Asteya: Thou Shalt Not Steal

Asteya is one of the five ethical guidelines which constitute Yama, one of the Eight Limbs of Yoga according to the sage Patanjali. Asteya is translated from the Sanskrit language as "non-stealing." In the studio where I teach in Ossining, NY, there is a free handout about the Eight Limbs at the checkout desk. I love this definition of Asteya from the handout:

Acknowledging that we already have enough,
and are enough,
so desiring less and 
only taking what we need
in the present moment.
Living simply. 

I also love this teaching from Lao Tzu:

The second of the Eight Limbs of Yoga is Niyama, which concern attitudes and behaviors towards ourselves. Santosha is one of the five Niyama, and is translated as "cotenment." It ties in perfectly with Asteya:

Detaching from our 
desires and cultivating
inner peace, joy and
acceptance of all that 
encompasses our life.
Contentment.

As we turn away from the attitudes and behaviors separating us from our true nature and from the Divine, a review of the core ethical principles from our personal traditions is necessary. The Ten Commandments tell us not to steal. The Yama and Niyama also tell us not to steal, as they hint at how we can eliminate even the desire to take something which is not ours.

We can learn to come fully into the present moment with a soft, accepting attitude. We can learn to cultivate gratitude for each moment of this fleeting life. We can learn to delve into the plenitude of present experience. Just this, here, now, in this body, with this beating heart, vulnerable and small yet vibrantly alive! We are, each one of us, a miracle. So very often, we are what we seek. We have treasure within us.

I heard this song on the way to class today, having chosen Asteya and abiding in the present moment as my theme. As I usually do, I prayed to be of benefit to whomever would come to class, and then this song by James Taylor played on the radio in my car:

                                                                    "Secret O' Life"

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
Any fool can do it, there ain't nothing to it.
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill.
But since we're on our way down, we might as well enjoy the ride.

The secret of love is in opening up your heart.
It's okay to feel afraid, but don't let that stand in your way.
Cause anyone knows that love is the only road.
And since we're only here for a while, might as well show some style. Give us a smile.

Isn't it a lovely ride? Sliding down, gliding down,
try not to try too hard, it's just a lovely ride.

Now the thing about time is that time isn't really real.
It's just your point of view, how does it feel for you?
Einstein said he could never understand it all.
Planets spinning through space, the smile upon your face, welcome to the human race.

Some kind of lovely ride. I'll be sliding down, I'll be gliding down.
Try not to try too hard, it's just a lovely ride.
Isn't it a lovely ride? Sliding down, gliding down,
try not to try too hard, it's just a lovely ride.
The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

Rethinking Our Standards

In these days following the Spring Equinox as

• Jews have celebrated Purim and begin to prepare for Passover, 
• Pagans have just celebrated Ostara, 
• people of Persian descent have celebrated Nowruz, 
• thousands have traveled to the pre-hispanic Mayan pyramids in Mexico,
  
   and 
• Christians are preparing for Easter, 

we are reminded once again of the need to prune overgrowth and get the garden ready. It's time to turn over a new leaf. 

New growth requires direction and thoughtful cultivation. Without a careful gardener, the precious incoming energy of the sun is wasted. 

As we engage in purification and repentance, we are wise to refine our standards. Harvests from prior seasons may not have fulfilled our quotas. 

Even if we are satisfied with our lives, now is a good time to anticipate future needs. 

Get a piece of paper and make a gardener's list: seeds, plants, tools, boxes, soil and anything else you need for your 2017 garden. And for the garden of your life, review these items:

• Physical Health (diet, physical activity, sleep, illness and injury prevention/recovery)
• Mental Health (stress levels and emotional, psychological and social wellbeing)
• Spiritual Health ("not material in nature," "ideas, beliefs, values and ethics that have arisen in the mind and conscience of human beings, particularly ennobling ideas," "something that has to arise within people and communities in keeping with their cultural and social patterns" (World Health Organization, Resolution WHA 31.13, 37th World Health Assembly). 
• Personal Goals 
• Professional Goals

Choose what you want to cultivate. Spend your time and energy working towards your goals and bolstering your overall health. Eliminate corrosive relationship dynamics. Turn away from harmful influences. Keep your focus on renewal and don't dwell on previous failures. 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think on these things. Phillipians 4:8, Berean Study Bible

Vernal Equinox Blessing

Today, March 20, 2017, marks the Vernal Equinox, one of the two days per year when the sun is positioned directly over the equator. (The Autumnal Equinox will fall on September 22 this year.)
At the Equinox, we experience equal parts of daylight and darkness.

