passion and urge for Self-realization and the need to find the ultimate
purpose of our existence. Yama is the culture of self-restraint. Through
Patanjali's principles of yama, he showed us how to overcome our
human psychological and emotional weaknesses. Yama also means
God of death. If the principles of yama are not followed, we deliber
ately act as murderers of the soul. As beginners we may try to control
only our bad habits. But, as time progresses, the dictates of yama be
come impulses of the heart.
The first injunction of yama is not-harming, nonviolence (ahimsa)
and the second is truthfulness (satya). I join these together because they
demonstrate how any perfected petal of yoga modifies the whole. Yoga
is one, whether you are doing triangle pose (Trikonasana) or telling the
truth. Gandhiji, the great man of my century, freed India and changed
the world by his perfection in the two petals of nonviolence and truth.
His nonviolence both disarmed the overwhelming power of the British
and largely disarmed the inherent anger and pent-up violence of the
subjugated Indian population. He managed to achieve this because
both his words and actions were founded in truth. Truth is an absolute
of staggering power. The Vedas say that nothing that is not founded in
truth can bear fruit or bring a good result. Truth is the soul communi
cating with the conscience. If the conscience transmits this to con
sciousness and then turns it into action, it is as if our acts become
divine, because there is no interruption between the vision of the soul
and the execution of its acts.
Gandhiji reached this point and proved its magnificent effective
ness. But, of course, most of us struggle along in a world of relativity,
of compromise, of self-deception and subtle evasion. As yoga practice
develops and the afflictions and obstacles to yoga interfere with us less,
we begin to have some inkling of the glory of truth. The shame of vio
lence, of harming others, is simply that it is an offence against under
lying unity and therefore a crime against truth. Nevertheless it should
be pointed out that Gandhiji's extreme austerities, such as his pro-
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