Right Action, Yoga, Community and more reflections on the Jivamukti Yoga Focus of the Month - February 2025
(this essay is inspired by the topics raised in the Jivamukti Yoga Focus of the Month, which can be read here: https://jivamuktiyoga.com/fotm/collective-change/)
“What is needed is a radical revolution in values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented one.” — Martin Luther King Jr
There’s a funny story about the teacher Ram Das. He goes to his teacher and asks, “How do I get enlightened?” The teacher responds, “Feed people.” Ram Das describes his resistance to this advice. He’s a university professor, a thinker, and a traveler, so at first, he’s not really into it. But the teacher repeats, “Feed people. Serve people.” So, as the devoted student he is, Ram Das tries to follow the instruction and also understand its deeper meaning. Compassionate action or being of service, done with intention, has a way of deepening our spiritual understanding. You don’t necessarily need to feel compassion first to start taking action. If you begin feeding people, the action itself will increase your spiritual understanding, empathy, and sense of connection to others.
Isn't that funny? Sometimes we see someone and a part of our limbic system makes a judgment. But, often, when we learn just a little bit about someone, it’s like, “Oh, I do like that person!” So, it’s not always wise to trust our gut instinct. Sometimes, it’s better to go a little further with someone before jumping to conclusions.
Ram Das reflects: all situations have context. If someone is hungry, you feed them. That’s what service is. But let’s say you meet a yogi doing a nine-day fast. On the fifth day, he says, “I’m hungry.” You say, “Good. I’ll fast with you.” That, too, is service. Not feeding him turns out to be the right action.
This is where discernment comes in—wisdom. We need wisdom to guide our good intentions. Sometimes, intention, wisdom, and action all align. Yet, there are times when someone refuses our offering, or worse, accuses us of having bad intentions or even trying to poison them! But that wasn’t our intention at all. Can we remember compassion in such moments? Can we still have compassion even when our best efforts don’t yield the desired result? And can we do this without letting it sour our love for people? That’s the challenge: can we maintain our intention, wisdom, and compassion while still being okay when things don’t turn out as we hope? That’s detachment, knowing we did what we could and yet we cannot control another’s reaction to it.
I’ve been teaching yoga for quite a while now, and I’ve witnessed many trends and ideas come and go. It used to be that yoga teachings were more rooted in compassion and service, but now, of course, the pendulum has swung toward personal goals, individual gains, and doing it all for you. I think this shift is partly due to yoga’s growing popularity and how it’s starting to align with cultural norms. We’re taught to look out for #1, hustle, and “get our bag.” Then, there are the intense physical expectations (amplified by social media). But we could, at least on our part, nudge the pendulum back the other way.
Looking at this month’s focus, especially in light of current political history, it feels more important than ever to build, strengthen, and rely on community. It seems to me that dictatorships and corporations thrive on the myth of individualism, as our identities become more profitable when viewed from a consumer standpoint. “Buy more things” is the mantra. For some reason, lawnmowers come to mind as an example. Somehow, people were convinced that every home needs a lawnmower—even though most homes only use theirs once a month. When it breaks, it’s easier to buy a new one than to fix it.
I don’t advocate fasting. Fasting might have once been a necessity, it has also been a spiritual practice for reducing what you need and potentially investigating our own relationship to desire/need. I’m not suggesting fasting, but I am currently going on a financial “fast.” I’ve decided that my community needs my money more than Amazon does, for example. When you’re on a strict “no-buy” plan, you get creative. You start to think: can I a) use what I already have, b) make or borrow it, or c) find it secondhand? It pushes my problem-solving skills and creativity. I also found a local “Buy Nothing” group on Facebook—many communities have them. The idea is that everyone posts what they’re giving away for free. Less goes to waste, and as a bonus, I’ve met more people in my community through giving and picking up items!
Lastly, a thought on community. I’ve seen a lot of this sentiment of “you don’t owe anyone anything,” and although that can be a helpful stance when we need to mind our boundaries, I think it goes a little too far. Because of course we owe plenty of people our very existence! I only exist because of the infinite earth and people energy that has build this world around me. A good meditation exercise is thinking about all of the beings that led to your existence up to this point right now! Thich Nath Hahn does a beautiful piece about a piece of paper, where the sun, rain, earth, and all the people exist in the paper. I heard a wonderful exercise that could serve as an intention-setting practice for strengthening community. Ask yourself these questions: 1) What types of support do I wish people could count on me for? Or what do I wish people felt comfortable asking me for? 2) What do I wish I felt more comfortable asking others for?
