By Jim Kulackoski
Growing up in an Eastern European immigrant family in predominantly Scandinavian North Dakota, I often felt on the fringe of the community. As an “outsider,” I resigned myself to doing things on my own, trying my hardest to avoid contact with those around me. In my mind, community was only good if you belonged, and I clearly didn’t. The very idea of community felt exclusive and limiting to my own sense of self expression.
Despite this history, my fondest memories and richest experiences have unanimously resulted from the connection I experienced as part of a community.
In yoga philosophy, the nature of life is to evolve and grow, and community allows for that. Living beings naturally gravitate toward community to further their survival, provide efficiency and ease to their lives, and foster their evolution as individuals and as a collective.
The human body could be likened to a community. It’s composed of trillions of individual cells, most of which could survive on their own in the right conditions, but together they have the potential to thrive. These individual organisms band together, each contributing a specialized function in the creation of a complex organism.
Saṃgha is composed of the Sanskrit roots “gha,” meaning “to act,” and “saṃ,” meaning “together.” Saṃgha describes a collective effort by a group of people based on a shared idea or agreement. Whether based on geographic location, family bloodlines, religious beliefs or political and social alignment, each community has a collective or shared agreement.
Two other concepts from Karma Yoga, uttaradāyitva and yogadāna, have the potential to elevate a community.
Uttaradāyitva is personal power or agency, a way of being responsible for behavior and action. It takes into consideration a person’s surroundings as well as the consequences of one’s actions. The more responsibility a person takes for their actions, the more personal power they gain.
Practicing uttaradāyitva means really knowing who and what someone is, including his or her personal strengths and drives. Being aware of fundamental intentions, or the saṃkalpa, leads to fully conscious, powerful action.
Although this idea may seem simple, it is in direct contrast to how people normally behave. We tend to react to situations with little conscious choice, citing someone or something else as the cause of our actions. We blame anyone but ourselves for what happens to us, rather than looking inward for our own role. This creates separation and isolation between ourselves and others.
In practicing uttaradāyitva, however, we become the key player in what happens to us, which connects us to our surroundings and encourages us to share responsibility for them. This concept of personal power results in yogadāna, or contribution.
Yogadāna literally means “a gift which unites.” It says our actions are potentially a gift to ourselves as well as everyone and everything around us, contributing to the evolution of the universe as a whole.
This is at the heart of Karma Yoga, in which the universe itself is seen as a singular entity, an aggregate of individual “things” performing action or Karma. It is a community, an infinitely rich tapestry woven from the individual threads of its constituents. Who one is and what one does becomes very important. Uttaradāyitva teaches us that everyone is an important part of the whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts.
My own struggles with community were based on a misconception of who I was and my potential contribution to the whole. When my sense of validity came from someone else’s ideas or beliefs, I found myself at resenting the world around me rather than realizing my potential.
Understanding the importance of my own individual contribution was key to understanding how I could relate to my communities and world around me. Seeing myself in this light offered me the gifts of connectedness and purpose in life.
Mastering these concepts requires discovering and knowing yourself, your strengths and your potential contributions. It requires practice and diligence and, most of all, the willingness to be inwardly focused and responsible. It is perhaps one of the deepest paths of yoga.
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