Part 1) The Dark side of Tamas (I’m just trying to be dramatic here).
I was walking a familiar route down a country lane not far from my house, it’s idyllic, beautiful, full of farm smells & birds rustling (& scaring the crap out of me) in bushes. I walk/run/cycle it often & even after 3 years of living at the end of it, happily take the same route. It’s particularly nice at sunrise as it has a wonderful view for miles … at the top of a steep hill of course.
But on this day I was maddened by the sheer amount of rubbish thrown carelessly & left abandoned at the side of the road. From people who had purposefully wound (OK pressed a button) to open their window & consciously not give a crap about anything else but their own selfish desire to rid themselves of something that no longer served them.
Arrrggghhh – how long was it really going to be before you reached your destination? Whether at home or not THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A PLACE FOR YOU TO DISPOSE OR EVEN BETTER RECYCLE YOUR CRAP.
& What possible reason for not doing so? Answer: Laziness. We humans are inherently lazy, so much is spoon fed & given to us, marketeers rub their little hands at how easily we are pleased when they do something so small to make our ever busying lives that bit more convenient.
The nano second of inconvenience it would have taken for that person to deal with their rubbish for the sake of the entire world other that themselves. Pure, selfish, laziness … and it’s an epidemic.
In Yoga it’s called ‘Tamas’ which literally translates as ‘darkness’. It’s one of the Guna’s (qualities/attributes) which means inertia, inactivity, dullness or lethargy. We all possess a certain element of this, whether it be another snooze of the 6 am alarm, or 1 more episode of QE when we really ought to have ticked that thing off the to do list that we never seem to have the time for.
& Rest is a good thing, listening to our bodies and letting them rest, or moreover our minds from the crazy amount of neuron zapping that occurs by the second in our thought patterns – all of this is OK. In fact I encourage you to watch QE & not feel like it was 50 minutes of heart warming time, well spent.
However when it brims over into pure, inexplicably, undeniable selfish behaviour that has the potential to impact others harmfully, then being Lazy is an inexcusable wrongdoing to your fellow inhabitants in your community.
You don’t have to be smart, you don’t have to be the World’s number one authority on recycling, or the environment, you don’t even need to really think for a split second; to KNOW that discarding YOUR leftovers at the side of the road doesn’t serve anybody but yourself.
My pet peeve is Laziness (can you tell? Ha ha) and littering is one of the most blatant and selfish forms of it.
Ranty … it’s made me angry just writing this …
Before Yoga became a true part of my life, I would have still tutted, maybe shook my head or commented on, but now (when I realise angry gets me nowhere, or sorry I remember Yoga tells me anger gets me nowhere). I do something about it … I pick the rubbish up or tell somebody they dropped something. If they don’t pick it up, so what – I will – do good & be good.
Being good doesn’t require intellect, ‘the smarts’, a university level education – we can all be clever & do the ‘good’ thing without being traditionally ‘geek’ smart. Equally lack of knowledge is no excuse here, the inherent understanding of right & wrong is within all of us – it’s just how we act on it that separates us in reality.
I can’t change the world, but I can change the way I see it & how I help it. I can get over my anger (I doubt I’ll ever stop it & sometimes it’s a good fuel) and the best way to do so is to take a positive action, however small and however unnoticed.
I personally might not be able to change McDonald’s packaging, I might never even change the view of a single person on littering, but if I hold that expectation, require that outcome, then I might think it reason not to do anything at all & that would be true laziness, because I absolutely have the power to affect me. To chose to be good. & Actually ‘being’ good comes through action.
What will you choose today?
I needed to get this off my chest! Tomorrow a different view that I took with this picture on smarties on my Insta account @You.yoga.now … if you want to read ahead … you geek 😉
Namaste 🙂
You. Yoga. Now 