​Brahmacharya

The Yama Brahmacharya combines the Sanskrit root Brahman, which means eternal truth, ultimate reality, single binding unity, or universal consciousness, with Carya, which means moving toward, going after, following, engaging in, or occupying oneself with.  Brahmacharya connotes the active practice and movement toward unity-consciousness.  Often yogis equate Brahmacharya with conduct or observances consistent with the path to Brahman, managing energies, extremes, and cravings, especially around sexual abstinence, but we must understand that Brahmacharya entails more than a code of practices or behaviors.  Brahmacharya means to actively and consistently pursue spiritual liberation through a lifestyle dedicated toward achieving unity-consciousness.  

We must remember too that unity-consciousness depends upon everyone achieving this enlightened state; unity-consciousness by definition cannot be a solo endeavor.  The mutuality around our efforts helps emphasize that there is no need to be austere in our earnest enterprise; we can maintain a playful attitude.  A favorite teacher of mine likes to imagine that she remains the last person approaching unity-consciousness, and that everyone she encounters each day is actually a Buddha or Guru in disguise, posing lessons for her, and waiting on her to reach realization, that unity-consciousness finally may be achieved. 

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Svadhyaya

The Niyama Svadhyaya combines Sva, meaning one’s self, one’s own, the Ego, or human soul, with Dhyaya, which means meditating on, from the root Dhyai, to meditate, contemplate, or think of.  Often yogis translate Svadhyaya as the study of self, self-reflection, introspection, or self-observation, but this limits our understanding in the context of our 7.8 billion world-population.  These common translations miss the mark in that Sva means self in a broader sense, accounting for first person myself-ourselves, second person yourself-yourselves, and third person oneself-themselves.  Svadhyaya means much more than self-study; Svadhyaya connotes contemplating the 7.8 billion distinct individual selves who inhabit our planet, building awareness and understanding around our differences in perspectives and experiences.  In essence Svadhyaya means  duality-consciousness, or cultivating self-awareness in reflecting on our separateness or duality.

Karma Yoga

Derived from the Sanskrit root Yuj, which translates to attach, join, harness, or yoke, Yoga means union or coming to oneness, and speaks to how our personal experience intrinsically intertwines with the  diverse realities of others.  Karma means action, act, work, or deed, but differs from Kriya, which also translates as action, deed, or effort.  Whereas Kriya refers more to an activity, practice, or technique in terms of applying effort and taking steps in action, Karma ecompasses a broader view of an action’s impact, accounting for the actor’s intention, and the action’s effect and result.  Karma Yoga means approaching oneness through how we act with awareness around our intent and our impact.    

Ram Dass taught that, “We are complex entities in the fact that part of us is separate from everything else, and part of us is not separate from everything else.  That is, we are both a group of separate entities, and we are an awareness that is manifested as many entities but it is only one.”  Ram Dass said, “One could interpret life as an awakening journey back to unity, not to unity as opposed to diversity, but to the unity where unity and diversity are each contained in the other.”  This understanding requires our practice with Santosha, as we need to entertain in our minds a sense of unity and a sense of diversity, not as poles in opposition, but as elements like yin and yang, each contained within the other.  

As we allow for both diversity and unity to coexist within each other, karma yoga asks us to honor our separateness while we invest our attention in our sense of unity-consciousness.  It’s a question of whom we see when we look at others:  Them?  Us?  Me?  There’s a difference in our intention and our impact when we act from a place of separateness than when we act in an attempt to return to the one; both the way in which we perform the act changes, and the way in which the act affects us changes.  We still act from a place of ego, and we still must honor our distinct differences, but when we start from a place of separateness and act in order to return to a unity experience, we begin to apply our actions as an offering.  As Ram Dass said, “I work on myself as an offering to you.  I serve you as a way of working on myself.”  I will be exploring more around loosening our grip on personal identity in relation to dharma and service in terms of sustainability and divisiveness in my next article invoking Aparigraha and Tapas.  

