Step 7 Yoga Wisdom: Humility Allows Us To Open To Grace

True transformation comes not by personal power alone but by having the humility to ask for Divine strength and support

In this session, we explore Step 7—"Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings"—through the timeless teachings of Raja Yoga. We discuss the delicate balance between dynamic personal willpower and receptivity. Paramhansa Yogananda teaches that we must apply dynamic energy and commitment to our practices (sadhana), but we must direct that energy toward becoming a receptive vessel for grace.

Transcript

So today we're focusing on step seven in yoga and the 12 steps. And seven is about the qualities of humility and grace. And in particular, It's about how to bring grace more fully into our lives to work with those things that are challenging us. So the preceding steps have been this journey towards this moment where we're looking honestly at our life today. This moment, Where we stand. And recognizing what seems to be blocking us from realizing our higher self, Our higher truth. So it can be habit patterns, It can be thought patterns, It can be actions, Behaviors that we feel very clearly are not serving us. They're not serving us. So in step six, The practice is we become entirely ready to have this transformed, To have this changed. That's the affirmation and the practice. In step seven, It is an acknowledgment and an understanding that I bring myself to the moment of seeing what needs to be transformed, And I understand that I won't be the one transforming it. It's not my power that does it. It's divine power. So the humility is the recognition that The answer here is not for me to roll up my sleeves and dig in and tackle this. It does take energy, It does take focus, And it takes commitment and willingness to follow guidance, Right? Honor that sense of right action, Right thought, Right speech. That being said, It's a deep understanding that it's not on my shoulders. And it's very important because in our culture, It's viewed progress and forward movement, Success, Achievement is seen very differently. In fact, It's revered in the Western culture to be self-sufficient, To wherever you get to, The more you can demonstrate that you did that on your own, The more impressive it is. And spiritually, That's not the practice. It's a really interesting blend because yoga Ananda speaks a lot about the importance of willpower. So he's very, Very clear in the teachings that moving The path of self-realization is one of dynamic will, Dynamic energy, Dynamic commitment of the self. And toward receptivity of grace, Toward receptivity of divine energy, Toward receptivity of teachers, And ultimately in the practice of yoga and Ananda yoga, The receptivity of the masters, Just to recognize the masters can help me realize my own highest self. So there's this progression of practice and relationship and step five we were talking about intimacy and learning to work with trusted. Guides and teachers and divine friends. And we're building, That practice is building toward a healthy reliance on God. It's not passive. It's not, Well, I'll just hang back now and you do it. But at the same time, Yeah, It's difficult to talk about. It's difficult to articulate clearly what it looks like and what it feels like. I will say a story comes to mind when I was getting ready for today, And this is a story from. . . Devarshi, Who's the head of the monks in India, And he was talking about the power of Kriya Yoga. Which in Ananda Yoga is the meditation technique that Yogananda brought to the West. And it's the highest practice of meditation that we practice at Ananda. And Devarshi was talking about a challenge that he was talking about the power of Kriya and Kriya practice. Meditation and spiritual life, Right? And so what he was saying is that there was a challenge he had faced personally, He had worked on for about 10 years. Really worked on it, Done every part of it. Thing that seemed reasonable to change this difficulty, This challenge. He didn't identify what it was. It wasn't important, Right? What was important is that he had worked on this personal challenge, Something he felt was holding him back and just getting in the way of him progressing. And after 10 years, He laid it at God's feet. And just said, I mean, Basically. You know, I've done everything I can do. I am willing to have this knot in my life. I don't know what else I can do. And there was in that surrender of it, He felt like, What I can do now is I'm just going to dedicate myself to my Kriya practice, My spiritual life, And give it to you, God. I don't know what else to do to have this transformed. I know it's not serving me. It feels that my life and my spiritual life would be better without it, But I can't change it. I can't change it. To his great surprise is that months later, It transformed. And was removed and gone after 10 years of dedicated personal effort to transform this with no sign of progress. Once he laid it at God's feet, Just accepting this is with me for life, He got to the point of saying, Well, You know, What else can I do? So I'm going to be, You know, I'll dedicate to my spiritual life and you know, That's the best that I can do. And what he realized in that is he let God do it. That he had no idea that his own personal effort to change and transform, Which was making no progress, Was preventing the grace from coming in and changing it. I mean, It was a surprise and he was sharing it with all of us in part to talk about the transformative power of Kriya. And also this right relationship with the divine. Um and understanding right that we it's self-offering self-offering we keep coming to a place with dynamic will dynamic energy dynamic strength This is what I find in yogis at Ananda all of these qualities very dynamic very strong and in that strength a dedication to offer themselves to God to offer Their life to divine grace to offer themselves to