Ahimsa.

Violence is all around us. 

Harm is all around us. 

From personal conflicts, to stepping on an ant, to consuming products with questionable origins. We’re unmistakably surrounded by a complex violence that makes up our human experience.

I live in Manhattan; New York and my husband is an Operations Analyst for a financial firm. We are very much plugged into the modern world of eating out, buying new shoes when we already have 3 working pairs, and getting attached to random china town trinkets that always seem to find their way to our bedroom windowsill. I act mindfully when purchasing products and navigating my environment, while simultaneously surrendering to the fact I can’t control everything. I can take responsibility for my actions but can’t get obsessive over the violence or harm associated with products, places or people I passively interact with. And I don’t think that means Ahimsa isn’t a part of my practice. 

I am a 500 RYT who specified in Hatha Yoga. I love my life, teachings, and community. I put out good into the world every day in hopes to help support ahimsa wherever I can. When I start to unpack the complex violence resonating in New York, and around the world, it’s easy to immediately understand how much larger than me the issue of violence and harm truly is. That’s not inviting a cop out. We all have a role to play in the grand scheme of things. But as much as I work towards non-violence there will always be thousands of individuals around me making choices that are violent. 

Sri M from The Satsang Foundation says it best. We don’t know ahimsa because we have never been non-violent. We’ve learned what non-violence is by studying violence. Yoga is about building relationships and accepting where we are in our present moment. Once we see where we are, see the violence present, we can start moving forward to form a non-violent world. I think the key isn’t to become more critical and narcissistic of ourselves, but to set a foundation of values, and use that foundation to make connections with others. Making friends with people who share the same values of non-violence and non-harm perpetuates goodness outward and creates a domino effect. To me that’s what ahimsa looks like. 

So today I’m not going to pick myself apart. I’m going to enjoy this café and my iced tea and thank the forces that came together to let me have this moment. I’m going to be honest to the fact I would change the world and rid it of all its violence if it could, but as a single person I can’t. But what I can do, and will continue to do, is build up my community and practice surrender. What I can do is work every day to create safe and non-violent spaces in my body, mind, heart, sprit and physical environment. What I can do is believe that if I keep building relationships with myself and other like-minded individuals one day children won’t be plagued by the violence that makes up so much of the present human experience.