The Yamas are the fundamental renunciation of a life based on fear. They are the change.
The Niyamas are the fundamental practices that sustain a life based on love. They sustain the change.
Rolf Gates & Katrina Kenison
The five yamas and five niyamas are the first limb on Patanjali‘s 8-limb path of yoga. The five yamas encourage us to look at the attitude we take toward our external experiences with people, things, and events. The second yama, truthfulness (or Satya), teaches that considering our words before we speak enables us to express from a place of pure intention. The yogic way of life encourages us to practice truth in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
The following story is a recent experience shared within my own yoga community (sangha). As is our practice each month, we share a spiritual reading, meditation, and discussion during our time together. In this particular month, the meditation began with a passage meditation as prescribed by Eknath Easwaran. The passage chosen was the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, which I have copied in its original form below.
Lord, Life make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
O divine Master, Life, grant that I may not so much seek
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
As you can see, I have taken the liberty to strike through the sexist (Lord) and subservient (Master) language in the prayer and substituted my own word, Life, as a label for the divine mystery within and around us. You may already use non-traditional language (Source, Creator, Spirit, etc.) that expresses your spiritual values, i.e., inclusion, mutual respect, equanimity, equality, etc. Bravo if you have taken this step because you are practicing discernment, which is a necessary condition for truthfulness to arise within and then to be expressed outwardly.
I admit I am dismayed by the hesitation and outright refusal in global sacred/spiritual systems to recognize that scripture and sacred text, ancient and modern, are interpreted by their writers’ human egos. And, their writers’ egos are influenced by the era in which they lived. Assisi’s benediction above illustrates age-old conditioning, in the form of seemingly sacred language, that still limits our spiritual expansion because of a refusal to change it.
I leave you with two considerations. Firstly, the next time you encounter language that does not reflect your spiritual truth and values, speak your truth out loud. Without your voice, none can hear the harmony that Life intends for us. Secondly, and this is much more challenging for me, find contentment and ease (the niyama of Santosa) in what is true for you but not true for others. I remind myself that contentment provides attentiveness in the moment and non-attachment to any outcomes. The true reward of being content with oneself and others is the relief from drama as well as the compulsion to constantly be acting, that is, changing, improving, fixing, helping, etc.
For more yoga actions and teachings, click here. Namaste.
