Financial difficulty, desperation and exploitation

There are many different kinds of exploitation that exist in the world.

Particularly during this prolonged pandemic situation in the world that has taken away many people's livelihood.

Many people's life and livelihood are being impacted greatly by the prolonged lockdown in certain countries where the pandemic situation wasn't being handled efficiently.

There are also certain countries run by their government that have been handling the pandemic situation more efficiently that the other countries, where people's everyday life and livelihood aren't being affected too much by the pandemic like the many other people in some other countries.

Some people would have the common sense to be considerate towards other people's financial difficulty and suffering due to the prolonged lockdown in some other countries, even though they themselves might not be affected very much by the pandemic in their own countries.

Meanwhile there are also some people, who are not just don't have the conscience to be considerate towards other people's difficulty, but whether wittingly or unwittingly, in certain dealings, people are taking advantage out of other people's difficult condition to be exploiting other people especially those who are under desperation for survival, not to say, to be making a decent livelihood, under the impact of the prolonged pandemic lockdown in their countries.

This kind of exploitation are existing due to those who are in desperation, they have no other choices but would rather be exploited than to let themselves and/or their family to go hungry or to endure further difficulty.

Similarly, in order to stop encouraging or empowering this kind of exploitation, we ourselves don't take advantage of other people's desperation under difficult condition to be exploiting other people in anyway, regardless of whether out of desperation or out of greed and stinginess, but also, we ourselves don't allow ourselves to be exploited by those who would take advantage of other people's suffering to exploit other people, out of their greed and stinginess, no matter how much difficulty that we need to endure, for not giving in to exploitation by others, and not allowing exploitation to be happening to ourselves done by others and/or to others done by ourselves.

Unfortunately, even among the yoga community, who are supposed to be practicing reflective understanding towards other people's difficulty and suffering, but then either wittingly or unwittingly, out of worldly egoistic habitual behavior pattern, some yoga enthusiasts might be engaging in exploiting other people in certain situations, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Inquire the truth of everything.

Money cannot buy love, peace, compassion and wisdom... Let go of stinginess and be generous...

Yoga and its practice are not meant to be some kind of pleasurable sensual enjoyment such like paying some money for getting some service like spa treatments. It is a practice to develop dispassion or disinterest in pleasurable sensual enjoyment to let go of craving and aversion.

Yoga and meditation practice is a process to change the old habits of the mind that have been there deep rooted for a long time influencing the mind for as long as we live. It is stop giving what the mind likes and wants. It is calming the mind and stop stimulating the mind. It is quite unpleasant for the mind in the beginning of the yoga and meditation practice as it takes some time for the mind and the body to adjust, to adapt, or to get use to something that it wasn't familiar with, or to develop interest in something that it never interested before. As well as it is unpleasant for the mind to be not having something that it was addicted to, or used to familiar with. It is about letting go of desires of wants and don't wants. It is not about fulfilling the desires of wants and don't wants. The mind will resist. The mind will want to runaway.

If our will-power is weak, we will give in to the desires of the mind, and give ourselves many reasons or excuses why we should not continue the yoga and meditation practice temporary or permanently, and instead we look for some other activities that the mind enjoys, likes and craves for, to make the mind feels pleasant, stimulated, or excited.

We often hear many 'yoga' enthusiasts say, "I love yoga. I want to practice yoga. Yoga makes me feel so good." But then when they experience some discomforts or unpleasantness physically, mentally and emotionally, they want to runaway. They complain this is not the yoga that they were expecting, that the yoga and meditation practice is not the way that they think it should be. They say they only want yoga that will give them pleasant sensations and which is enjoyable. They don't want yoga that doesn't give them what they want and like. Be happy. In the end it is our own freedom for what we want for our life, and what we want to do with our body and mind. We take full responsibility for the consequences of our actions derived from our desires of wants and don't wants.

In order to allow the physical body to be able to perform the yoga asana poses comfortably, our body and mind will have to go through some unpleasant purification process while developing the skills, stamina, strength, flexibility, patience, perseverance, determination, forbearance, tolerance, acceptance, adjustment, adaptation, accommodation, concentration, non-attachment, non-identification, non-expectation, non-judgment, non-comparison, faith and courage to be able to perform and hold the yoga asana poses comfortably for a period of time effortlessly without struggling. And this will allow us to realize selflessness and compassion. It is not at all about how good we look and feel during and after the yoga asana practice, nor what type of benefits we are going to get from performing all these yoga asana poses.

Money cannot buy love, peace, compassion and wisdom. It takes some efforts, self-control, self-discipline, patience, perseverance, determination, will-power, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, adjustment, adaptation, accommodation, for us to eliminate egoism, attachment, desires, greed, craving and aversion from the mind to be free from ignorance and impurities, and to realize unconditional love, peace, compassion and wisdom.

Greed is also associated with stinginess. It's like, "If I can just pay as little money as possible and get as many things in return as possible, that would be very nice..."

Even highly intelligent or educated people might be influenced by stinginess and greed, and are not free.

Before we start practicing yoga, we need to learn to let go of stinginess and start to be generous.

If we cannot understand why we should let go of stinginess and be generous before we start to perform any yoga practice, we can never realize what is selflessness and compassion, even though we can be attending many yoga classes or yoga courses to learn and perform some forms of yoga practice, or if we have been practicing yoga asana for many years and our body has developed the skill, strength and flexibility to perform many yoga asana exercises beautifully in perfect alignment. All these qualities of names and forms have very little to do with what yoga really is.

Om shanti.