels like my path.

And I'm excited to see where it takes me.

And then you just keep walking.

And you just keep painting and you just keep doing the yoga and you just keep going for the walk and you just keep meditating.

Tapas is our friend.

Tapas is that something something that says,

You don't have to understand,

Because I'm excited about this.

And the beautiful thing is when we're really clear about this,

This really speaks to the ideas of right effort.

That I don't have to do anything that's not on my path.

I don't have to do more.

It's like this,

There's one teacher and he used to say,

Tapas is right effort,

Not more effort.

The question is,

What is on my path?

All right,

I'm going to put all my effort into that.

But I'm not going to put it into the things that aren't on my path.

And this is where it's really interesting.

This is where the the Yamas then blend into tapas.

One of the Yamas Ahimsa,

Non-violence.

So tapas is never violent to self.

It's never punishing.

If tapas for you means harming yourself in any way or even critical,

And I mean,

I don't mean physically,

I mean even mentally.

If you've got a little inner whip that you think you have to have at your back to make this happen,

Question it.

Question what you're doing.

Because violence is never part of the yogic path.

Or maybe satya,

Satya is a yama.

And to really be clear that this is according to your truth.

Because it's so interesting,

It's so easy to jump off of our truth because some really charismatic teacher said that this is the right path to take,

This is the right thing to do every day.

And then we put all this effort into it,

But it doesn't really feel like us.

So then we don't do it.

And then we criticize ourselves and we say that we don't have self-discipline and things like that.

Brahmacharya is a yama.

Brahmacharya means to walk in your highest path.

What is your soul's path?

Forget about what society expects of you.

What is your soul's path?

What makes you feel light?

What makes you feel joyful?

What makes you feel excited to be alive?

Put your power behind that.

Whatever takes you down those roads.

And the beautiful thing about tapas is tapas speaks to really having a goal in life.

And I don't mean a goal like I want to achieve this goal,

But almost having this North Star.

Having this North Star that says,

I am on my path and I trust joy.

I trust my heart.

I trust my meditative state that guides me.

And I'm really excited about putting some effort into that.

There's this beautiful quote by B.

K.

S.

Iyengar.

I'm going to read it to you.

It says,

A worthy aim makes life illumined,

Pure and divine.

Without such an aim,

Action and prayer have no value.

Life without tapas is like a heart without love.

This is the passion of being alive.

We don't have passion for things that aren't on our path.

But when we're really on our path,

This is the excitement.

It's fun and it doesn't have to be comfortable.

It can be challenging.

And this is circles back to this.

Don't go for the comfortable.

Go for the excitement with a little bit of difficulty.

What if you have lost your motivation?

Yeah,

That's exactly what happens.

So then we really have to look at why.

Like what happened?

Like the thing is,

Everything is part of the path.

So if we sort of start tracing our life back to the point where we lost our motivation,

I can trace a lot of huge shifts in my life even when I got married.

Because I believe my best guess is that I had samskuras that were heavily focused around a life being very mano centric.

Oh,

I'm married now.

Oh,

Everything's about serving my husband and making his life happy.

That was a deep rut for me.

It was really hard to get out of that.

And I lost a lot of my own personal motivation because my life was circling someone else's dream.

So it's really interesting just to sort of trace back in your life.

When did the motivation die?

And maybe just stop for a moment and see if you can like change direction.

Do what's a little hard,

But no whip at the back.

Say more.

We have this idea that motivation comes from outside,

That we need someone else to tell us what to do and make us do things.

But the problem is,

As humans,

Our deepest reality is that we must have choice.

Choice is inherent to the human path.

This is intrinsic to the human path.

As soon as we have somebody with a whip,

Mentally,

Emotionally,

Physically,

Whatever,

Our actual response is to push back against it.

So as soon as the only way we're going to do something is from an external force,

Someone saying,

You've got to do this and you've got to do this and if you don't do this,

You're a loser,

Our soul is going to push back against it and rebel against it.

And that's where if we can shift it to actually say,

No,

This is actually my path.

I don't need anyone else to agree.

I don't need anyone else to convince me.

I don't need anyone to tell me I'm a loser if I don't do it,

Or to threaten me emotionally,

Physically,

Mentally,

Spiritually,

Because this is my path.

So then suddenly there's no pushback,

Because this is my path.

And then all my ducks are in a row.

Everything's going forward.

And we actually go forward.

Do you think of shades changing over time?

Happens often,

Like for a time it's painting each day for a time chanting say for a year and a half,

And then for a few months and then transforming into something else and then over again over in the years.

Totally.

I don't believe that your sadhana has to be the same because it's different.

It's we require different things at different times.

Like,

So even in the Kundalini Yoga tradition that I teach,

You might choose a sadhana because it's particularly challenging,

Not damaging or injuring,

But just challenging.

Do that Kriya until it's easy.

You just do it until the body is like,

Retrained,

Rewired.

But then you don't have to do that Kriya anymore.

You might choose something else.

And so it's as with all things.

Maybe we dive into this for a time.

And then that's not necessary anymore.

We've broken out of that samskra.

We're off into new fields.

Or maybe we do have one particular passion.

But so like,

Let's say music is your passion.

And you begin with the piano,

And you dive into it,

And it's just the most blissful thing.

And then you discover Tchaikovsky and you're like,

Whoa,

This is a whole other realm.

And then you might start to study sacred geometry,

Because you start to understand how the fourths and the fifths and the tones all work and musical thing.

And then suddenly you're studying visual art.

You know what I mean?

Like the passion can just build and go into a million places.

Or it just goes deeper and deeper deeper into one.

Now it can definitely shift all the time.

Do I follow a particular Kriya tradition?

I have a close friend translating Sanskrit texts about Kriya Yoga in India.

I teach Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan.

