Lately it seems many of my students and friends, both female and male, are getting appearance-enhancing surgeries, fillers, laser treatments, hair transplants, you name it. Why all this fuss over appearance (or aging)? Is there so much unhappiness with self? The attachment that is occurring to appearance and the placing of one’s attention on it and investing it with emotional energy is defined in Yoga as identification with the body-mind.

Lord knows this society places great emphasis on appearance and youth, looking as good as one can. The problem with correcting one’s appearance is that it reinforces the egoic personality and its destiny. It ignores the greater self. This action attaches the person to the fruit of one’s action, the consequence. And by presuming that which is eternal and essential to be in things that are insubstantial and ephemeral, a person can get very lost.

Yes, the loss of looks (or ability) can bring a sense of diminishment to self. Yet it is not. It is simply a change. Aging is change. In talking about attachment we must also consider aversion. The Yoga Sutras list lust, anger, greed and fear as a Yogins greatest enemy. The fear of aging, dying, of change is non-acceptance of what is.

The thing to remember is that Yoga has the ability and purpose to attenuate the causes of affliction and show us a way to transcend them. When there is a prompting for action in the mind ask yourself, “What is the ego in my present state?” Also ask yourself, “Am I defining myself with this action, with the body/mind?” Then make your decision.

Still we must live in this world even as we attempt to transcend it. The central message of Lord Krishna’s Song is the balancing of spiritual and worldly goals (The Yoga Tradition, G. Feurstein, pg. 253). Worldly life and spiritual life are not inimical to each other. They can and should be cultivated simultaneously. This is the basis of an integrated life.

Our external actions are determined by traditional morals and values and codes of behavior of our surrounding culture. Our internal awareness is cultivated through observation and self-reflection. Integrating the two, ah, there’s the yoga.


Namasté  and Happy Summer,  

Suzy