correction with teachers if that's me needed. For guidance. It's a beautiful blend of being very strong in the self. I think I've talked about this before that Swami Kriyananda when asked what's the most beneficial yoga posture. Said, Standing on your own two feet, That posture that allows you to stand on your own two feet. So it's very interesting balance between this energy? Well, In yoga, We talk about it in masculine and feminine energy, Which is not aligned with gender. I mean, It does tend to be that you can see more masculine energy with a male gender, But we don't look at it that way in yoga. Yoga, It is the quality of the Sun and an outward manifestation and a movement forward in a direction of strength. And manifestation. It's kind of outward manifestation where moon is receptive. Moon is what we associate, It's a feminine quality in yoga. We say that the moon is receptive and reflective. And the quality of listening. So it's very, Very important when we're talking about a relationship with God. To have that moon, To be able to receive, To welcome, To be guided. There's a famous story of a woman saint in India who was, I think it's called Nagi, And a Nagi Swami doesn't wear clothing, So I may not have the word exactly right, But she was a Nagi Swami, Which was And this was, I don't know if it was the 1800s, It was a long time ago, Where it was startling to have this woman who didn't have any clothing. And so someone, A man, Had challenged her about that. She had said, She was really holding a teaching in yoga, The divine principle of the masculine energy, That all of us before God are feminine. All of us are feminine. Because in the right practice and principle of yoga, We recognize with humility what we are aspiring toward, God-realization, Self-realization. My own effort alone to get there. That is not a sun. I need the sun energy to be dedicated to my practice, And I need the moon energy to receive grace to transform. So this, As we're practicing and looking at this principle of humility and grace, Part of what it is, Is to look within yourself and ask the question, Is there anything that I'm trying too hard myself to change? And am I finding myself critical and judgmental because I can't do it. And am I kind of getting bogged in this place of I've decided this is something that should be different. I've decided this is something that's not useful on my path. And. . . And then I'm feeling I'm either putting out a lot of energy to make it different myself and feeling like a failure when I can't. Um Yeah, So that's kind of like when I'm not practicing this principle. What do I want to say about that? Well, I was talking with someone earlier today about the shame that can come up. Around this, And it's a reminder to me when that quality comes in that I've identified I'm taking too much on myself, Right? This is what I wanted to say in terms of usefulness. So in the 12 steps, The seventh step prayer is this, My creator, I am now willing for you to have all of me, Good and bad. I pray that you remove from me every single defective character, Stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do thy bidding. That prayer of remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness. If something isn't removed, Perhaps it's useful. How do I know? How do I know? It was the one thing I've really learned in service and teaching and supporting others. Is there are aspects of my life that if I could have edited them out and not have them part of my journey, I would have. But I couldn't. And often, Many of those things that certainly seemed like, Boy, Would have been better if that wasn't part of my life, Have been very useful for other people. They've been very useful in teaching. God's been able to use that. To help me connect with other people. To in my journey of growing through that, I've had more that I can share because of it. So the things that I might decide our problem. They might be. I don't know. I mean, That's part of step seven, Is I give that to God. I've done my best. I've done a self-evaluation, The practice of introspection. I know the teachings. I look at my life and say, Seems like I would be doing better if this wasn't there, Whatever this is. And then, God, You decide. You decide if that's true. You decide. How it will be removed, When it will be removed, And my prayer is to be useful. My practice is to be willing. And that's what Dave Urshe was doing, Right? He'd done everything he can. I'm sure there was, Well, I can't say I'm, I can imagine there was great good. In the willingness, In the effort to move forward. Yet he was really sharing with us that the understanding of It is grace that transforms us. It is grace that heals us. And those practices that align us with grace are the practices that we want to be giving our energy to. Those are the things that awaken us. Those are the things that are of the most importance for us in our journey. And that's really where step seven in the practice of humility and grace comes in. So whenever I feel burdened, I recognize I'm carrying something, Right? The journey of What I would say, My experience of attunement, We've talked about attunement before, Is it's not burdensome. It's not burdensome. So if I feel burdened, There's something off for me. And I might feel tired. I could feel physically tired. Burdened is different. Burdened is a heavy carrying of something that's really not mine. Why am I carrying that? You know, Yes, Life does feel challenging at times. It does. The world we're in right now is full of so much going on. There's so much going on. So to be walking each day with a sense of lightness, With a sense of joy, With a sense of hope, These are divine qualities, This is divine grace, And humility is the pathway to receive it. Right, Once a week, I take a day of seclusion. And in the day of Yogananda, One of his famous quotes is that seclusion is the price of greatness. And seclusion in the Ananda practice, We take