The Only Way Though: Kriya Yoga and the Serenity Prayer
In times of political unrest, I’ve often heard this call to action, “We’re no longer accepting the things we can’t change, we’re changing the things we can’t accept!” As an enneagram 8, I am always quick to jump on this energy because YES, CHANGE! REVOLUTION! FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT! but as I’ve been faced with some of my biggest demons, I’ve found a deeper and more transformative wisdom in the original Serenity Prayer.
I get why someone would want to switch up the Serenity Prayer. At first blush it feels weak, passive, like it’s never going to really get into the mix of things. In the light of all the terrors of the world, it just doesn’t feel like it could possibly be enough! There can’t possibly be so many things we can’t change, right?! Where’s the hope in that?
There’s so much about the Serenity Prayer that requires us to slow down, to consider deeply, and then move into things that are often deeply uncomfortable or scary. I think, given the circumstances and given our propensity towards convenience, we would all much rather just do the thing that right in front of us and move on. The world and all its problems are moving so fast, so we have to move faster, right? When faced with tragedy we can feel a sense of urgency to “Act Now!” even if we aren’t entirely sure what we need to be doing.
I think there are a lot of people in that boat after this election.
But how often has the “Act Now!” approach actually worked? How many times has it solved a problem without creating new ones? While I have no empirical data on this, my gut says, “None.” So, that leaves us looking for something different.
While I’ve come into a deeper connection to and understanding of the Serenity Prayer over the last year or so, I can see that the foundation of this new understanding has been shaped by my yoga practice and my teacher for almost a decade now. What I’ve learned through this process, I believe can shed light on the Serenity Prayer, as well as reinforce it’s message by saying the same thing a different way.
As I’ve deepened my yoga practice to something that doesn’t just happen on the mat and studied the deeper philosophy that was always the point of yoga, one of the most powerful and impactful things I’ve found is the path of Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga is three “steps,” there’s Tapas, or “refining action,” Svadhyaya, or “self-study,” and Ishvara Pranidhana, or “surrender to God.”
Tapas is where it’s at for me. I’ve always gravitated to action. I’ve never shied away from hard work (even when it wasn’t necessary). But Tapas isn’t just taking any action, or taking every action. Tapas refers to the refining fire of yogic tradition. The burning away of things that are not needed or useful, the purifying of ourselves and our environments. This is a very different kind of action than the overdoing I’m accustomed to. This kind of action requires more than just diving in head first.
Tapas is connected to the second line of the Serenity Prayer, and there we see this kind of action takes courage. Which tells me, it’s likely not the same kind of action I’m taking all the time unconsciously. Tapas is an action that requires more of us.
And here comes Svadhyaya to help us out, or the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer. The “self-study” that Svadhyaya refers to is how we both understand what actions need to be taken, and how we refine our actions as we go. It’s a deep seeing of ourselves and our circumstances. Understanding our strengths, weaknesses, unconscious biases, habitual reactions, as well as a deep understanding of what’s going on around us allows us to take the most skillful right action. As we take our action, we can also employ Svadhyaya to make adjustments on the fly that account for the dynamic nature of the world around us and our internal experiences, leading us to the next right Tapas.
Svadhyaya is also crucial because it allows us to see beyond just our current circumstances and our immediate surroundings, into a more accurate understanding of the impact of our actions. We see past the immediate gratification our society runs on, and allows us to see more clearly how our actions affect not only ourselves in the long run, but also how our actions connect us to the entire web of humanity and our effects on humanity and nature around the globe. In short, Svadhyaya leads to true wisdom.
Now, with these two spiritual tools in our tool belts, it would be easy to assume that there wouldn’t be anything we couldn’t accomplish. Surely we can affect change in any arena of our lives and the world, right? Well, yoga isn’t quite so clear on that. This is where Ishvara Pranidhana comes in, and where the Serenity Prayer starts.
Throughout the yogic philosophy is embedded this idea that we have something to “do” in our time on earth. This is often referred to as our Dharma. Dharma is action focused, often focusing on how we go about our lives as well as what we do for work and enjoyment. It is a total way of life. What is conspicuously absent from all the teachings and texts, though, is what this way of life gets us or what it will accomplish in the world. There is no guarantee of results in living our Dharma, we are just meant to live it. To help us in this, in Kriya Yoga we are instructed to practice Ishvara Pranidhana, or Surrender to God.