Throughout human history numerous festivals and religious ceremonies have pivoted around the Vernal (Spring) Equinox. The Pagan sabbat of Ostara occurs today and every year at this precise time in the solar year. The Christian festival of Easter is set to occur on the Sunday following the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Lent begins 40 days, not counting Sundays, before Easter. So then, the Vernal Equinox always occurs during the period of Lent.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere we gladly welcome the return of more warmth and light! This is an auspicious day, heralding the arrival of fertility and growth. It is an opportune time for new beginnings and for physical and psychological re-balancing.

As opposed to the Summer Solstice, a period for vigor and heightened activity, the Vernal Equinox is a time to return to an ideal balance of effort and ease. For the majority of us, this will mean less "doing" and more "being." In our Monday morning yoga class today, we added more grounding and restful postures to help us balance out our normally active and vigorous lifestyles.

Ask yourself what you need to balance in your life at this time, be it a relationship, your diet, your moods, or the hours you spend working vs. resting. Set an intention to take steps towards that balance, beginning today.

Here is a blessing to take with you into this new season:

You are invited to pause.
You are invited to soften.
You are invited to open.
You are invited to receive. 
You are invited to let the darkness be.
You are invited to let the light in. 
May you never lose your faith in the light beyond the darkness.
May you never lose your memory of the darkness while light surrounds you.
May your being align with sun and moon and the rhythm of universal balance. 
May you experience balance through your whole being: spirit, heart, mind, brain, thoughts, body, skin, muscles, bones and cells--may they vibrate with the harmony of universal balance. 
Amen, Aho, Ashe, Shalom, Om. 

Ritual Water Purification

       Ablution is the practice of ritual washing for purification before prayer and worship. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Shintoism and countless indigenous belief systems incorporate ritual washing into their spiritual practices.

       Purification practices are associated with the liturgical season of Lent since it is a time of repentance and fasting, so now is an opportune time to learn about ablutions. You may find cultural and spiritual resonance with ancient ablution rituals from around the world. Most people are familiar with the mikveh and baptism rituals from Judaism and Christianity, and with zudu, ablution before prayer in the Islamic tradition. Hindus consider rivers in India, especially the Ganges, as sacred spaces for purification. In Catholic churches, there is a holy water font near the entrance so that people coming to worship or pray may symbolically cleanse and bless themselves upon entering--this symbolic action marks a separation between the ordinary and the sacred. Ablution thus helps the spiritual practitioner to prepare the mind and emotions, setting an intention for sacred activity.

       Water symbolizes purity and clarity in our collective consciousness. Below is a summary of water purification practices across some the world's faith traditions:

Shintoism: The people in ancient Japan believed that the Divine inhabited trees, rocks, mountains, springs of water and other natural phenomena.  From the inception of Shintoism, each act of worship began with water purification.  This is why you will find a temizuya, a trough for ritual washing, inside of every Shinto shrine. Learn more about temizuya here. Waterfalls are held to be sacred in Shintoism, and standing under a waterfall is a powerful purification practice. 

Buddhism: Waterfalls also play a role in a Buddhist ritual called suigyo, translated as “water austerities.”  These are practiced in Nichiren Buddhism today.  Some Buddhists have adapted the ancient Japanese ritual of standing under waterfalls while chanting sacred scriptures.  Now, Buddhist monks and nuns practice suigyo for cleansing and purification, by standing in front of basins of pure water which have been blessed by the Sui-jin, the water deities.  They sing sacred words from the Lotus Sutra while using water from the basin to purify themselves before beginning their daily spiritual practice.  The Lotus Sutra instructs monastics to clean themselves within and without, and these are the particular verses they chant during suigyo.

Hinduism: Hindus begin the day with morning cleansing by water.  In a practice called Tarpana, the worshiper makes a cup with his hands and pours the water back into the river reciting mantras.  After sipping some water, the person may then apply the distinguishing mark of the sampradaya (tradition), and say the morning prayer, samdhya.  Sodhana is a word that means “cleansing,” and the name of the Hindu purification practice. Every Hindu temple has a pond near it and worshipers are required to bathe before entering the temple. Indeed, to Hindus all water is sacred, especially rivers, and there are seven sacred rivers. In the Ganges the pure are made even more pure, and the impure have their pollution removed, if only temporarily. In the Narmada, the Ganges herself is said to bathe from her own buildup of impurities. In the sacred water, distinctions of caste count for nothing, as all sins fall away.  In the Yoga tradition, the niyama of sauca requires cleanliness. Sauca encompasses both physical and spiritual purity. 

