4 ways to deepen your practice with Satya

सत्यप्रतिष्थायं क्रियाफलाश्रयत्वम् ॥३६॥

satya-pratiṣthāyaṁ kriyā-phala-āśrayatvam ||Yoga Sutra 2:36||

Once a state of truth (satya) has been permanently established, each statement will form the basis for a truthful result. ||Yoga Sutra 2:36||

“When one is firmly established in speaking truth, the fruits of action become subservient to him."

The 2nd Yama (morale observance) as highlighted by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras is Satya, translated as truthfulness or living with highest integrity.   Patanjali explains how when the yogi bases their actions in truth, the results will always be truthful.  Truth is sometimes referred to as supreme consciousness, that which prevades the universe, without distortion, and equal to love.  The obvious expectation is to refrain from telling lies of any degree and speak, act, thing with integrity and compassion.  We see truth in all the Universe, and as a Yogi it is important to be example of this concept of divine truth.  Our truth can be seen in our words, and Patanjali highlights it as a Yama (restraint) to point out what we should refrain from doing, highlighting how we place a filter on our words so that we maintain harmony with the first yama of ahimsa (non-harming).  This interpretation of a filter is refraining from judgement.  Whenever we judge, we impose our perception on the world, and as explored in the calming of the monkey mind, seeing and speaking with "satya" is silencing our perceptions.

The Yogi should always acknowledge the difference between judgement and observation.  Judgement will create limiting beliefs while observation in the moment will allow for freedom of growth and flexibility of mind.  Our biggest truth is when we acknowledge that no person or situation is the creator of our suffering, but rather it is our interpretation/perception that makes us the creator of our journey.

The amazing reality is when these Yamas are applied in every area of our universe, the monkey mind becomes quiet, the ripple effect is the truthful result.  Words that are rooted in Satya have the ability to inspire virtue in others, every soul feels at home, and harmony is the successful result.

“Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary, does it improve upon the silence?”

4 simple ways to implement Satya to your practice include:

1. Be True to yourself - On the mat be in the moment embracing the fact that you are partaking in a yoga "practice", therefore if you cannot do a pose today, or it causes pain, be good to your body, it is something to work towards with practice.  Off the mat, if someone or a situation disturbs your inner peace, rather than allowing it to disturb your inner peace, walk away with compassion.  We can never control someone's actions, but we can always control our reaction.  If this is someone in your immediate family or work environment, look with compassion (ahimsa) before allowing judgement to formulate into anger or gossip.
2. Speak your truth - Words are powerful enough to harm or heal.  Perhaps in your journal or meditation reflect on areas of your life where you can be more truthful.  Often we cannot be true to ourselves till we acknowledge the areas where we refrain from being truthful due to consequences we have created or fears we have built up in our own mind.  Whatever truth we speak, while it is great to be direct, always abide by ahimsa (non harming) when we choose our words.  On the mat, be a witness to your internal dialogue, judgements, expectations, blame, excuses and remind yourself to bring focus back to your breath, replacing negative self talk with gratitude & love.
   
3. Be True with Love - There is no need to please or deceive people when we speak with truthfulness.  We can stay true to our convictions, goals and love of nature always in a loving way.   Communicate with love so to avoid misunderstandings.  Therefore rather than assume the yoga teacher is ignorant, take a childs pose in class (love yourself), and ask the teacher afterwards if you have concerns.  Respect another persons point of view, we do not always need to be right.  The moment we take a current life situation with the emotional reaction that places us in the victim role, we need to dig deeper and acknowledge that the scenario is bringing up unresolved feelings from a previous situation. 
4. Be your best truth - For yoga teachers acknowledge your time is value, and you deserve compensation, studio owners should always compensate their teachers, money is an exchange of energy and a yoga teacher should always be compensated for their time.  While there is Karma Yoga in many ashrams and yoga centers, be mindful of not taking advantage.  Yoga students remember to recognize the teacher is your guide and your classmates are there for an experience too so refrain from chatter and distracting or disrespectful behavior in class.  On the mat if your body is tight, or you have limitations embrace that moment, rather than push and strain muscles.  Off the mat, always strive to do your best for yourself and your self development.  Truth has a beautiful way of allowing us to be vulnerable, expose our ego, and find liberation past limiting beliefs. 
   

Truth is a foundation of our yoga practice, our relationships, our business ventures, our families, and ourself.  When our foundation is cracked it will affect everything.  While many people get caught up in living a lie, or profiting from a lie, the laws of karma always come into play, and liars & cheaters never seem to go too far.  Take some time to re-evaluate your life with truth, and eliminate things that need to be let go, so you can maintain your truth. Re-evaluate your yoga practice with truth, and recognize if this practice has inspired you to better relationships with yourself and others. 

