5 Duties (Niyamas) in Life

18th January 2016

Sri Sri in satsang at Art of Living Bangalore Ashram

Make a habit of being happy. There are five niyamas (duties):

1. Shauch which means being clean, both inside and outside. This everyone knows.

2. The next exercise that we have to do is Santosh – being content. Keep reminding yourself that you have to be happy. Let things happen around you, good or bad, you will get success sometimes and sometimes be unsuccessful, it’s impossible that a person faces failure all the time or is successful all the time, all this will keep happening, it is the way the world works. But what happens is that we get bogged by small things and lose our feeling of contentment. We have to tear away the curtain of sadness, of ignorance and come out from behind it. Just do Bhastrika once, every time you do bhastrika you think you are tearing this curtain of pain, then you will be able to maintain the contentment. If you want to move ahead with contentment then you have to kick out the desires from your life. Either you leave it or surrender it to God by saying that this is your desire, if it has to happen it will, if not then also doesn’t make any difference. If we move ahead with this in mind then you will find a huge difference in your life. “santoshad-an-uttama-sukha-labhah” – If you want the highest bliss, you have to practice being contended.

Whenever we are unhappy, anxious, in pain, what is the reason? We are holding on to some desire. If you let go of the desire then what you will find is that everything will come to you automatically. So practice being content. Just remember one thing, walk in happiness. If you see anyone being sad then give them a tight slap! Of course I don’t mean literally, that way if you slap all the sad people, your hand will swell up, there are so many unhappy people on this planet! What I mean to say is, you be happy first and then automatically it will spread to others. Don’t need to sympathize saying, ‘oh you poor thing, such has injustice has happened to you.’ What injustice? It was there karma and they had to go through it! At least now they should wake up. If they wake up then only you will receive. The world is such that there is sometimes happiness and sometimes unhappiness, but we should not lose our peace. Pleasant, unpleasant things keep happening. There is nothing that stays, if it did then it would justify your unhappiness. But it’s not possible for anything to stay forever. What we do is to be unhappy whether we get or we don’t get something. It’s become our habit to sit with a long face, especially in cities. You can still see people smiling in villages. Even in slums you will find people smiling. But in cities you don’t find people smiling at all. Santosh is very important.

3. Tapa – to bear the conflict. Somebody said something and your mind starts boiling, eat it or drink but move ahead, this is Tapa. If an unpleasant situation arises, not holding on to it and questioning it again and again, but going beyond it and moving on is Tapa. Forbearance, the patience to move through conflicts. Accept praise as well as criticism that is forbearance - Tapo dvandva sahanam.

4. Then comes Swadhyaya – look within and introspect.

5. Then comes Ishwaraparidhana – leaving it all to God and becoming empty.

These are the Niyamas, we should follow these Niyamas. We should follow Yama and Niyama both, then after that comes the asanas."