Soucha - Day One - Take One

So I'm putting the niyamas and specifically soucha (showcha) to the test. I have some medical tests coming up which may well "diagnose" me with high blood pressure once again. Major family history of it and I had been previously diagnosed way back before my cancer journey. Following the first diagnosis, I was able to get myself off medication by eliminating alcohol from my life and becoming an athlete. So, as this second diagnosis looms in the near future, I'm thinking "I know what to do." Plus, this time I have all of the physical tools of yoga as well.

I have half heartedly tried to eliminate alcohol from my new life with Duane a couple times over the past couple years, but it seems to play such a role in our social life, that I only hold out for a little while and then a bottle of wine comes home and ....

Unlike the restraints of the yamas, the niyamas are intended to propel one forward toward something. In this case, I am seeking to propel myself toward a level of purity that is not possible with even social levels of alcohol present in my life. It is a level of purity that I have been longing for for a while now, but with one foot in the western social world and one foot in on the path of sadhana, there has been a bit of pushing and pulling inside me. So the alcohol is being eliminated, but as a consequence of my pursuit of purity; aka soucha.

Swami Rama had a most helpful phrase to use when one is engaging in a challenging task. It focuses the intention (sankalpa) into a force (shakti, so one is no longer simply wishing for something positive to happen, one has the power of salkalpa shakti to engage in the neccessary actions. The phrase is:

I must do this.
I can do this.
I will do this.

So for these next 21 days (and beyond), whenever the mental pattern within me is trying to justify the consumption of impure food or drink or language, my response will be "I MUST DO THIS. I CAN DO THIS. I WILL DO THIS." and I have perfect clarity on what "this" is.

The Sutras and even the Gita teach that all of the mental patterns of attachment which direct our behaviours are mental addictions; they even go to the point of saying that attachment=addiction. So while I feel no need to label myself with "Hi, I'm Tim and I'm an ...", this is the work of changing patterns in the mind.

I like this practicality of this exercise.