Sutra 1.33 by Diana Vargas Singh
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.33 gives us the keys to achieving inner peace which can be hard to “get” and even harder to maintain once achieved, if we let external variables affect us. For me, Sutra 1.33 truly embodies the philosophy of the Universal “Golden Rule”: treat others as you want to be treated. Most religions and spiritual practices have some form of this rule in their teachings. Yoga Sutra 1.33 translates it as:
By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.
Four basic types of people exist: happy people, unhappy people, virtuous / good people and wicked / bad people. How we react to these people we meet in life is vital to inner peace.
HAPPY People are happy go lucky souls who naturally have a sunny disposition, are always in a good mood, smile ateveryone. They seem to have a great life and be lucky. By learning how to be friendly, kind, and happy for people like this – we keep ourselves from feeling “less than”, resentful or jealous. If we had a perfect life – would we want others to be mean or have bad feelings towards us? Of course not! Feelhappy for those who are happy and create reciprocal good vibes. We feel joy that someone else is happy and it gives us hope that we too can be.
UNHAPPY People focus on the negative and it manifests in being grumpy, cranky, foul-mouthed, unfriendly, even mean. By practicing compassion towards them, we avoid internalizing their attitudes, and deflect their negative vibes. We disarm them with our kindness and sympathy. If we were unhappy – would we want to be treated poorly? NO WAY!! Treating this groupwith the same compassion we hope for is key to our peace of mind. Common examples: snotty salespeople, rude customer service reps, mean bosses. Responding with compassion may take imagining their unhappiness stems from hardship, sorrow, or other misfortune. Giving them our compassion creates good karma and keeps our mind calm.
VIRTUOUS People are all about their success, the good they do, their morals, social status, their “right” behavior, amazinglifestyle. Treating this group with “delight” we avoid feelingjealousy, resentfulness, and pettiness. The admiration we allow in leads us to feel their virtue is attainable if we want it too. Our inner peace is not shaken because as we want others to accept us and delight in our virtues, we are putting that out into the universe. We may come across examples of this group on social media. Their fabulousness can be a portal for practicing ourinner peace!
WICKED People are challenging because we think we need to help them. Its easy to judge and label them “bad”. In today’s world everyone’s offended by differing views and political opinions. Vices we don’t have is a way to label people “wicked”.Cultivating disregard is key. Letting it go. If we use our energy to give unsolicited advice, meddle in things not our business, engage in arguing, debating or trying to teach or convince someone that “their way” is wrong, we are disrupting any possibility of our inner peace. Disregard is the key here. Let them be. Keep your peace/piece.