The British band Culture Club said it best in the 1980’s: “War, war is stupid. People are stupid. Love means nothing in some strange quarters”. True though it may be, we all go to war on a regular basis. We may fight with family and friends but the most painful battle of all is the one that rages inside our heads.Our full Kosher Sutra reads as follows: ‘When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your power…’. A 20th Century commentator the Sfat Emet noted that we have negative thoughts that create fight-like conditions inside our heads. The yetzer hara is the slew of self-destructive thoughts that can stop us from living our life with joy and ease.

A key yogic text is the Bhagavad Gita and it begins on the battlefield although the commentaries make it clear that this war is representative of our internal war. The aim of all the warriors is to realise the sense of yoga – yoga means ‘oneness’ and the objective is to see beyond the earthly turbulence and to realise that all is one. This takes practice which is why all spiritual practices need to take place on a daily basis; even if it’s just 10 minutes of yoga, 5 minutes of prayer or meditation – do what you can manage – but whatever you do succeed in accomplishing will reap great rewards.

There is a time to go to war and the time is now, to beat our negative thoughts and stamp them out. But how? Negative thinking is often based around our limitations – ‘how am I going achieve X, Y or Z?’. We can win this battle by staying in engaged and continuing to ‘fight’ it. The idea of staying within a yoga pose when we are tired and feeling the fatigue is that we train ourselves to overcome the inner voice that is telling us to relax and drop out of it. We are going to battle with our limiting thoughts and overcoming. The battle takes place inside, which, after all, is where all wars start, but this is a battle we can win when we commit our mind and body to the fight.

Marcus J Freed (c) 2010