Karma Yoga in Practice with ANti-Racism

As we practice anti-racism in an effort to relieve the suffering of BIPOC communities, let us remember Ram Dass’ sage wisdom:

“I am working to help them and that, and at the same moment, I am working as a way to work on myself, realizing that until I am free of my identifications to my own attitudes, opinions, and separateness, my acts of necessity will be perpetuating some degree of divisiveness in the world.  Even as I'm doing good, I will be also creating suffering.  And in knowing that, I've got to work on myself and I can't stop until I’m enlightened because the dance goes on, and you can’t stop acting because you're in an incarnation, and the acting just keeps happening.  So then, the only conclusion is, I will use my actions to work on myself as an offering back into the system.  I work on myself as an offering to you.  I serve you as a way of working on myself.  And that double whammy, or that double investment, or that double process, means that the more you serve, the emptier of identification you get when you’re doing karma yoga properly.  And the freer of identification with your own separateness you get, the more you're being fed.  And the more you're being fed, the more you can do, and the more you want to do, and the more joy you're having from it.”

In practicing Brahmacharya, Svadhyaya, and Karma Yoga, we can address some common Spiritual Bypasses: denying diversity, discounting disparities, and avoiding accountability.  

Denying Diversity

We may hear people say, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” or “we are all one human race.”  In these cases we need to practice Svadhyaya and remember that we need to honor and respect the diversity of our unique experiences.  We should understand that what feels comfortable and safe to us, may not feel comfortable or safe to others.  Often yogis get hung up on the fact that Yoga means Union, and forget that while our aim is achieving union, there are necessary steps to take to get there.  Yes, we are all one human race, but the reality is that some of us enjoy privileges at the expense of the oppression of others.  We need to be aware and sensitive to that.  Let’s practice Satya with Svadhyaya and get honest about the reality of our current state of affairs and the reality of the experience of others, and practice Brahmacharya and Karma Yoga to move toward achieving equality and unity.  

Discounting Disparities

We may hear people say “I don’t see color,” “All lives matter,” or, “We’re all in the same boat.”  If we don’t see color, we are choosing to ignore that our systems demonstrate a pattern of benefiting some skin tones while prejudicing against other skin tones.  While we may all be weathering the same strom, we certainly are not all in the same boat.  While some of us relax in comfort in sturdy luxury yachts, others of us are struggling in the water, scrambling to keep afloat on whatever debris is within reach.   If you have ever criticised Rose for her famous declaration “I’ll never let go,” as she allowed Jack to slip into the cold abyss in the wake of the Titanic when there was clearly room for two on that door, it’s time to take a look at our own vessels and get real about our capacity to accommodate.  It’s time to recognize who has access to safe harbors and to identify who has been systematically left out at sea in dangerous open waters, made to battle to secure a solid place of safety.  

Avoiding Accountability

We may hear people say “Good vibes only.”  Yoga is a practice, and nobody ever promised that it would be easy.  Yoga is not about blissing out on love and light; it’s about dedicating ourselves to our practice, showing up consistently, leaning in to discomforts, and sticking with our goals and commitments.  The lightness, the bliss, comes only as a result of our earnest dedication and moving beyond blocks and obstacles.  If we are committed to practicing yoga, we can’t pick and choose what’s comfortable and convenient; the Yamas and Niyamas encompass an important part of a complete practice; Brahmacharya & Svadhyaya are important elements in practicing Yoga and Karma Yoga.  We must be willing to recognize the suffering, oppression, difficulty, violence, and tragedy happening all around us.  We first must be willing to see, acknowledge, and  process the reality of what's happening that we may come to a place of awareness and understanding.   Then our practice becomes an invitation to build our capacity to hold space for these extreme polarities in lived experience, to apply our efforts to achieve remedies and resolutions, and to participate in actively supporting justice and healing.

​More Anti-Racism Resources

Although I will continue to share resources that I am finding helpful personally as a white American woman new to the Anti-Racism movement, ultimately this is a personal practice.  Practice mindfulness in engaging in conversations.  Listen for what resonates, and for where you sense dissonance.  Apply a critical eye to facts, statements, and the source of information.  Watch out for bias and agendas, identify emotions and interests, and follow your instinct around what's inviting further investigation.   

• Another easy step to take is following Austin Channing Brown on Instagram or Facebook, and making sure to watch her Instagram IGTV video from June 11: Lunch Break with Austin and Brene Brown.  
• When you have more time, check out Austin’s online video series The Next Question.  I especially loved the two interviews with Andre Henry.
• To go further, read or listen to Austin’s book I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.

