This month's blog was written by yogaspirit alum, Deborah Swann of CT.

Yoga Sutra 11.35 Ahimsa pratisthayam Tatsannidhau Vairatyagah

When one is standing firmly established in Nonviolence, one's aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one's presence.

As I celebrated Martin Luther King Jr's life and legacy on January 16, I reflected on the meaning of Ahimsa. I would like to share some thoughts with you on my journey to understand Ahimsa, as well as guiding others to an understanding of this all important Yama.

When I was first introduced to Ahimsa, I was struck by the fact that the author did not use the word 'Love.' It probably had something to do with my Catholic upbringing and the comfort I receive from Jesus' teaching and healing ministry of love. So without much questioning on my part, I took Ahimsa to be a loving kindness practice regardless of the words used. It was comfortable for me to do so. However, as I have progressed in experience and reflected on it, I realized that my understanding was not correct. Not only did I learn that I had an inclination to see the positive and minimize the negative, but I learned that the negative exists to teach me to overcome suffering.

The practice of Ahimsa is not a compassion practice. To ask someone to have loving feelings toward another who they hold with hatred or rage, is a big leap and not very realistic nor practical. But yoga offers a practical guide to the working mind. The answer is simply in the teaching; this practice is the discipline of ceasing harmful thoughts, actions and words and standing steady in the position of non-harming. We stop the negative; release our resistance and become neutral in attitude. We change the direction of mind. As we do so, we create space to see the situation clearly: judgment has ceased and we can listen, open to understanding, then accept or forgive. Moreover, in the action of stopping harm, we create an energy that is respectful for all life and existence. It is my belief that this is one of the strongest energies in the universe - it is palpable and it is that which I believe Patanjali is referring to when he describes the energy that others feel in the presence of a truly nonviolent person and it is the energy which causes them to abandon hostility.

It is not to be forgotten that as the direction of mind shifts, we also create space to see ourselves and our suffering that ignited the harmful attitude. Ahimsa practice requires us to recognize our harmful and violent feelings. In that awareness, three things happen: 1. We learn to see ourselves clearly - mindfully seeing our negative thoughts, our hostility; 2. There is an opportunity to learn what mental state gives rise to these thoughts/violence (fear, anger, greed, doubt, weakness, delusion, etc); 3. With this understanding, there is an opportunity to transform these feelings either through discriminative work looking at the cause, digesting and healing OR through the simple technique of cultivating opposite habits. We learn to bear our pain and face our fears with insight rather than habits of harmfulness.