How to Be a Virtuous Person

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
​- Aristotle

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This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series.  
​Want to start at the beginning?
Yoga Sutra 4.29
प्रसंख्यानेऽप्यकुसीदस्य सर्वथा विवेकख्यातेर्धर्ममेघः समाधिः
Prasaṃkhyāne'py akusīdasya sarvathā vivekakhyāter dharmameghaḥ samādhiḥ
 Dharmameghah samadhi is a state of constant discriminative discernment, wherein the yogi is washed clean of desire for even this state of supreme realization.

Dharmameghah is an incredible word.  Translated from Sanskrit, it literally means “cloud of virtue, showering of righteousness.” (Stiles, 120)  

Iyengar artistically translates it as a “delightful fragrant virtue”, a “raincloud of virtue… [and] justice” and a "showering of dharma.” (278)  Satchidananda calls it a “cloud of dharma” and defines dharma as including “virtue, justice, law, duty, morality” and also references "religious merit” (269) here.  

This is where yoga bumps up against religion and scares some people.  However, if we take this at face value, we can see that yoga as outlined in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is not a religion but has a similar foundation of ethical and moral boundaries.  

It never prescribes the how (one’s religious predilections) but it does tell us the what - treat all things as if they are God, because they are.  And that includes you.  

Can’t all ten yamas and niyamas be summed up like that?  It’s all a miracle. When we understand that we are filled and surrounded by divinity, we will never again be bothered by the innate, animalistic desires and aversions our human brain is naturally wired to want.  

Once we are not even attached to this peaceful and transformative way of looking at things - Iyengar calls it “this highest state of evolution,” (278) - we are showered in virtue.  Because then nothing we do or don’t do is tainted by “selfish interest.” (Iyengar, 278)  

As you may remember from pada three and our discussion of the siddhis, Patanjali frequently warns us that the fruits of a disciplined and passionate yoga practice are also obstructions to our ultimate liberation.  Iyengar tells us that the yogi should know “that the highest form of intelligence is also a hindrance.” (278)  

Letting go of our attachment to our practice is a necessary and natural part of the yogi’s development.  Once we have fully let go, we are in dharmameghah samadhi.

I love the image Patanjali conjures of dharmameghah as a rain shower.  As Iyengar hints in his translation of the word (“delightful, fragrant virtue”), it reminds me of the feeling after a summer rain.  
The beautiful, clear smell.  Humidity in the air abated.  The world renewed.

“When the stream of virtue pours in torrents and the consciousness is washed clean of bias, prejudice and ambition, the light of the soul dawns.”
​ - BKS Iyengar

Dharmameghah figuratively clears the air around us, transforming us and allowing us to wash away our separateness and merge into the universal.  

Ram Bhakt tells us that those who have achieved dharmameghah samadhi have “completely surrender[ed] their identity to the greater universe.  They might continue to act in the world but are completely unattached.” (209)

One final thought about this sutra; it is describing a sort of circular logic.  You cannot achieve desirelessness unless you have no desires.  But how can you achieve anything without having the desire to achieve it?
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I’d like to include an extended metaphor that really clarifies this for me.  Satchidananda was well-known for these simple, concrete comparisons.

Imagine you have a pure, clean, white cloth, and then somehow it becomes dirty.  You want the cloth to stay away from “wanting” the dirt.  What do you do?  You want a piece of soap.  What is soap?  Another piece of dirt, is it not?  Maybe it’s good-looking and good-smelling and you have to pay for it, but it’s still dirt.  Once you get the soap, what do you do?  You bring the paid-for dirt and allow it to chum up with the unpaid-for dirt.  At the proper time, when you know positively that all the unwanted dirt is really playing with the newcomer dirt, you just rinse the cloth in clean water and take it out.  What happens?  Both kinds of dirt are washed away.  In the same way, you have to have a good want to push away the old bad ones. (270-271)

Another metaphor related to this that Satchidananda told in one of his recorded lectures is a proverb about a fox covered with fleas.  When the fox wants to get rid of the fleas, she grabs a stick with her mouth and walks into a pool of water holding it while the other end touches dry land.  Holding the stick like this, she submerges herself until just the stick is above the waterline and the fleas walk across the stick to dry land.  Once the fleas are gone, the fox drops the now unneeded stick.  

Our yoga practice is like that stick.  It helps us get rid of the fleas that are bothering us.  Once the fleas are gone, what use is the stick?

Once again, we see that yoga is so, so much more than yoga poses.  It is a way of liberating ourselves from our circumstances.
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We are now coming to the last five sutras within book four and therefore, within the entire The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  Patanjali carries his thought from Sutra 4.29 to its logical conclusion, which is the condition of bliss, understanding and liberation we will touch on in the final three posts of this year.

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How do you sum up the yoga sutras’ ethical guidance for yourself?  How do you feel when you are in a state of desirelessness?  Imagine yourself in a situation where you normally feel a lot of desire or aversion.  Putting aside the logistics, what would it feel like to not have any desires in this situation?