AHIMSA AHIMSA AHIMSA: Finding the Hidden Ego

For a soft-spoken someone who rescues spiders (capturing them and putting them outside instead of squishing them), it was seemingly strange and somewhat confusing as to why I had chosen Ahimsa for my Yama-Niyama experiment. Once in our groups however, the intrinsic appropriateness of this choice became clear, like the color. Let me explain.

Even though I am a particularly considerate and nonviolent person in many regards, put me in a box with a windshield and wheels for any extended length of time, prior to this experiment, and I had this amazing ability to magically transform into a not so adorable monster spewing fourth inane verbal atrocities at other drivers blocking “the flow” of getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. Also, and to my own embarrassment, red lights were even sometimes the recipient of this not so pleasant verbiage. This is not a joke and this experiment came at a good time because this issue was growing out of control due to an increase of driving when not wishing to do so. As our group gathered around and someone mentioned road rage, the light bulb went off. I knew then that was exactly what needed my immediate focus.

For being known as such a calm and quiet person, such harmful words and states of being directed at others once inside an automobile seemed an anomaly. Why the incongruity? In Richard Freeman’s “The Mirror of Yoga” he mentions and brings to light why practicing yoga in all aspects of daily life is necessary. The ego has its hidden pockets and places that it likes to hide. Ahhhh. So that’s what is going on here. The car was most certainly the hiding place my ego had found to dwell. How fitting that I figure this out during an assignment with the intent to bring yoga beyond the mat into daily life.