Life exists as a duality - hot and cold, joy and sadness, pleasure and pain.
One must exist in relation to the other. But although we may know this intellectually, most of us cling to one side of the duality and run from the other.
The yogi however, does not.
My father once defined a yogi as "he who lives in moderation."
His meaning was two-fold.
First, the yogi recognizes life's duality and realizes an avoidance of one side leads to life becoming a constant struggle and thus dukha (suffering).
The more one attempts to pull away from one side of the duality, the stronger the pull of the other side of the duality becomes.
Our avoidance also leads to entrapping ourselves within the emotion, or thought, or desire from which we run. Unable to face this aspect of humanity, we unconsciously relegate it to the subconscious mind.
We become enslaved by this emotion, thought or desire without even realizing it. If we had simply allowed the thought, desire or emotion to run through us - seeing it, facing it - we would have been able to let it go at the same time. This is the way of the yogi.
The second thing my father meant by his statement was the yogi does not live on the extremes of life's sensations.
The man who becomes a glutton for sensory experience is on the same level as the man who engages in sensory deprivation.
The Buddhists speak of this in their Eightfold Path. The sensory world is neither to be pursued nor to be avoided, it is simply to be experienced. It is neither good nor bad - it is simply part of our existence.
Despite what is believed by some who do not understand the yogic concept of moderation, the yogic path is not devoid of human emotion.
Quite to the contrary, the path actually shows respect for emotions, asking us to take the time to experience them, to get to know them and not to hide from them.
As we get to know our emotions, we begin to see where they come from. We begin to understand how closely related emotions really are.
It is the mind that judges and labels whether the emotion is desirable or undesirable.
As you take this middle path, the distance between pleasure and pain begins to collapse.
You enter into the realm of contentment. This is living in moderation. This is the yogic way.