Restraints and Observances.
When we are children, we run freely, because we have no great subconscious burdens to carry. Very little has happened to us. Of course, our parents and religious institutions try to prepare us for life's tests. But because the conscious mind of a child doesn't know any better, it generally does not accept the preparation without experience, and life begins the waking up to the material world, creating situations about us--magnificent opportunities for failing these tests.
If we do not fail, we know that we have at some prior time learned the lesson inherent in the experience. Experience gives us a bit of wisdom when we really face ourselves and discover the meaning of failure and success. Failure is just education. But you shouldn't fail once you know the law.
There have been many systems and principles of ethics and morality established by various world teachers down through the ages. All of these have had only one common goal-to provide for man living on the planet Earth a guidepost for his thought and action so that his consciousness, his awareness, may evolve to the realization of life's highest goals and purposes.
The ancient yoga systems provided a few simple yamas and niyamas for religious observance, defining how all people should live. The yamas, or restraints, provided a basic system of discipline for the instinctive mind. The niyamas, or positive observances, are the affirming, life-giving actions and disciplines.
Life offers you an opportunity. As the Western theologian speaks of sins of omission as well as sins of commission, so we find that life offers us an opportunity to break the law as indicated by the yamas, as well as to omit the observances of the niyamas. If we take the opportunity to live out of tune with Hindu dharma, reaction is built in the subconscious mind. This reaction stays with us and recreates the physical and astral body accordingly.
Source KHM
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