Tag Archives: asteya

Me and My Yama

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So, if you watched a lot of Sesame Street in the past, you probably get that little joke.  If not, here is a fun video to watch, but it has nothing to do with this post except that it amuses me (and the protagonist and said lama are, in fact, practicing some of what I will discuss below):

In Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga, the first two limbs are yamas and niyamas.  Yamas are basically our ethical code, how we should behave in interactions with others.  Niyamas are necessary personal observances to maintain the path.  Each of these are part of yoga that can be observed in our daily lives, on and off the mat.

Yamas: Universal Moral Code

Ahimsa — Non-harming.  This can include avoiding harm to self, others, and the world around us.  Harm could mean something physical, psychological, emotional, etc.  Some yogis practice vegetarianism or veganism as a part of ahimsa, while others do not.

Satya —Non-lying.  Satya is about maintaining an intent to not deceive.  This does not always mean we will be correct in information we give, but honest mistakes are a different thing than intentionally misleading someone.  Satya does not suggest that we be brutal in our interactions with others, as the principle of ahimsa is primary.  Sometimes we may need to present a different truth, or present a truth in a different way to avoid violating satya while also maintaining ahimsa.

Asteya —Non-stealing.  This could be about physical objects (i.e. don’t steal from Target), monetary units (don’t cheat on your taxes) or even less concrete things like time (don’t be late for all your meetings, thereby stealing the time of others).  In an academic setting, always much on my mind, this also is about not stealing the ideas or words of another (plagiarism).

Bramacharya — Sexual responsibility and restraint.  In the  most restrictive sense, this yama could be about celibacy.  But, for most of us, it’s more about treating each other with sexual respect.  Don’t objectify others.  Don’t guilt/push/connive others into sexual activity.  Behave in such a way that all sexual thoughts and acts are mutually uplifting (thanks for this phrasing, Beth) for all involved.

Aparaigraha — Non-grasping, non-coveting.  To some degree, coveting what we don’t have or what others has seems to be a natural part of our animal natures, but it’s not something we have to give into.  We can cultivate a sense of contentment with what we have that reduces our greed and allows us to be truly happy for what others have, without feeling the desire to possess it ourselves.

Niyamas: Personal Observances

Sauca — Cleanliness/purity.  Sauca refers to the idea that we should maintain physical and emotional cleanliness.  We should maintain a clean and healthy body, both inside and out.  This can be promoted by eating a healthy diet, utilizing pranayama and asana to remove toxins, engaging in external cleanliness habits, and working toward removing the “ick” of jealousy, anger, greed, pride, etc. from our minds.

Santosa — Contentment.  As you can see, the yamas and niyamas are intertwined with one another.  Santosa is much related to aparigraha.  Can we be content with what we have and where we are?  Can we accept this moment for itself and not yearn for something more or different, the past or the future.  Can we find ease even in the midst of difficulty, accepting that everything passes?

Tapas — Turning up the heat.  It’s easy to get passive in life and in our yoga practice – to fall into patterns and habits and fail to challenge them.  Tapas relates to utilizing our energies well to push our practices a little further.  This might be through more vigorous or regular asana.  It could be through a daily 5 a.m. meditation.  It might be a process of fasting that energizes.  Establishing what is tapas will be different for each individual, as it is relative to the current pattern.

Svadhyaya — Self-study.  For some people, self study comes more easily.  For many, however, it is quite difficult.  Svadhyaya involves turning a light on the self and engaging in analysis of one’s own patterns in thought, behavior, emotion, etc. Svadhyaya includes examining both our “positive” qualities and our limitations and challenges.  Through understanding and accepting where we are, we create room for change.

Isvara pranidhana — Surrender to a higher power.  Taken literally, this niyama could be said to mean “laying it all at the feet of God.”  That might be a perfect way to see it for you, or maybe it isn’t.  But, that’s ok.  This niyama does not specify what god or what divine we should be giving up our efforts to.  That leaves room for each of us (perhaps in the process of svadhyaya?) to determine what “greater” being/principle/? we see as divine to which we can devote our actions.

So, there you have a very brief summary of the yamas and niyamas of yoga.  They can be practiced every day, any time, anywhere.   You don’t have to “twist into a pretzel” (my extended family/friend network understanding of yoga) or worship a certain god to do these things.  Looking at them, you can see the underlying tenets of behavior for pretty much all religions or moral codes, and it’s hard to find fault with any of these ideas, even if you don’t see yourself as a yogi at all.   You can do yoga 24 hours a day!  Sweetness!

Namaste,

L

Time’s A’Wastin’

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Photo by Ian Britton - Available at freefoto.com

After our discussion in YTT class this week regarding Asteya (non-stealing) and how it relates to the use and abuse of time, I’ve been thinking about the issue of my own response to time quite a bit.  I will fess up right now that I’m not the best when it comes to using time – my own or the time of others.

I used to always be the early bird.  I got to everything 10-15 minutes before I needed to be there.  I was that person circling the block because I had gotten to a party SO early that I couldn’t go in.  And then, I had kids.  My ability to get places early went fast, and my ability to even arrive on time was right after it.  Now, I say ability, but that’s not totally true, is it?  It’s a matter of the choices that I make.  I have a tendency to think that I need to fill every single minute with “getting something done.”  If I have 10 minutes before a meeting starts on the other side of campus, and it takes me 7  minutes to walk there, then I have 3 minutes to fill.  That’s enough time to answer an email, right?  Wrong.  Very very wrong.  So, I answer that email.  But, then once I start it turns out that the answer is more complex than I thought, because I don’t want to misspeak or say the wrong thing or have bad grammar.  And, I’m certainly not walking away from my desk with an email half sent.  With one eye on the clock and one on the monitor I keep typing.  I rationalize it to myself, “Ok, seven  minutes left – I can still make it.  Six minutes – If I walk fast, I’ll get there and this email task will be done too!  Five minutes – Ok, I’m going to be a minute late, but most everyone else will be too.”  You see where this is going, right?  Pretty soon, I find myself almost running across campus (in a suit and dress shoes), sweating and worrying about who is going to be there to see me coming in late.  Ouch.  And, the truth is, that’s often what I’m worrying about.  It’s not so much that I worry that I am wasting someone else’s time or that I’m disrespecting the value of their time.  I worry that I might look bad for being late.  Did I say ouch yet?

