For centuries, yoga has detailed strategic ways to practice mind/heart protection. In today’s world, safeguarding your awareness is more needed than ever. Between the perpetual spew on social media, the proliferation of AI, and upheavals taking place socially, politically and environmentally, you need to have a kind of psychic shield. Like a wuxia martial artist —think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon— you have to be able to deflect unwanted energy and block negativity. Of course we are not suggesting you walk around town wielding a machete but become skillful at warding off distracting and potentially harmful energies.
The archetypal figure in yoga that best embodies psychic protection is that of the uplifted cobra. Its many heads (usually seven, one for each chakra) spread above the yogi or meditating Buddha like a sheltering umbrella. When contending with corrosive forces, we all need some kind of mind cover. In yoga and Buddhist tantra, protective deities, elaborate ritual, and mantra are used to minimize emotional and psychological disturbance.
Of course it is not only distracting posts, aggravating people, and bad news that can irritate. More often than not, internalized messages– downloaded and unconsciously saved in your grey matter– cause distress. Yoga specifically counters the barrage of unwanted thoughts, associations and memories. This is tricky and requires discrete security maneuvers. In Zen it is said, “it’s hard to guard against a thief from within”. A thief in the house is usually some old trauma, obsession, or worry that lurks around in your head space day and night. Long before the days of home security systems, built-in cameras and facial recognition, yogis developed meditation techniques to safeguard “the house” of consciousness. Practices such as mindfulness, loving kindness, non-clinging and non-dual awareness work like inoculations, boosting resistance. In this way, you can build a kind of psychic immunity. Today this is particularly valuable for the digital natives, Gen Z-ers, who are most vulnerable to on-line trolling, gossip, shit-posting, trash talking and the like. But we all need good spam filters. We all need to disable potential defilements, from the simply stupid to the downright toxic. So be like a ninja warrior. Each day sharpen your mind blade, ready to cut off any intrusive message that might come your way.