That's where I was trained.

And I know Yogi Bhajan has fallen from grace in the yoga communities.

But the Kriya tradition that he taught is so powerful.

And I was actually never a great fan of his anyway.

But I was very called to teach this yoga.

And it is the most transformative yoga I've ever found.

And so that is the Kriya tradition I teach.

I teach my own yoga teacher training because there's aspects of the culture that I don't appreciate.

And I'm just meant to teach my own yoga teacher training.

So that's the tradition I teach and I practice.

I love learning and I always find myself taking classes but not really diving into the work,

Mainly just starting.

Do you have any suggestions on how to dive deeper with self-motivated work?

The only thing that works for me is really knowing that it's on my path.

It's like I have to shift a philosophy inside of me that says,

No,

This is actually really important.

It's like there's so many other things in my life that take priority over it.

So I have to actually reprioritize my life,

Which requires a shift in philosophy,

Even like honestly why I'm even here.

Why am I even on this planet?

Why am I alive?

Am I really here to make sure the dishes are done?

Am I really here to make sure that this and this and this happens?

Or am I here to explore this thing that's interesting to me?

And that's a foundational question we have to ask ourselves.

Why am I really here?

And then to prioritize our day to actually put the big rocks in.

Do you ever hear that story of the professor?

He's standing at the front of the room and he takes a jar and he puts these stones in the jar and he says to the class,

He says,

Is this jar full?

And the class says,

Yep,

Looks pretty full.

And then he takes some pebbles and he pours the pebbles in that fall around the big rocks.

And he says,

Is the jar full now?

And they said,

Yeah,

I guess.

And he's like,

Hmm.

So he takes some sand and he pours the sand in and the sand fills in between all the pebbles and the rocks.

And he asks the students,

Is it full now?

And of course,

They're like,

No.

And then he takes water and he pours the water in and the water fills it up.

And he says,

What's the moral of the story?

And one of the students says,

You can always fit more into your day.

And he said,

No,

The moral of the story is if you don't put the big rocks in first,

You'll never get them in.

And that to me is like following a personal path.

Do I believe that my spiritual journey is actually the most important thing?

Do I believe that my daily sadhana is actually the most important thing in my day?

One hour out of the 16 hours I'm awake,

Is that the most important thing?

Are all the other things,

The pebbles in the sand,

The most important things?

And when I can get those big rocks in my day,

I can really make change.

How does one balance tapas with the need for money and resources in modern society?

Being able to pay for our shelter and our food is part of life.

Maybe you can pay less for shelter,

Maybe you can not spend money on things that aren't really on your path.

But to get up in the morning and go to work,

It does require tapas,

Which is very grounding.

It's important to contribute to society.

We all lived in a village together.

There's 256 people here.

Let's say we all were part of a village.

We would all contribute to the village.

Some would make food,

Some would build houses,

Some would care for children,

Some would whatever.

Working is a normal part of life.

And having whatever income we need to have food and that is a normal part of life.

So it's important.

It's part of tapas.

I always get stuck on the money part too.

I crave to paint all day,

But I have to pay the bills to survive.

The thing is,

It's all about balance.

Life is about balance.

It's not,

That's something like we tend to get very extreme.

That we think that the path of joy is just about doing whatever we want and someone else pays the bills.

But what if you were living in community?

What if 10 of us were living in a house?

Well nobody gets to just paint all day.

Everybody contributes.

That's part of being human.

That's part of the social fabric of being human.

And so I don't know whether it's because we've had great suffering or that we're exhausted from work,

From false work.

There's a lot of,

It's interesting,

What was his name?

Buckminster Fuller.

He used to say that the majority of the work that people do doesn't contribute to society.

It's actually useless.

It's just,

It's almost like there's this false level of society.

Here's the things that are needed.

And there's this entire huge layer,

Which might be three quarters of the workforce,

That actually does nothing but perpetuate itself.

And I think that kind of work is exhausting.

I think it's soul stealing.

And I think if we do enough of that,

Our soul truly just wants to sit on the beach all day.

It just wants to paint.

It just wants to feel alive.

It just wants to feel human.

It doesn't want to do the soul-sucking awful work that he's talking about.

And so that's interesting to note.

How do we define work?

What if you could actually live with people,

Have less rent,

Work in a fun cafe serving coffee,

And that was enough to pay your rent,

Buy some great canvases and paint?

What if there's a different equation that actually brings joy?

We're really brainwashed into this idea that we have to make six figures and we have to do this and we have to do that.

And it's like,

No,

We don't unless you have a cocaine addiction or something.

Nobody needs that much money.

I don't care if you do.

I'm just saying nobody needs it.

So it's just an interesting thing to really craft your life in a way that really is authentically you.

And so how would I contribute to society if I was following my joy?

How would I explore creativity if I was following my joy?

I genuinely believe that there is a perfect balance and whatever that balance is actually fuels us the most.

So for example,

Let's say you love to paint.

But if all you did was,

I'm just picking on you so I don't remember who said it anymore.

But if you love to paint and you just want to do it all day long,

Going to work a certain number of days a week,

Being a part of humanity,

What if it's perfect that you have to do that to fuel your inspiration?

What if that's important?

What if the struggle to do that is part of the muse to be creative?

I really trust that whatever the right balance is,

Is actually perfect for our life.

That there's no mistakes.

So thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Soooo insightful on an essential struggle on fulfilling our our purpose!!! 💖All Love and Gratitude

My second time listening to this series. Wonderful! My take away- passion creates discipline, not vice versa!

Beautiful teaching about cultivating purpose, contributing to your neighbor, and prioritizing spirituality.

So beautiful Katrina!

Enriching & thought provoking, truths. Beautifully & lovingly delivered as always. Thank you!! for your work. 🙏❤️☮️