The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things
and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject
and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.
-Lao Tzu: The Tao Te Ching -CH 8
In his master treatise “Autobiography of a Yogi” Yogananda tells the story of Mahaguru Babaji appearing to him and revealing how householders can be yogis just as well as hermits in the forest. This is a change in a long tradition in the east where men (mostly) would go into the forest to meditate and attain enlightenment.
Recently I attended a yoga masterclass with Sri Dharmamittra. Among the many things I learned that day, he gave us a gem of wisdom, “A person who is not content will not be able to meditate.”
We may know that contentment (santosha) is one of the Niyamas , observances that serve as the ethical pillars of yogic practice. Dharmamitra's comment started me thinking about just what is contentment and how is it obtained. He explained this by saying that we will find meditation difficult if we are worried about paying a bill, or our health, or some other temporal state of affairs. This way of thinking brought me back to the above quote from Lao Tzu. Contentment can only be reached when we are competent in our business, true in our speech, deep in our meditation etc…Being “like water”. Flowing with life instead of against it.
Contentment destroys ego-
Swami Muktananda
How is it that different scriptures and writings, both ancient and modern teachers, are all in agreement that contentment is a cornerstone in the foundation of a spiritual life? The primary sources of both revealed (those scriptures obtained thru divine revelation) and reflective wisdom (scriptures obtained thru the internal self-reflection of great seers) confirm this.
Armed with this knowledge we come back to the question: How do we go about obtaining contentment? Is there a single set of guidelines we can follow to obtain it?
I think there are, but the specific requirements may vary for each aspirant on the spiritual path.What allows me to be content with my life is not the same as what satisfies you. The seed of contentment is satisfaction. While so many say they: “can’t get no, satisfaction”, to quote Mick Jagger, we can begin by deeply examining of our relationship with popular culture to find the roadblocks to our satisfaction. Without feeling satisfaction we can not feel content. But it can be difficult to feel content with what we have while we are being assailed by the steady drip-drip-drip of advertising telling us that we just need THAT ONE MORE THING to make us feel whole.
Maybe it would be easier to go off into the woods and meditate to obtain enlightenment! Or, can we find a way to meditate in a productive way that will give us entry to more profound states of being?
Living in the world of mortgages and car payments and five dollar lattes, (not to mention the source of all discontent, advertising!) creates an environment where just being satisfied with what you have is a spiritual attainment! While contemplating the existential subtleties of satisfaction and how to achieve it we quickly lose sight of the goal, enlightenment…Or do we?
Cultivating a clearer philosophical understanding of contentment, and what that would look like for each of us, we can move closer to a better understanding of our ego and how (perhaps) we may be misled chasing after shiny objects. Releasing our endless, aimless, ambition to obtain, is a powerful step towards releasing our ego attachment and turning inward. Analysis of the Ego and how it is tamed is required before we can reach contentment.
Which gets us back to the question: how do we become content? The answer to such a complex question seems incredibly simple....by letting go. By letting go of the manufactured need to have more than we already have; letting go of the manufactured need to be more than we already are; letting go of manufactured cravings that we realize (as we become more self-aware) are no more than the cravings of the ego.
We need to release ego and direct attention to the inward journey. My own experience has shown me that when we are grateful for what we have, and what we are, the siren song of acquiring more possessions will, as if by magic, lose its magnetic draw. Being mindful of the messages we allow into our consciousness and the (resultant) stories we tell ourselves become the missing keys to the castle. When we are attentive to Being, and direct less energy to having, then contentment will naturally appear.
Yes, it seems almost too simple! The nature of the ego (at least my own) is to make things overly complicated to prevent us from walking the path. Once we get the understanding then we have to walk in it! Keeping answers simple allows us to honestly gauge our progress...something which only we are in a position to accurately measure (with the exception of having regular contact with an enlightened master). If the ego can trick us into believing the answers to our spiritual questions are too complicated we may loose heart for the path and remain tied to the ego...which serves the ego quite nicely, but not our higher Self.
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