5 ways to deepen your Yoga practice with Ahimsa

अहिंसा - AHIMSA - Non Harming/Non Violence in thoughts, words, or deeds. Compassion for all living beings.

While the popularity of yoga is growing worldwide, many people are discovering that yoga is more than just a physical exercise.  It truly is a path to spiritual liberation.  Let's remember that the meaning of "spirit" is to breathe life into, we are all made from spirit (breath: life force energy/prana), and yoga is a practice that teaches us to unite with our breath.  This liberation begins with understanding the 8 Limbs of yoga.

Many yogis take their practice to the next level with the study and embodiment of the 8 Limbs of yoga.  The first two limbs being Yamas and Niyamas comprise the ethical rules for the yoga aspirant.  The Yamas and Niyamas are the foundation of our yoga practice, the path to liberation.

The first Yama is Ahimsa, which means non violence/non harming to all living beings in thoughts, words, or actions.  This yama asks the yoga aspirant to take responsibility for their actions, choices, thoughts and be guided by compassion.  Here are 5 ways to implement ahimsa into your life

1) Plant based diet - While this respects the life of the animal it also is a choice of compassion to our own body as it is better for digestion and cell rejuvenation to consume plant based diets. It is also better for the environment due to excessive waste from factory farms, and it releases the chance to consume any karmic residue from the animal.  There are delicious smoothie, juice, and raw food or warm food vegetarian/vegan recipes available.  For people in North America, local farm foods or organic produce is always a good option, familiarize yourself with the "dirty dozen" and "clean fifteen".  For those omnivores out there this point is to encourage you to add more fruits and veggies into your diet, your body will thank you. 

2) Love Thyself - This itself can be a huge topic to discuss about self love.  Surround yourself with people, habits, literature, experiences that elevate your soul and bring joy to your life.  Be good to your body in yoga class with breath initiated movement, and child pose if necessary.  Let go of the toxic habits and relationships that infringe on your mental and physical health.  Take some time to celebrate your victories rather than rant about being a victim, celebrate your beauty rather than focus on media influenced flaws, celebrate your blessings at every moment and more will pour into your life.  This is not to diminish any trauma that you may have gone through, rather to empower yourself to never be defined by a traumatic experience.  Yoga teachers who have found this love always shine with more compassion on others.  Yoga students who found this love tend to see all things with a loving, understanding and compassionate heart.

3) Words - Speak Lovingly always to yourself and others.  Our self dialogue is so powerful, therefore take some time to make affirmations beginning with "I AM" and be mindful of what we say afterwords.  Refrain from gossip, and even release the habit to speak in a way that would harm another persons reputation or feelings, even if it is true.  A true yogi knows the power of silence, a person with inner peace knows the power of loving words, and compassion.  We may not always get along, we may have disagreements, it is the path of the yogi to walk away, send loving thoughts, walk the loving path, and always choose forgiveness.

4) Oneness - While many would claim the word as tolerance, I feel oneness better describes the choice to look compassionately on things that challenge us.  Perhaps a situation is disappointing, take time to understand the disappointing emotional reaction is bringing up unresolved emotions that are like rippling waves in our life, leading us to the current tidal wave moments. It is easy to blame and point fingers, the yogi always aims to understand, which means understand what makes us react with passionate disturbance, our inner peace is ours and when we truly have oneness, we always shine like stars in the night sky.  

 "Nothing in the world can bother you as much as your own mind.  I tell you, in fact, others seem to be bothering you, but it is not others, it is your own mind." Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

5) Gratitude - Cultivate an attitude of gratitude and say thank you in every breath, your life is guaranteed to reflect many more things to be grateful for.  Perhaps you had your hopes set on achieving something or success in something, rather than put all your energy on the loss, be thankful for the experience and trust there is better for you.  Where your energy goes, energy flows both on and off your yoga mat.  Take time to be grateful for everything, family, friends, life, home, food, the list of things we can be grateful for, is usually greater than we tend to realize.  Perhaps your yoga practice is not where you would like it to be, you may have had a set back physically, relax, breathe, and be grateful for where it is, challenge yourself to quiet the inner dialogue of expectations, judgements, and just enjoy being in the moment and dance with your breath.

