Yama: Satya

Satya or ‘truthfulness’ is the second of the Yamas of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Patanjali considers satya as a restraint from falsehood in one's action (body), words (speech, writing), or feelings / thoughts (mind). It is the virtuous restraint from falsehood and distortion of reality in one's expressions and actions. The word ‘sat’ literally translates as ‘true essence’ or ‘true nature’ and therefore satya can be seen as complete honesty towards yourself and towards your fellow man. Satya can be interpreted and brought into life in many different ways, on your mat, in your yoga practice or in your meditation practice, but today I want to talk about satya in its simplest form, according to me, and that it to not tell a lie.

Here is the thing about a lie, you can tell it to harm someone or to deflect harm from yourself and sometimes, inadvertently, a lie can harm someone whilst deflecting harm, or perceived harm, from yourself. Due to this dualistic nature of a lie, one would never know whether a lie will accidentally backfire on you when the little bugger escapes your lips.

I am going to be brutally honest today and tell you something that most people only guess at; I have body image issues. Paired with the aforementioned is a lack of self-control especially when it comes to sweet things. When we have sweet things in the house, be it chocolate, candies or nougat, I will devour as much of it as I can. Afterwards, I feel like a total failure and even though I know that I am going to feel that way before I start wolfing down refined sugar, I lack the discipline to abstain from this little “pleasure”. I weigh 76kg and I am 186cm tall, which gives me a BMI of 22 (so I am fairly skinny), yet I have this image that I am always slightly overweight especially in the abdominal and facial regions. It has become a running joke in our household that I am “fat” or that I am going to be fat if I do not stop gorging myself on sugar. This situation has arisen due to my constant remarking on it and Michael, in good spirit, joins in on the fun.

Okay, so the backdrop is set, and I have told you about my fear of getting fat and my inability to say no to refined sugar; and this is where my story regarding truthfulness commences. We have a drinks cabinet where Michael hoards chocolate and nougat for the odd, very odd, occasion when he craves a little bit of sugar. Every now and again I venture into the cabinet to silence the little monster in my head who keeps screaming, like a petulant child, that it needs sugar. This happened yesterday, and I had two little pieces of nougat after lunch, discarded the plastic wrappings in the recycling bin and forgot about my little lapse in discipline… until this morning. I was busy making the bed when Michael marched into the bedroom with the box of nougat and asked me if I had any of it because he found wrappings in the recycling. In an attempt to avoid, what I perceived to be embarrassment, I immediately said no, which made him suspect our domestic worker. This is the logical conclusion if the perpetrator wasn’t me and now he wants to have a conversation with her regarding this little “transgression”. I told a lie, to avoid hearing “this is why you’re getting fat”, in jest I might add, and now there will be ramifications for my little fabrication.

The added embarrassment of admitting I told a lie, prevented me from confessing to him that it she is not to blame from the nougat’s disappearing act. I even tried to convince him not to talk to her about the incident, for obvious reasons, and gave him a couple of whys and wherefores to persuade him out of his planned course of action. My extempore untruth turned into a monster with the ability to cause harm to others, which was totally unanticipated.

He left for work hell bent on having a talk to her which got me to thinking about satya and the repercussions of lies, no matter how small or insignificant they might seem to you in the moment. You might tell someone that they are not gaining weight, to assuage their fears, which could lead them to be content with an unhealthy lifestyle. You can tell someone “I’m fine, I promise” when you are a complete mess. You can say “just one more episode of Game of Thrones” and binge watch a whole season. “It’s me not you”, when it is obviously them. The list goes on and on and the little white lies could hurt you, or it could hurt someone else without you even knowing it.

So the moral of the story? Don’t lie bitches, no matter how white it seems in the moment.

Namaste and nougat!

Yama: Brahmacharya

I have spent a lot of time lately contemplating the yamas and the niyamas especially, primarily, because we are discussing them in our yoga teacher traing. So I thought I'd put my thoughts to the proverbial paper and discuss Brahmacharya. It is the fourth of the yamas, and often translated as 'celibacy' or 'chastity', wich makes it one of my least favourite yamas. It is meant, traditionally, to encourage people who practice yoga to conserve their sexual energy and rather use it to progress further on their yoga path.

Brahmacharya actually translates to behaviour which leads to Brahman, the one true god, the supreme spirit. However, if we consider this yama as the right use of energy. The question then becomes, how do we spend our energy? What do we persue in our daily lives which waste these energies? We pursue external desires which would grant us momentary happiness but they are ultimately fleeting. We stress, worry and concern ourselves with the going-ons of our everyday lives. We worry whether we are fit, lean, skinny or flexible enough. We worry whether everyone we meet like us, and we put on a facade and pretend we are something and someone we are not. In the end these worries are futile and rather than waste our energy on them we should focus our energy on the things that matter in our lives; friendships, relationships, our yoga practise, and family.

Another aspect in our lives that we keep forgetting about because we are so consumed with being busy and productive is our own bodies. I know this going to sound cliched, but we only have one body, and if we do not take care of it, it will fail and make our lives exponentially more difficult. In the modern day and age we are so busy pursuing the pleasures that would give us material satisfaction that we do not treat our bodies the way we should. We eat junk food because we do not have the time to cook a healthy meal. We veg out on the couch and watch television because we do not have the energy to get on our mat and practice our yoga. Eventually this leads to an unhappy body which in turn leads to an unhappy mind.

How do you spend your energy? How do you look after your body? How will you interpret and apply Bramhacharya in your life, in your practice?

Get on your mat, get hooked!

Namaste and spend your energy well!