Being tangled, the opposite to being de -angled of course, is when your thoughts and actions are not 100% your own. Now this at first may sound like an odd thing to happen, but how exactly do you think advertising works. How do the attitudes of parents become encoded in their offspring, and how do you think charismatic people influence their followers, even if sometimes it’s not intentional. Not forgetting of course society and its group behaviours/thoughts/ideas. These are some examples, ideas and thoughts of others becoming entangled in our own outlook and behaviour patterns. I’m sure people with degrees can explain this in much more detail, and much more eloquently than I, but this is enough to get my point across, I hope.

Whilst we are tangled our identity is like a patchwork quilt made up of lots of other quilts. I think we all suffer from this to a greater and lesser extent. In fact in recent years I have de tangled myself considerably from other people’s wants and desires, although no doubt I am still under the influence. Fears and the ego play a large part in all this business and ego is a subject all of its own.

So how do you de-tangle yourself from other identities, those other thoughts and ideas that are not helpful and cloud your own self? Uncover your truth, what it is that you know for sure, not intellectual reasoning, although developing your own reasoning based on your truth is of course a good thing. The best way to find your truth, possibly the only way, is to spend time on your own. Take your attention away from your thoughts, you could try focusing on your breath, or maybe wonder at something in nature, of course there are many, many techniques for this sort of thing. Just look at all the forms of meditation and yogic practices, not mentioning some of the more useful religious ones – whatever they are.

During the process of uncovering your truth, you will eventually gain an understanding of your true identity; this will give you the strength and knowledge to move out of your present life situation and into a new more favourable one. You can then repeat this exercise in a similar way to climbing a ladder one rung at a time. The more you develop your intuition, the more sensitive (in a good way) you are to it, the more clearly you are able to see it.

As you become more attuned to your intuition, which is how your truth is communicated to you, you will find that you will need to let go of old ideas and attachments in the same way you would a hot coal that is put in your hand, why burn yourself when you can let go. This as you may imagine is easier said than done, but it is doable. In fact over time you will naturally do this, this process is a certainty, after all at some point the energy to fuel these non-truths will run out, and then you will rest in your own nature. It’s just a matter of when and how, and how deliberate you want to be about this de-tangling process, which is why I have taken the time to write this article. I think most people would like to do this sooner rather than later.

In order to express this new found intuition and the truth it reveals – which don’t forget, is who YOU are, not what someone else thinks through you – you will develop some skills. In fact just by practicing these skills you will help develop the intuition and find your truth. These skills are, in the words of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, as translated by T K V Desikachar “Right communication (speech, writing, gesture and actions)” (Sutra II.30, page 62) which I feel has it’s source in honesty and therefore truth, and as the right communication is coming from you, that would be your truth. To quote Sri Swami Satchidananda from his translation of the same sutras as T.KV, “ to one established in truthfulness, actions and their results become subservient.” (II.36, page 131) – in other words, the more you become intuitive and understand who you are (your truth – not someone else’s) the easier you will find it to be yourself and not be troubled by others.

Of all the sutras Sri Swami Satchidananda says “Whether you are interested in reaching samadhi [enlightenment, nirvana, freedom from bondage] or plan to ignore Yoga entirely, I would advise you to remember at least this one Sutra. It will be very helpful to you in keeping a peaceful mind in your daily life.“ (on page 54, in his commentary on Sutra I.33). His translation of I.33 is “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 it’s undisturbed calmness.”, I recommend you read his commentary on this sutra.

I find comparing different translations of the Yoga sutras most beneficial and helpful, therefore I feel compelled to include T.K.V. Desikachar’s translation of I.33 “In daily life, we see around us people who are happier than we are and people who are less happy. Some may be doing things worthy of praise and others may be causing problems. Whatever be our usual attitudes towards such people and their actions, if we can be happy for those who are happier than ourselves, compassionate towards those who are not as happy, pleased with those whose activities are praiseworthy and remain undisturbed by the errors of others, our mind will be very tranquil.”

It is important to mention that both translations mentioned also contain a commentary on the sutras, so you will get for each sutra the Sanskrit, the English meanings for each Sanskrit word, the translated sutra and the commentary which explains the sutra.

You will probably find both versions very handy to have, but the Sri Swami Satchidananda version has more descriptive commentary. Not forgetting you might want to look at the other translations and works based on the Yoga sutras. The yoga sutras are probably one of the single most central of pieces writing in the yogic tradition, and there is much written about them.

Copyright © 2008 Russell Smithers