Those who study the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in depth, take workshops or yoga teacher training may have the chance to learn more about the yoga sutras.  For those of you intimidated to take a yoga class, lose that fear and take a class, and see if you can add anything from this list into your daily routine.  For those of you who are yoga students already (including teachers) see if you can revisit something on this list for your own life.  Enjoy every moment and shine your love in every breath. ~ Namaste

Day 23 - Meditation on Compassion

Today's meditation tip is on compassion.  If you are familiar with the inspirational Yoga Teacher Sri Dharma Mittra you will have heard him emphasize the importance of living life embracing the
"Ethical Rules" as mapped out in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali's Yamas and Niyamas, primarily "Ahimsa". Sri Dharma Mittra teaches students to cultivate compassion to all living beings as written in the first Yama, "Ahimsa". 

Ahimsa अहिंसा is non harming or non violence in action, words, thoughts.  

While there is a debate in the yoga community whether it is important to be a vegetarian or not, and it brings people to this precept of Ahimsa, challenge yourself to take a day where you eat a plant based diet (if you are not vegetarian/vegan already).  Experience how it feels for yourself.  The reality is, we should be compassionate to all living beings, and a very empowering way to look at it is that compassion is to realize it begins with yourself.  With all the knowledge of food additives, chemicals, treatment of animals, hormones etc., it would only benefit our digestion and overall health to eat a diet rich in plant based foods.  If the concept of being compassionate to yourself is not enough to embrace a compassionate "plant based diet", then recognize the yogic understanding of being compassionate to the living creatures.  Embracing Ahimsa with our diet, only gives us a healthy digestive system, healthy glowing skin, longevity, energy and a long list of health benefits, which therefore supports a yoga practice and meditation practice. 

As you are sitting in your meditation observe your thoughts, recognize that you are not your thoughts.  Then see how much of your thoughts are from a compassionate heart.  As Sri Dharma Says "Cultivate Compassion, and the rest will come".  It is normal to have thoughts arise in your meditation, but after you complete your meditation challenge yourself to embrace all aspects of Ahimsa throughout your day in your thoughts, words, and actions to yourself and all living beings.

You Can Heal Your Life

Most people who practice yoga can attest to the healing benefits they have experienced with yoga.  People have healed both their body and their mind with yoga.  One of the biggest aspects of this healing is the breath.  Taking the time to connect with the breath, allow the body to flow with deep breaths, and quiet all the clutter/memories in the subconscious mind (chitta).

What I have noticed from true devotees of the practice is the ability to live with compassion, to take responsibility for their own lives, the ability to forgive themselves and others, and most importantly the ability to live with JOY.  When I say "true devotees", I mean the folks who look beyond asana, who look beyond labels and accolades, and really shine with radiant light & compassion in their eyes that light in their eyes which only comes from embracing the 8 Limbed practice of yoga. 

What is the most repeated concept in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali?  Cheerfulness and JOY.  Some would say, how can we have joy when others are so mean, or when we had to endure this trauma, or when this always happens to me?  Sadly some Yoga Enthusiasts may say only when I can perfect that asana, or when I can make it past the Ashtanga Primary Series......Very interesting mantras.

What about changing those mantras to positive affirmations like.... kind and loving people are always attracted to me, I am strong enough to forgive, understand and be grateful for all experiences, and amazing things always happen to me.  What about evolving past perfecting an asana, and embracing the chance to be present with your breath without judgement or expectation, knowing full well that nothing is ever perfect?  What about being fine with making it through Surya Namaskar A & B devoid of the expectation of anything more than connecting to your breath?

From my experience, teaching, studies and observations I have learned we are truly creatures of habit both on and off the yoga mat.  Patterns, unconscious and conscious that have everything to do with the patterns established in our childhood, belief systems.  It is easy to blame someone else, feel apathy, or say it is karma.  While things may well be our destiny or past life karma, our choice and our evolution comes from how we react, how we recognize the things we allow & enable, and how we establish our self worth and most importantly how we forgive and let go.  This comes from an  unbiased analysis of relationship patterns established from our formative years.

The Vedas began hinting at Dharma, Karma, then Yoga Sutras outlined the "handbook" to conscious living towards enlightenment, Jesus enlightened people in the Bible on power of faith & forgiveness, The Buddah asked for us to see how all is one, Transcendental Meditation elaborated or power of silence, and modern western gurus have elaborated with studies of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), therapy, hypnosis etc.

Today we have people like Tony Robbins, Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Prema Chodron, and many more encouraging people to change their belief systems, or Yoga Teachers elaborating on the Bhagavad Gita & Yoga Sutras to help people take control of their life.  I am one of those teachers who emphasizes the importance of the Yoga Sutras so Yoga can be embraced as a path to enlightenment along with the benefit of a slimmer waist. 

