By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

When I moved into my first home, I wanted to make it a haven from the world. I decorated my small apartment with beautiful budget items and hand-me-downs, and I kept fresh flowers in vases as often as I could. I carefully selected background music that created a soothing and peaceful effect. 

Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. I found that I was completely capable of being so overwrought that I didn’t notice any of it. Jon Kabat-Zinn named the phenomenon in a book title, Wherever You Go, There You Are. You take yourself with you no matter where you are. 

There is an important problem hidden in my story. If you want your home to be a haven, you actually see the world as being a hostile place. It may be an unrecognized attitude, but it is there. As you become able to recognize this in yourself, you also see how your attitude creates the problems that you encounter as you go through your life. 

I would love to be able to point my finger and blame the rude sales clerk or the belligerent driver. Yet, I know that I have created it, countless times, by my own actions and attitude. The world is a mirror. It reflects you back to yourself. What you put out comes back to you, the way you put it out and the “why” you put it out. 

As a yogi, however, you must look at even a deeper level, called dependency. You depend on the externals to be just right before you can feel peace. What happens to you if your neighbors have a noisy party? With all your doors and windows closed, you can still hear their happy sound. Are you happy that they are happy, or do you…

  — Excerpt from Yoga: Inside & Outside, pages 1‒2