by Jeff Martens
Ahimsa and Exercise
What do Gandhi, Mother Theresa and Martin Luther king Jr. have to do with your daily workout routine? These and countless other peaceful warriors have helped to reshape the planet and create lasting change throughout world history by utilizing a yoga principle known as ahimsa. By learning from their experience it is possible to create a more fulfilling way to exercise. As an added benefit, you just might create more peace in your daily life.
Yoga (which means to yoke or unify) is more than just a workout; it is a state of being. Practiced consciously, yoga opens the possibility to fully inhabit our own existence. One of the fundamental principles of yoga called ahimsa or non-violence can help us to work out more effectively no matter what your chosen form of exercise. Practiced with awareness, non-violence has the power to not only improve our workouts but to change the path of an entire world.
What does it mean to be non-violent? Think of what the term warrior means today. Too often the concept of non-violence conjures up aspects of weakness or even cowardice. Nothing could be further from the truth. The true practice of ahimsa requires all of our will and discipline to remain in a peaceful state — to prefer peace — when all around us might seem to be in chaos.
To be non-violent does not mean that we become passive, ignoring injustice or things that we think are wrong in our lives. Ahimsa requires us to address these issues with love from a place of non-attachment instead of detachment or withdrawal. Using love in this way allows us to remain peaceful in the midst of the most far-reaching turmoil. The process of staying present with love is like covering our hands with cooking oil before working with raw bread dough. The oil allows us to work the dough, yet the dough doesnt have to stick to our fingers. In practical terms this might mean not becoming emotionally attached to the driver that just cut us off on the freeway; it can mean that when we get the flu we look at what our bodies are trying to tell us; it can mean seeing our bills not as a curse but as an acknowledgement of our ability to pay.
Practicing non-violence in our workouts means that when we exercise, we work with the body and not against it. The habit of criticism and judgement are dropped in favor of experiencing and observing. This leads to self-acceptance where life is pure possibility. Change then becomes a natural result of awareness. To remain in habitual habit of negativity, comparing or criticism is to fragment yourself and make everything seem impossible. By practicing yoga or exercising consciously, we begin to unify rather than fragment, and peace becomes our natural state of being.