Generally the message of positive affirmations is agreed upon by both ancient Eastern and Modern Western Gurus.  This notion that we create our journey, that everything is our creation, or a reflection of us.  This idea that what makes us mad is actually not the other person, our job, our achievements or lack their of but a deeper pattern behavior or vrittis (misconceptions).  Recognizing that every aspect of this Universe, every relationship is truly a reflection of our deepest belief systems that we control.

योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः ॥२॥
yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ ||2||
When you are in a state of yoga, all misconceptions (vrittis) that can exist in the mutable aspect of human beings (chitta) disappear. ||2||

But like the phrase goes, when you point one finger - 3 are pointing back.  I recognized that I myself still need to apply some of the precepts of this practice into my own life and yoga practice.  Hence why Yoga is a practice and why in life we repeat lessons, until they are learned.  The Modern Western Guru who I referred to, to help many students worldwide is Louise Hay.  Her story, and her outline of affirmations to change our body, relationships and environment with affirmation, breathe and conscious living, is nothing short of brilliant.  While I love the Holy Bible, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the Bhagavad Gita...I think Louise writes an easy to read, easy to relate text, and modern version to self healing & enlightenment.  

If you are a Yoga Teacher or student this is a book you should invest in for your self healing and to understand behavior patterns to help others.  If you are a person who struggles in relationships, with finances, with health, or anything.....this is the book for you.  If you are a person who thinks you know best, and yet you struggle with physical illness or job issues.....then this is especially the book for you.  Life is too short to waste time with negative energy, so keep your thoughts, environment and heart shinning with love ~ Namaste

Saucha - Niyama of Cleanliness on and off the Mat

As yoga practitioners we observe the eight limb practice and embrace the First Niyama of Saucha (Purity or cleanliness).  In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:40, Saucha is defined as "purification results in the abandonment of physicality and the cessation of physical contact with external things".

शौचात् स्वाङ्गजुगुप्सा परैरसंसर्गः ॥४०॥

śaucāt svāṅga-jugupsā parairasaṁsargaḥ ||2: 40||

The entire eight limb practice of yoga is a path of purification.  Naturally by practicing Asana, Kriya (Kappalabhati, Neti, Nauli, Basti,  etc), Pranayama, Yogic Diet the yoga aspirant can evolve in the path of purification.  This Niyama is about observing the practice of purification in body, mind and environment.  When our body becomes clean we will notice improvements in digestion, energy, skin, emotions, overall health and of course our asana practice.  Normally a person who desires a purified body will be very conscious in food choices, knowing that food intake has a direct relation to our overall health.  When we have a Purified mind it leads to a cheerful, optimistic and patient disposition.  The person who embraces this Niyama approaches life with a compassionate heart and always understands that love or a call for love is found in human behavior and therefore necessary in all things.  For those who study subtle body, we know that most physical ailments are a reflection of mental and emotional tendencies which lead to dietary and exercise habits.  Ultimately, purity of body and mind will ultimately allow the yoga aspirant to prepare for meditation.

Long ago yogis would practice in caves with cow dung on walls, ash on their bodies and practice various kriyas for cleansing.  Also keeping an altar with the elements in offering (water, fire, earth, metal, and ether).  Patanjali highlighted how the aspect of giving offering to the altar, practicing aarathi, are part of purification as well, symbolizing how pure we offer ourselves to the Supreme.

While modern day yoga studios may not want to practice all traditional aspects, or even understand many traditional aspects of the yoga practice, we can still practice the Niyama of Saucha.  As a Teacher perhaps arriving early and making sure the space is swept, perhaps lighting incense/candles, burning sage, gridding the room with crystals, setting the vibration of OM to begin and conclude class, possibly doing some meditation, or even embracing chanting after class.  Be the example you wish to witness in your students.

As teachers it is wonderful for us to practice a clean diet, and clean hygiene.  What about the yoga mats?  Some studios have mats to borrow or rent, which means different peoples sweat and possibly fungus can be on the mat.  Therefore, proper mat cleaning is necessary.

1. Hosing it down with water, soft cloth/sponge and light dish soap
2. Filling a spray bottle with some water, tea tree oil (anti bacterial/anti fungal) and even some lavender essential oil for a light fragrant smell.  Just spray and wipe.  This is cost effective and students can all do this after class to promote saucha.
3. Josha wipes, similar to baby wipes with sweet aromatic scents.  These can be sold in yoga studios and seem to be growing in popularity.

The best Saucha to practice is a pure and clean heart.