Niyamas: Tapas

Burning zeal or austerity: What does tapas mean to you?

Tapas is the third niyama and comes after 'saucha' - purity or naturalness and 'santosha' - contenment. It would seem these may well be prerequisites for tapas. After all if you are not content with your lot that is no craving or attachment to practices hoping to derive something from them then tapas could be difficult. 

Tapas is the first word of the second chapter of Patanjali Yoga Sutras. It is the actual doing of or practicing of yoga and thus considered the actual physical practices e.g. asana, pranayama etc. It can be described as Kriya Yoga (purification) and hence involves both burning zeal and austerity. For most of us it is the start of a yoga practice by going to a class and eventually practising on our own.  

Indeed, a popular definition of tapas as 'fiery discipline' and you can see where this comes from when you consider the word tap in Sanskrit can mean to 'burn' - purification through discipline. This makes tapas a very powerful concept. So if yoga is the study of the self with all its habits, patterns and delusions then it could be tapas that can help me to see beyond my own self to oneness. Of course, having said that it does not mean that everything that is difficult or challenging in your yoga practice leads to spiritual enlightenment. Unfortunately for most of us, myself included, when faced with a difficult pose the ego comes out to play either by insisting that we attempt a pose beyond our current or in the moment ability or holding onto or being attached to being able to do a pose, for example, I am an advanced student because I can do.... fill in the pose. You can be doing a simple or basic pose in  deep way and although some of the advanced poses may look spectacular if they are done purely for external appearances then you have wonder why do it: what are the benefits to you and how does this help to make you a better person. If yoga is about in the moment and understanding that everything is interconnected then it does not matter which variation of the pose we are doing it is our attitude to pose and whether we are doing it with respect. 

Yoga is about joy and tapas unleashes the joy through regular practice in a way that is in harmony with our body, mind and spirit. This means tapas can be seen as a practice of consistency...that is just doing it with no attachment to action or outcome. Easy said than done especially if yoga practice helps you relieve or reduce pain in the body. Regular yoga/meditation practice helps you realise that nothing stays the same everything changes. Here in our formal practice you can look with detachment at the antics of your mind.  Getting on your mat everyday, sitting on your meditation cushion and bringing the lessons we learn from our formal practices into everyday life. Now there's  a challenge. Easy said than done especially if yoga practice helps you relieve or reduce pain in the body. 

The following two niyamas can be viewed as an extension of tapas. By this I mean viewing tapas as the physical practice, svadhyaya as the verbal practice and ishvara pranidhana as the mental practice. More on this...

Om shanti,

Margot