Islam: Learn about partial, full and symbolic ablution in the Sufi Islamic tradition.

Catholicism: Catholicism has a long and rich tradition of using holy water in spiritual ritual, all beautifully explained here.

Judaism: These prayers and rituals using water are central to the Jewish faith and encourage mindfulness of the precious nature of water.

In closing, here is a collection of Bible verses relating to ablution.

As with all rituals, water rituals strengthen our intention and resolve to commune with the Divine. I am grateful to learn about ablution as a means to strengthen my desire for mental clarity and spiritual purity. 

Embracing Contrition

Confronting our harmful thoughts, words and actions, then taking steps to remedy them, is part of the spiritual path. Even in New Age spirituality, where positive psychology abounds, a practitioner cannot avoid the deep and painful work of repentance. Before we can replace our "negative thoughts" with "positive affirmations" à la Louise Hay, we must first identify our negative thought patterns, see them for what they are, and purge them from our thinking. In this process, we experience contrition. 

Embracing contrition is painful. Yet, we can experience pain without turning it into chronic suffering. Pain refines us. Pain is inextricable with the human experience. Suffering is a phenomenon born of holding onto pain until it defines us. Contrition is a phenomenon which uses pain to extricate us from suffering. 

For Christians who practice Lent, turning away from our sin (harmful thoughts, words and actions) is inescapable. Lent always comes with healthy side of contrition. Lent is not a feel-good experience. I have historically shied away from it, especially in my more New Age phases of development. 

Through my yoga practice, I developed a new appreciation for Lent. In reading the accounts of the saints and sages from the Yoga tradition, I recognize many of the teachings from the Christian Bible on the value of humility and developing an unrelenting awareness of our harmful tendencies. Yogis regularly engage in practices to clear out all of their destructive habits and behaviors. One of the most healing and transformational experiences of my life came from being corrected and punished by two of my teachers. I was fortunate enough to experience the same treatment from both a Yoga teacher and a Christian teacher. In my quest for undying self-love and approval, I had become blind to my sins. The pain of being rebuked and rejected helped me more than any self-help could have. 

When we think back to those painful experiences in our history when we have been forced to face our faults, when we have hit the wall of our own iniquity, we will invariably see a turning point at those junctures. Either we improved or we deteriorated. We had to make a choice at that juncture, "will I continue on this road with these same behaviors, or will I choose a new road?" 

The process of choosing a new road involves contrition, which is "sincere penitence or remorse," and theologically speaking it is "sorrow for and detestation of sin with a true purpose of amendment" (dictionary.com). 

The only way beyond our pain is through it: 

"Having overcome the impervious gloom of ignorance, by the force of the purity of thy nature; you may pursue the course of the yoga, with the contrition of your inner soul, and belief in the sàstras, and in the dictates of your spiritual guide" (v.36, The Yoga-vásishtha-mahárámáyana of Válmiki, Volume 3, Issue 2). “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15). "He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds" (Psalm 147:3). 

Divine assistance and favor come to us when we embrace our contrite hearts in our human experience. God's grace can become manifest to us without repentance and contrition, because God can do anything, but for our own peace, happiness and spiritual maturity we must experience contrition. 

A Return to Simplicity

One of the central themes of the Lenten season of fasting and spiritual devotion is simplicity. This time of year and its corresponding liturgical season in Christianity align nicely with secular Spring Cleaning efforts! People in the Northern Hemisphere from every culture and background are drawn to detoxifying, purifying and simplifying practices in preparation for a new season of growth. 

In Yoga practice, we endeavor to observe a principle called saucha, the first of the five niyamas. 

The niyamas are personal observances for cultivating happiness and avoiding suffering. The Sanskrit word "saucha" means inner and outer cleanliness and purity. 

"Saucha is practiced on the physical level by fasting to purge the body of accumulated toxins, by eating pure, vegetarian foods, and by practicing Yoga asanas and pranayama, which also have a cleansing effect on the mental level. We further clean the mind by refraining from sensory stimuli that disturb the mind, such as violent movies, or provocative images" (Swami Ramananda, Integral Yoga). 

A home where saucha is faithfully observed will be orderly, clean, simple and light. Taking inventory, tidying up and simplifying our home brings more peace, ease and clarity to our life. It helps us to develop a sattvic, balanced energy, within and without. 

