Going deeper in your yoga practice - Asteya

To offer more yogic knowledge, in conjunction with Lisa at Yoga Loft Carrickfergus, we have asked our teachers to write short articles about the yamas and niyamas. 
They are the first two limbs of the eightfold path of yoga described by Patanjali in the yoga sutras. These are fundamental concepts offering ethical and moral guidelines to yogis.

Claire writes about asteya, the third yama, which proffers that we avoid stealing and recognise what wonders we already have. 

Asteya, by Claire Ferry

Sūtra 2:37 asteya-pratiṣṭhāyāṃ sarva-ratna-upasthānam

When established in non-stealing, all jewels appear.

In recent days in Belfast many of us have had the sense of being stolen from, and it's not a pleasant feeling. Actions of a minority have stolen our experience of Belfast as a safe home, our time and energy as we rearrange our lives and in many cases actual homes and possessions.

Our felt response may be anger, grief, agitation or overwhelm. Some of us have been resilient enough to channel those feelings into positive action to support those affected. Still, we'd all rather not have been the victims of theft in the first place.

We can experience this on a much smaller scale as either the person affected or the perpetrator when something is taken that was not given. Our own actions, however well-intentioned, can cause upset and someone else losing energy or time.

The yoga sūtras (and morality encoded in other traditions) proffer more than prohibitions. The other yamas and the niyamas themselves give suggestions of what we can cultivate to ward off the chances of stealing and taking what is not ours: contentment, truthfulness and non-violence to name a few.

Sūtra 2.33 also encourages us to cultivate the opposite quality (pratipakṣa bhāvana), so in the case of asteya, we can practice generosity.

Happily this is what has taken place across Belfast in response to racist riots. Thousands of people have gathered, provided food, donated their time and money, given lifts to nurses on their way to work and children taking exams.

On a personal scale we can also practice this. If we can take a moment to rest in sufficiency, that we are already enough, then we are less likely to speak or act in a way that will cause someone to feel as though they're being stolen from.

We learn to value what we have, the friends and connections around us, and indeed our one and truly amazing planet. The jewels referred to in the sūtra are evident and abundant!

Thank you Claire for your words and reflections! 
We will endeavour to share more about these topics here regularly to build a mini accessible yogic knowledge online library :)

You can find Claire's profile here if you want to keep on exploring our website.