Tapas: Through the flames of transformation
Accepting pain as a teacher.
(2 minute read)
Tapas, is the third of the five niyamas, tapas is generally translated in two different ways, both as meaning “to burn” and as “accepting pain as a teacher, without causing pain”. Through this third Niyama, we are instructed to start to see our own suffering as grace & a vehicle for our awakening so that we may burn away our impurities.
Throughout our lives we have learnt to run towards pleasure & run away from pain. However, according to the yogic sages, this cycle of attraction & repulsion keeps us locked in a cycle of suffering, even things we find pleasure from will eventually cause us pain, through their impermanence.
Now this isn’t to say that we should be doing things that harm us (this would be in direct contradiction with the concept of ahimsa or “non-harming” which we’ve looked at previously), but rather than shutting down from our suffering, we should accept it as it comes, accept this pain as a teacher & find the lessons & growth within the struggle.
This pain shows us where our minds are still clinging, where we’re fighting against reality & closing down instead of opening up, where we could be directing our energy to create change.
This is the pain of transformation. Like the phoenix that burns itself in the flames, only to be reborn from the ashes, we must sit through the pain of burning away our old impressions so that we may be transformed.
When we suffer & our hearts have been broken, if we can bear to keep our eyes & hearts open rather than shutting down & sit with the tenderness of our own pain, we have the opportunity to see the world & all beings within it with our hearts wide open, with the utmost compassion for all.
Once we can really sit with our own pain, we can begin to sit with that of others.
Now rather than becoming uncomfortable, shutting down or turning away when we are in the presence of another’s suffering, we begin to turn towards them, we lean in & listen, we sit with our own & others humanity, we learn to bear the unbearable so that we may act from a place of love & find meaningful ways to help.
“Something in you dies when you bear the unbearable. In other words, you go beyond just the horror and pain of it because it takes you beyond it. You can’t bear it and it is only in the dark night of the soul that you’re prepared to see as God sees and to love as God loves.” - Ram Dass