time to be alone with God. And there's various ways that it looks like. You might many go away for a period of time of seclusion for a week. Or longer. Once a year, It's recommended to try and take an extended period of seclusion. For what I have found in my life is that a day of seclusion once a week is very, Very beneficial for me. And there's a couple of things that happen in that practice. Related to this topic, One of the most important things is it's a reminder for me that I am not running the show. I'm not running the show of my own life. I'm not running and what I really mean by that is I'm not responsible for it energetically. So literally sometimes I'll just say to myself, I mean with a smile because I don't really think that I'm organizing the planets, But I will say it's nice to know that I can spend a day without thinking about all these other realities and they manage to be okay. How is that? Because something greater is in charge. I that for me is a way of trusting God of trusting the divine Really this as well trusting timing if there's something in my life that I feel like Wow, It sure seems like it would be better. Maybe it's diet I was talking I think last week about someone they really got to a point where they were ready to change their diet But it took them a long time to get there and it's easy before we're ready for that moment of yes to feel like, Well, It should be yes. And step six is I'm willing, I'm open. And seven is you decide the timing. You decide the timing. There can be value in seeing something that's challenging and offering it up. And living in that place of not being in charge of it. Which is not easy, It's not easy to not be in charge of those things. I'm reminded in this moment of a doctor who was a physician in the early time of the AIDS epidemic. And he worked with. . . AIDS patients, And early in the epidemic, The death rate was just unbearably high, The mortality rate. I mean, They just didn't know what to do at all. And his work was constantly encountering a sense of not being able to save people. He couldn't save them. And at a certain point, He was so discouraged by it and really questioning the value of his work. Is this really what he's meant to be doing? All he's doing wasn't a small thing, But it felt small to him. What am I doing? I'm just compassionately being with people as they die. And one night, His spiritual practice was for every patient who died, At night he would light a candle for them. And he was day after day after day, Candles, Candles, Candles, Lighting candles, And feeling like it wasn't enough. So in a moment of deep prayer and conversation with the divine and deep soul questioning of the value of his work, He received the inner message and the inner understanding of the value of his work. That it was true he couldn't save these lives. It wasn't in his hands to do that. As a physician, He was limited. He was limited. As a human being and a physician, He encountered his limitation every day. And as hard as he tried to have it be different, He did not have the power to make it different. But what he was doing is with great compassion, With great sensitivity, With great kindness, He was serving these individuals. And many physicians were afraid to do that. And he was working with them. Giving them the dignity that they deserve. That was no small thing, That was a very big thing. And not only that, He honored their life, Every life he honored with a candle. With a moment of I see you, You matter, Your passing did not go unnoticed. And it was a great surprise to him that that was his work. That was his usefulness. He felt He got to see in that moment, Right? So our prayer of step seven, Remove from me that which gets in the way of my usefulness as a servant. As a channel for the divine. I mean, My goodness, It makes a lot of sense that he would be saying. . . Give me the power to keep these people from dying. Well, That would come. I don't know if he ever got to have that experience. I don't know. I just know this part of his story, That he understood there was a greater usefulness in what seemed like failure. And what seemed wrong. And that's in many, Many ways the highest practice of humility and grace that I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's serving me, And I don't know what's serving others. What I do know is I want to be serviceful. That I know. So I can offer my life. And say, Well, This is what I see. I see room for improvement, And I am willing to improve, And I'm going to ask you, Master, To make that decision. And if it is the right time and the right thing and helpful and useful for my spiritual growth. My service to others, Then it will be removed. Asha has told the story and it's been my experience, So probably why I always remember it. She said, The interesting thing about transformation is that On the one hand, We're so aware of all the work and effort and everything we do to progress, To transform, To change, To grow, All the personal effort. And the moment that we experience the change, It's so evident we didn't do it. We're so completely aware. I didn't do it, Even though I know I did all those sadhanas. I had all that practice. I read the teachings. I went to classes. I prayed and meditated. And all those things are very good. They open us to receive the grace that will heal and transform us and awaken us. And that's the journey. That's the practice of seven, Of humility and grace. All the effort is to be open and receptive. Thank you. For divine healing. So I offer for you today and for this week. The practice of offering your life on the altar. It can be silently, Prayerfully to yourself, Or if you have an altar at home, Just to lay that on the altar. And 12 steps we have, Sometimes the practice of a God box, Like write it down, Put it in a little box and give it to God and say, Well, You decide, I'm willing, You decide what's needed, I'll trust you. Wishing you a beautiful day, Great souls.