When I guide my clients in this aspect of Kriya Yoga, I try to make it more digestible for folks who have a complicated relationship with the word, “God,” because the reality of this practice is it’s more about what we’re surrendering than who we’re surrendering it to. Ishvara Pranidhana is about surrendering the fruit of our actions, meaning we’re not caught up in what comes of the refining actions we take, we simply take the action and let go. And that may be “simple,” it is certainly not easy. Our culture is hyper focused on our return on investment, the quid-pro-quo, getting our back scratched after scratching someone else’s. While there’s nothing wrong with reciprocity, Kriya Yoga invites us to take action and live from a place that is not dependent on the actions or responses of others.
This approach not only clears the way for right action, a purifying of our motivations, it also acknowledges our own human limitations, which I believe is the most valuable piece of the Serenity Prayer and Kriya Yoga. There will always be things we can’t do, things we can’t change, and finding acceptance of that frees us and allows us to live in right relationship with the rest of the world (instead of living as if we are super-human and can save the world single-handedly).
In fact, the path of Kriya Yoga frees us from a lot more than just that. We are freed not just from the particulars of outcomes, but also from the fickleness of our own motivations. As we practice the steps of Kriya Yoga, we find that we are moved not from hope nor hate, but instead from a clear knowing of what is truly ours to do. More on this in a moment.
This approach and understanding of Kriya Yoga has helped make the Serenity Prayer more alive for me. The principles are the same, asking for the serenity is Ishvara Pranidhana, the courage is Tapas, and the wisdom comes from Svadhyaya. As we use both of these interpretations together, we can see that the order of these “steps” isn’t important. This isn’t a necessarily linear process, and it’s not as if one idea is followed by the next. As we gain some level of skill or proficiency with them, it’s more like they are all happening at the same time to some degree. We may need to bring our attention to one more than the others at certain times, but all seem to be present in any given moment.
In these last several months I have been leaning heavily on the Serenity Prayer and the steps of Kriya Yoga to help me find balance in an overwhelming phase of life, and cultivate a sense of purpose in the face of challenges much bigger than I can handle on my own. Each time I write the prayer in my journal or recite it to myself, each time I’m prompted to act, reflect, or surrender, it feels like taking a deep drink of cool water on a hot day.
It seems as though many of us are caught in these difficult and overwhelming places in our own lives personally as well as collectively. We’re in the midst of a climate crisis that threatens the very existence of our species. The Western world is sliding into outright fascism at an alarming rate. Natural disasters are destroying whole communities, and we’re all feeling the pressure of the rising cost of living paired with stagnant or declining wages and unemployment.
When we look at the world with that same scathing self-honesty we’ve cultivated in our personal self-observation practices, it would be easy, and honestly quite rational, to lose all hope. In so many areas there is not much if any hope of things turning out the way we’d like, so why do anything at all? This practice of Kriya Yoga and the Serenity Prayer offer us something beyond the "if X then Y” way of thinking about our actions. Through my practice I’ve found a spiritual solidity, a connectedness and groundedness that seems to be deeper than I can accurately express.
When faced with the hopelessness of the climate crises, we find that we don’t have to have hope. We just do what is ours to do. When we see the injustice of our political systems, we don’t have to rely on our anger to spur us to action (which almost always leads to burnout). We just do what is ours to do. We can act not from a motivation lodged in our ever changing emotional landscape, but instead from a deeper, clearer knowing that this action is ours to do, regardless of the outcome we can’t control.
Contrary to what many believe about spiritual practice in general, and the Serenity Prayer specifically, this work does not lead us to ignore the greater challenges faced by society. In fact, when practiced in earnest, it leads us directly to the heart of these challenges and guides us to act, reflect, and surrender even when all else seems lost.
It’s this kind of practice that we need right now. We need the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer to stand firmly in the face of hopelessness and injustice. We need the practical path of Kriya Yoga to guide our actions in an overly complicated world. We need these tools to guide us towards discernment and understanding. I hope as you find your way in these troubling times that you can remember this simple and powerful prayer:
“God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The Courage to change the things I can,
And the Wisdom to know the difference.”
Tapas, Svadhyaya, Ishvara Pranidhana.
Act, Reflect, Surrender (in any order, and all at once)
And one day at a time.
This was beautiful, Abi, thank you so much.