This text was written for the European Yoga Congress in 2026
Path towards contentment
by Peter Marchand
All we really want is to be happy, which is the underlying desire that fuels all of our actions. In the world of yoga and meditation, we try to create an inner happiness that is independent of what happens. It is the ultimate objective of all our practice and even of enlightenment, which brings pure, never-ending happiness. Happiness is a feeling, which means it is an energy experienced within the bodymind. And happiness is also a choice that relates to our dear ego. All yogic traditions thus aim at harmonizing our energy, while simultaneously relaxing the ego. Ultimately all this allows us to stay with the bliss of the nondual Self, which we all are, which is a matter of identification yet also of energetic vibration.
Every feeling is unique and thus we can experience a wide variety of happy and unhappy moods, which in Sanskrit are known as Bhāvas. When facing an emotional issue, we often find it difficult to apply yogic wisdom to it. Just letting it go seems no option, as our feeling feels too particular in a way that others cannot even understand it. And yet, in the body of knowledge called Rasa Vidya we learn that all this variety hides nine emotional essences known as Rasas. They produce the nine essential emotions of love, joy, wonder, courage, peace, anger, fear, sadness and disgust. Since each of these Rasas is dependent on particular physical and energetic balances in the bodymind, Rasa Vidya offers many direct ways to change any unpleasant mood. The practice of emotional fasting called Rasa Sadhana combines all Rasa Vidya knowledge in exercises that gradually lead us out of unhappiness.
Clearly our emotions are not only a matter of energy, thus Rasa Vidya also explains how the ego’s attachments continuously trigger our emotions from deep within the subconscious. It rests upon understanding the layers of our individual existence known as Kośas, which form the basic yogic psychology. Typical yoga schools here offer combinations of the essential paths of Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, Ashtanga and Tantra Yoga that relate to our feeling, doing, thinking, nondoing and more subtle magic. Our spiritual growth anyhow requires some level of emotional balance to really move forward.
We obviously have to be very careful not to misuse our yogic techniques to keep suppressing our more persistent unpleasant emotions. We have to look them in the eye in order to digest them instead, else they will literally make us sick and mentally imbalanced from deep down. Every big issue forces us to transcend it, by transforming ourselves, purifying our thought patterns and attachments. Thus we come to accepting some fundamental spiritual truths that relate to every particular Rasa. Since all lasting spiritual progress happens on the level of our subconscious soul, the more shamanic purification practices known in the yogic traditions may be required to unblock us.
Every yogi may benefit from practicing some highly emotionally active and purifying exercises to a degree that they have the power to always bring back our good feeling. This includes all yoga practice, with some more targeted options found in heart breathing, the use of more therapeutical mantras, emotional purification through the senses, solar/lunar balancing and a lot more. Thus we can truly choose happiness in the practice of continued contentment known as Santosha. Without needing to become enlightened first, we thus may grow into masters of our own good feeling, which is called Sattvapati, the fourth of seven steps on the traditional stairway to heaven.
