Anyone exploring yoga and spirituality learns about its many edicts, all the ways yogis are supposed to be as spiritual practitioners. For example, in the Yoga Sūtra, the yamas and the niyamas are the first two limbs of the famous aṣṭāṅga/eight-limbed system (YS 2.29). They include qualities like nonharming, truthfulness, nonstealing, cleanliness, and more. Elsewhere in the Yoga Sūtra are listed several attributes to cultivate on the path of yoga, such as joy, equanimity, faith, and strength (YS 1.20 and 1.33). These are treasured attributes of the path of yoga.

As I began studying the texts in my early days as a yoga practitioner, I earnestly tried to cultivate in my daily life the qualities I read about. I imagined myself embodying various attributes, much like the New Age notion of visualizing some outcome one wishes to manifest. However, if one works only on the level of the relative surface existence, success may be relatively limited.

Consider that these treasured attributes are innate capacities of the heart that may be blocked or veiled to some degree, so success in cultivating these qualities is directly correlated with the clarity of awareness and the ability to access the highest within. A more potent and effective means of manifesting them is to align with the deepest self—that which rules over everything else. As one becomes more aligned with the Highest and refines awareness, innate capacities of the heart begin to naturally emerge and flow.

Since these qualities are actually already within us, it is simply a matter of unleashing them. The process of yoga eliminates and shifts our habitual patterns/saṃskāras and they no longer guide behavior. As awareness becomes more clear and lucid, the responses these yogic virtues represent will naturally arise. These positive characteristics can be thought of as emergent qualities. They naturally emerge as the practices move us farther along the path to greater awareness and clarity.

Like many things in yoga, cultivating these virtues is a bit paradoxical as they are both the result of practice, and they are practices in and of themselves. The world desperately needs each of us to embody these qualities, so it is good to cultivate them to whatever degree possible. The more we consciously bring these attributes into awareness, the more our being will be colored by them. And as well, the more we practice and generally clarify our awareness, the more these qualities will naturally and spontaneously emerge.

These qualities are dharmic—they help hold things together on the surface of life. As we cultivate these virtues, they create more positive saṃskāras and fewer negative saṃskāras as we proceed along the path, as they begin to arise spontaneously more frequently. Most importantly, they have a positive effect on our own lives and on the world at large.

REFLECT AND EXPLORE

How have you found positive qualities of the heart arising along the path of yoga?

How do you find them easier to cultivate over time?

How do you observe them spontaneously arising?