I’m not very good at valuing my own time either.  My schedule this semester is tight.  Most days, I have 7-8 hours at the office, 1-2 hours at the yoga studio, 1.5 hours in travel time, 2-3 hours of work at home.  That’s about half the day fully occupied.  Then throw in an hour to get kids going in the morning and an hour to get me going.  Dinner prep and serve is another hour.  Then yoga homework, house chores and the like another.  And, somewhere in there are the family interactions, helping with homework, chatting with the spousal unit, hugging a kid, brushing a dog, petting a cat, and so on.  That leaves me almost enough time to get in a full night of sleep.  But do I?  No.  I do not.  Instead, I watch TV or Facebook or Tweet or text or doodle around online.  I’m currently also crocheting a sweater that I’m not enjoying, so it’s super slow but I’m compelled to keep working because I don’t like giving up.   I’m not saying that I shouldn’t use any time just to mess around, but if the point of that is really to relax, then is spending an hour looking for the perfect floorlamp for my office really the best way to do that?

I’m sure at least some of this is because my sense of time is messed up.  I’ll bet I’m not alone in that.  During home yoga practice today, I used a metronome to keep myself honest about length of poses and breaths and I found that I don’t have a very good sense of how time is passing.  Maybe this is because, as a fully immersed member of my culture, I’ve embraced the habit of always being on to the next thing while I’m doing the first thing.  It’s pretty hard to feel a moment passing when you aren’t really even “in” that moment.  I’m working on changing that, but 40+ years of practice takes some serious undoing.

As with a lot of my posts, I’m not sure exactly where I’m going with this!  But, I do think that I will keep working on my own “time management” (in the sense of being in it instead of trying so hard to bend it to my own will) by slowing down where I can, being willing to leave some moments empty of tasks, and working that metronome to help me measure my breaths and my moments a little better until I can regain my internal ability to even them out and not rush through some while trying to drag out the others.

Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new… but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery, and its design?
~ Paracelsus

Namaste,

L

Stealing from Yourself – Redux

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This is a post from one year ago (September 2009).  Since we are having week in teacher training, now seemed like a good time to run it again!

During class this morning, Erik, the instructor, focused our attention on the yama of Asteya.  Asteya is the principle of non-stealing.  Now, there are obvious implications to this form of self-restraint.  We should not steal others’ belongings; we should not steal others’ ideas; we should not take more than we need.  But, my thoughts went to the less obvious forms of stealing that we engage in and should avoid.  We should not steal attention or admiration due to jealousy.  We should not steal the self-esteem of others by belittling or degrading them.  We should not steal the good name of others through libel or slander.  And, we should not steal from ourselves.

What do we steal from ourselves?  Well, I know that, in my case, sometimes I steal from myself the opportunity to change or grow.  W.E.B. Du Bois is quoted as saying:

The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.

But, do most of us do this?  I suspect we do not.  When we are very little, and the world of opportunity seems open before us, we allow ourselves to change and grow with every moment.  As we get older, we start to learn the expectations that others have of us (based on factors like gender, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, family role, etc.) and begin to let those expectations box us into a narrow range of possibility.

Over time, having learned to believe that our possibilities are limited, we begin to stop even trying anything new.  But, once we do this, we fall into a rut of being, where the self cannot grow.  Growth requires change, and risk taking. This stealing of opportunity and growth from ourselves may sometimes be about relatively minor things – we refuse to try new food, because we already “know” that we won’t like it – or major life choices – we don’t apply for a job that we desire, because we are certain that we will not be hired.  We may not acknowledge to ourselves why we aren’t taking these risks, and come up with excuses for remaining the same (“I don’t have time to take that art class,”  “yoga classes are too expensive,” “I don’t have enough patience to get a degree”), but often the underlying reason is a fear of failure, because we have learned to box ourselves and our opportunities in, and believe that we cannot succeed outside of that box.

Image from yogaguru.info

After my yoga practice today, I reflected that I often steal from myself the opportunity to grow in my practice by assuming that I cannot succeed at a particular pose.  This was true of wheel pose when I first began yoga.  I wouldn’t even try it, because it seemed impossible.  Now, having prodded myself into taking the risk, I still feel remnants of the “I can’t” belief every time the pose comes up in class.    More recently, I struggled with forcing myself to give inversions a try.  I practiced yoga for a few years before I ever tried to get into handstand or headstand, even with the help of a wall.  While I’m still working on those poses, and still feel some degree of fear about them, I also have learned that I love inversions.  If I had continued to steal that opportunity from myself, I never would have realized this.  Now I need to work on arm balance… I have a tendency to immediately go mentally to a “I’m not strong enough” place when arm balance poses appear in the practice.  But, I know that I have to give myself this opportunity or I’ll never know what may happen, so I’m working on pushing those negative and constraining thoughts away.

What opportunities do you steal from yourself by assuming you cannot succeed?