I began a basic practice of
Yoga several months ago, wanting to learn more about my mind's influence over existence. It is a method that should allow one to go beyond the mere theory of how the mind works, and actually tweak the knobs. I have a long-standing fascination with various Eastern and Western esoteric traditions, and after a few false starts, I have learned that a firm foundation in mental focus is an absolute necessity.
Yoga is traditionally broken up into eight separate limbs that are meant to be tackled sequentially. I will refer you to this
Wikipedia article for an overview, as I only have limited exposure to the first four limbs and would hate for my inexperience to mislead anyone.
The first step, Yama, translates to 'restraint', and is usually applied as a moral control.
Tradition states that one should practice:
- nonviolence
- truthfulness
- nonstealing
- contience
- noncovetousnous
These are all 'Golden Rule'-like, and are foundations for most religious and spiritual practices. While they do require a certain amount of discipline, the points can be considered common sense.
I am curious if this interpretation is as deep as the limb is intended to go. To find out, we should examine the step's intentions.
It is my opinion that Yama isn't meant to make moral commands for the sake of making moral commands. Yoga is a system built to allow the operator to experience the final of the six-fold senses: the mind. In its simplest form, the system is spiritually agnostic and I therefore doubt that seemingly religious commandments were snuck in. I hypothesize that the true intentions of this limb are to teach you to constrain your energy.
Killing the neighbors and having extra-marital affairs both take a lot of energy and have repercussions that consume a lot of energy. If you are out doing things like this, you won't be able to focus on your growth. The same can be said about being covetous: if you are envying your friend's latest gadget-of-the-minute, you're wasting cycles and are not going to make progress as fast as you otherwise could. This seems to be the key point: one should enforce reasonable constraints to stop from deviating from the work at hand.
I am grateful to have come to this conclusion, even if I find out that this defies the tradition. I love to learn, and love to experience. I have a reputation for taking on a hell of a lot, and coming back for more. I have never had one hobby; I prefer a list of them. I am an information junky, and love to stay up to date with hundreds of RSS feeds and mailing lists about an wide array of topics. I do all of this, and it is hurting me.
I have a constant buzzing of thoughts. I will get up mid-task without consciously realizing it, go do something completely different, and start talking to myself about another project at the same time. I often walk the streets completely stuck in my head. A few paragraphs ago, I checked my email and moved a few messages; I have no idea why that was necessary and barely remember it happening. Certainly, this is consuming a large amount of mental energy!
Eric and I discussed some of these things many months ago over a few beers. I was feeling a bit stressed, as I couldn't find the time to make progress in my many hobbies (oh, poor, poor me!). He made a great point: people can typically do two things well (family and career), and anything else that comes along should be treated as completely optional. I heard what he said, kind of applied it, but my typical processes took hold and I am back in the same position. I am currently of the opinion that applying the limb of Yama ought to help me break out of this.
Cut out the crap. Stop multi-tasking. Make a list of all of the things you do or think about in a day, figure out what is actually important to you, and just dump the junk. [I just checked my email again!] Formulate goals rather than allowing them to remain fuzzy in the mind.
Some things I've done so far:
- banned myself from purchasing any new books. I'm on info overload and need to stop adding to queue
- unsubscribed from most of my RSS feeds
- redirected my mailing list subscriptions to folders so they don't hit my inbox
- set aside the idea of learning or mastering any other programming languages (and frameworks) 'just because'
- no more video game purchases (I do it rarely, but they are just wasting my time)
- no more soft drinks, as I don't need the distractions that caffeine withdrawals bring
- no more personal software projects until I finish my adventure game
- no coding on the adventure game engine until I actually develop a story and know where I am going!
- give up the idea of exploring vermiculture this year, and just focus on growing a few basic crops in my containers
Perhaps this time will be different, or at least I'll make it a little farther. I'm fine with iterative development. The introspective tools of Yoga, even for a novice like myself, ought to help speed things along. I'm interested to see what else I will learn about my ego's inner trappings.
