For many people tapas is austerity. They are right, for it is an austere life that you live in tapas. However, you are able to live that life as you have created a condition in which there is no indulgence; you are the master of your senses and mind. Sri Swamiji did the panchagni. I did the panchagni. People used to say it is tapasya, hard austerity. It could have been: surviving eighty degrees of temperature. If I look at the hardship of the practice and keep thinking, ‘This is difficult, this is difficult, I have to face it, I have to do it,’ and half-heartedly I make the effort to do my sadhana, I would be creating a negative condition in my mind. I would not be in sync with what I am doing. If the mind thinks that the austerity is a problem, then how can it perform the austerity? Therefore, the real meaning of tapas is living a life without indulgence, whether material, mental, psychological, psychic or spiritual.
When there is no indulgence, there is no wastage of prana shakti. The blocks of prana are removed and the pranas can be elevated. The whole idea of tapas is to be able to lift the pranas and to master the pranas. It is a constant, ongoing process of channelling and directing prana. When you are practising asana, if you are able to direct your pranas, your body will support you. That is tapas. If you are not able to direct your pranas, you will feel discomfort during asana. For how long can one sit in front of fires at eighty degrees, thinking it is too hot? Not more than a few minutes. However, if one is enjoying it and the pranas are in sync with the agni pranas, the question or thought of ‘It is hot, it is intolerable’, does not arise. Rather, there is synchronicity between my prana and the agni prana, the agni tattwa.
Tapas does not always mean hardship. Tapas also means to synchronize oneself with the environment and the cosmic will. This is another definition of tapas. Yet another meaning is to live in sanyam and not overindulge. Yet another meaning of tapas is to live a basic, spartan lifestyle. You do your own thing and don’t depend on luxuries, comforts, equipment and instruments. Anything that pushes you to live in a disciplined manner, with restraint, in harmony and sync with nature and the cosmic will, is tapas. It is a niyama, for if you are able to regulate your life then the changes will be felt in the activities of the mind and senses. This is the result of tapas: it changes the performance, the understanding, the perception of the senses and mind.
8 October 2019, Progressive Yoga Vidya Training, Ganga Darshan, Munger