NOTHING HAPPENS BY CHANCE Article 7.5.2020, by Master Yoga Teacher Felice Vernillo Owner Shakti Yoga Centre Civitanova Marche – Italy

There are moments in the life of each of us, like the one we are living now, when nothing seems to work as it should, moments that come unexpectedly and go to undermine our serenity. With the thought that becomes gloomy, pessimistic about everything. Inevitably, it is inevitable to suppose that misfortune has raged against an “innocent victim”. But the reality, the great sages of history teach us, is another, nothing happens by chance, and since every event happens for some non-random reason, the wise mind reflects on why a situation occurred and tries to take advantage of it, taking advantage of the lesson and taking an important leap towards the path of personal growth.

It is not always easy, this is obvious, but once learned this attitude of “I let events happen and trust in heaven’s will“, each situation will become lighter to bear and clearer in its manifestation, even the apparently harshest one, like the one we have all been experiencing for weeks. It is clear that, however strong and determined our will maybe, what has to happen happens anyway, in one way or another.

Often such events occur in order to make people understand that the road that is being traveled is not the best one (like the blind race to appear, a pathology of which the human being is affected at this moment in his history), blocking channels and putting obstacles along this road to stop a race destined to a certain abyss.

The experience that the human species of the whole planet is living at this moment, is the scream of nature that is calling the human being, to tell him that life is not at all predictable and safe, that anything can happen at any time. The human being is called to become aware that our health is not certain, our financial situation is not safe.

What we can and must do, as a response to this unequivocal truth, is to define our reaction, this is in our hands. We can react in a positive way, or we can simply play the part of the “innocent victim”, waiting more or less passively for someone else to come and save us.

The wisest path for ourselves and for others is that of positivity, but this path is not just to say “everything will be fine”, remaining what we were until January 2020. NO, THIS IS NOT SUFFICIENT! this world event wants to teach us that contemporary man, despite the great technological progress, is not the controller of the planet but rather the controlled. Technological progress without the evolution of human consciousness is not able to make man’s existence healthy, peaceful, and in harmony with creation.

Although we exercise our bodies, we are careful with our diet, we work hard to earn adequate income and, without a doubt, we find some relationship with the Divine to give us some sense of protection and security. All these activities more or less explicitly demonstrate that we recognize or instinctively feel the insecurity of life.

No matter how much we try to control our future, no matter how much we do from a positive or negative point of view, despite all this, we have the feeling that life is not safe after all. The more we try to control the future, the less secure we feel. If we reflect sincerely, we must recognize that the more we try to control life, our insecurity grows rather than diminishes, united by a common emotion, fear.

Perhaps we should listen to nature, integrate with its rhythms, integrate instead of trying to appropriate it with the false illusion of controlling it. If we positively revise the conception of the man-created relationship, this will make things around us take place in a more harmonious way, without harshness and with greater well-being for all. It is time to revise our vision of things because, as we know, once this experience is over, by necessity, all of us will no longer be as we were before.

Yoga also helps us in this: it prepares us physically and psychologically to face everyday life, even the hard confrontation with our most superficial part, the one linked to the search for a happiness that, even if achieved, turns out to be evanescent and not very intense.

The identity principle of yoga is “union”. It represents the end but, at the same time, also the means. In order to reach the realization of union, yoga, if practiced in its entirety, guides us first towards the integration of all our individuality, an individuality made up of body, energy, mind, intelligence and soul, then to the final realization that man, integrated in himself, is naturally in union with his fellow human beings.

The current emergency is clearly showing that individualism makes us weak and dissociated, while union is a fact, human beings are united, for better or for worse, by the laws of nature, even before human laws.

An inner confrontation that, potentially, each of us can win and whose prize is the discovery of a world, the inner world, made of communion with our own self, with others, with the universe and full of that lasting peace, so far sought in the wrong direction.

Swami Sivananda Saraswati teaches us: “This world is your body. This world is your school. This world is your silent teacher.”

Best wishes of: Peace in hearts for world peace

Felice Vernillo (Arjun yogi)