In our practice of physical yoga postures, we apply saucha by observing clean lines, careful alignment, cleansing breaths and orderly transitions. We can also experiment with decluttering our foundations, simplifying, and working with the idea that less is more. 

The same concept applies to all of our activities: eliminate what is unnecessary, make space for what is most essential, acting from the foundation of a pure mind, body and soul. 

Acts of Selfless Service

Selfless service, known as Seva in the Yoga tradition, is another universal spiritual practice. It is one of the main themes of the Bhagavad Gita and a central part of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the Abrahamic faiths. "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many," Mark 10:45. "And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, 'If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all'" Mark 9:35. 

Selfless service to others is seen as indirect service to God. 

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Revised 2010, 2014 (RMNN) Nouă Traducere În Limba Română (NTLR)   —Русский (RU)— New Russian Translation (NRT) Священное Писание (Восточный Перевод) (CARS) Священное Писание (Восточный перевод), версия для Таджикистана (CARST) Священное Писание (Восточный перевод), версия с «Аллахом» (CARSA) Russian New Testament: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-RU) Russian Synodal Version (RUSV)   —Slovenčina (SK)— Nádej pre kazdého (NPK)   —Somali (SO)— Somali Bible (SOM)   —Shqip (SQ)— Albanian Bible (ALB)   —Српски (SR)— Serbian New Testament: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-SR)   —Svenska (SV)— Nya Levande Bibeln (SVL) Svenska 1917 (SV1917) Svenska Folkbibeln (SFB) Svenska Folkbibeln 2015 (SFB15)   —Kiswahili (SW)— Neno: Bibilia Takatifu (SNT)   —தமிழ் (TA)— Tamil Bible: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-TA)   —ภาษาไทย (TH)— Thai New Contemporary Bible (TNCV) Thai New Testament: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-TH)   —Tagalog (TL)— Ang Bagong Tipan: Filipino Standard Version (FSV) Ang Dating Biblia (1905) (ADB1905) Ang Salita ng Diyos (SND) Magandang Balita Biblia (MBBTAG)   —Twi (TWI)— Nkwa Asem (NA-TWI)   —Українська (UK)— Ukrainian Bible (UKR) Ukrainian New Testament: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-UK)   —اردو (UR)— Urdu Bible: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-UR)   —Uspanteco (USP)— Uspanteco (USP)   —Tiêng Viêt (VI)— 1934 Vietnamese Bible (VIET) Bản Dịch 2011 (BD2011) New Vietnamese Bible (NVB) Vietnamese Bible: Easy-to-Read Version (BPT)   —汉语 (ZH)— Chinese Contemporary Bible (CCB) Chinese New Testament: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-ZH) Chinese New Version (Simplified) (CNVS) Chinese New Version (Traditional) (CNVT) Chinese Standard Bible (Simplified) (CSBS) Chinese Standard Bible (Traditional) (CSBT) Chinese Union Version (Simplified) (CUVS) Chinese Union Version (Traditional) (CUV) Chinese Union Version Modern Punctuation (Simplified) (CUVMPS) Chinese Union Version Modern Punctuation (Traditional) (CUVMPT)  Matthew 25:40-45New International Version (NIV) 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me,you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Selfless service is distinct from financial donations to charities. To meet the requirements of selfless service one must perform concrete acts which benefit people in need, such as serving in a soup kitchen, volunteering in a hospital, working as a volunteer fireman and visiting the elderly who are homebound.

If we don't consciously choose to incorporate selfless service into our practices, it can very easily get overlooked. During Lent and other periods of structured devotional practice, we are reminded to include selfless service into our routines. 

If you ever visit an ashram, you will notice that every resident does some kind of regular service without payment. Buddhist and Christian monastics also perform many acts of selfless service as part of their regular spiritual practice. 

There are many opportunities to volunteer as little or as often as you like through local charitable organizations, churches and temples. 

As a youth, my parents had me volunteer in different capacities and were always involved themselves, to this day, in regular acts of selfless service. As an adult, my volunteering has been sporadic, but I have loved visiting the elderly, volunteering with Big Sisters, volunteering at a local hospital, serving lunch at a school, and only twice so far (!) serving food at a homeless shelter. Some years my volunteer work has amounted to very little time, only 20 hours or so. This is because of moving, work obligations and losing touch with the organizations where I had the volunteering opportunities. 

For most people, selfless service requires a commitment to a group of organization of some sort. A useful activity during Lent or any spiritual sadhana would be to find an organization that's a good match for you, and sign up!