Those of you who read early versions of my article on Satya & Santosha may have noticed that my definitions evolved considerably as I continue to develop this Yamas & Niyamas Activism model.  I’m giving myself permission to revise and rework, and pushing myself forward even before things feel ‘perfect’.  This is the practice.  Perfect is an illusion.  There is no final destination; everything is always evolving.  Let’s allow our awareness to expand, and our sense of truth to shift in alignment with our hearts. 💚🌿 Namaste 🙏 Teagan

Santosha, derived from Sanskrit Sam, complete, altogether, entire, and Tosha, acceptance, or being comfortable, means to make peace with, or to reconcile multiple truths.  Santosha asks us to develop our capacity to hold comfortably the varied elements that comprise the complete truth, and to accept dichotomous or paradoxical realities.  This is a practice of mental flexibility, that we may stretch ourselves beyond one limited view and exercise ‘both/and’ competency, allowing for seeming opposites both to be simultaneously true.  We must build our faculty for uncertainty and contradiction.

​Santosha invites us to be present with all that is, to face what we’d rather not see.  We must sift, sort, and structure the multiple aspects of truth to create space in our minds and foster a sense of clarity and ease so that we are not overwhelmed or burdened by the enormity of true reality.  Santosha is often translated as contentment, and this is an important element.  We must not be frustrated or deterred when the multiple components do not readily align or make sense within our active framework.  We must be content to keep with the practice, to build space to accommodate our own blind spots and allow for gaps in our understanding.  Practice with Santosha requires calm receptivity, persistence in reflection, and a willingness to rearrange concepts, rule out false paradigm schemes, imagine ideas inverted, follow corollary patterns, and redefine our sense of truth, reality, and identity.

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In conversation with Layla F. Saad, Sarah Jones exemplifies Santosha, our capacity to entertain multiple diverse perspectives, in their Good Ancestor conversation exploring personal identity in discourse with racism, sexism, and economic mobility.

Satya is often translated as non-lying, or truthfulness, with the implication that as long as we are honest and impeccable with our word, we are practicing this virtue.  Satya entails so much more than this limited interpretation.  Satya means non-falsehood, non-distortion, non-ignorance.  We must allow for multiple truths; we cannot ignore or deny the truth of others.  

In Sanskrit, Sat indicates the ultimate eternal truth, with the suffix ya indicating doing or accomplishing.  Satya requires active investigation in seeking the whole and complete truth.  We must be willing to question the dominant cultural narrative; we must be willing to hear and digest multiple perspectives and to exercise our own discernment.  We must analyze the validity of our usual information sources and evaluate entrained biases, inaccurate assumptions, hidden interests, and covert agendas.  We must identify which voices have been silenced, unduly discredited, or eclipsed.  We must consider alternate views and sort facts from opinion.  We must amplify the voices that long have been oppressed, and bolster the stories of those vulnerable to violence in speaking their truth.  We must encourage courageous free-thought and nourish fresh perspectives; we cannot feed the fear of dissent.  We must piece together a more complete picture.  Satya means to dedicate practice to cultivating our understanding.  Satya means to propagate a more consummate, collaborative, and comprehensive truth.   ​

In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali outlines the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga, beginning with the Yamas and Niyamas, which illuminate yoga’s inherent design.   In Sanskrit Yamas connotes reins, the restraints employed by a charioteer.  The Yamas steer our interactions with others, teaching us how to navigate our interpersonal world with ethical behaviors to respect all others and create harmonious coexistence.  “May all beings everywhere be happy and free...”  Niyamas shares the same root, with the added prefix Ni, in this instance indicating inward or within.  The Niyamas guide our internal practice and right relationship within ourselves.  “...and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.”

The Yamas and Niyamas direct and focus our actions to achieve freedom and happiness for all, to reach ultimate union, or enlightenment.  They are often described as guideposts, numbered in order reflecting Pantanjali's elucidation in the Yoga Sutras.  However, we might consider the Yamas and Niyamas more as trail-marking cairns comprised of stacked stones.  We might imagine that the stones have tumbled, and that we may rearrange them more stably in such a way to better illuminate our path and lend to more coherence.  Let's consider a cairn with Satya & Santosha at its base, and place Brahmacharya & Svadhyaya second.  We stack Aparigraha & Tapas third at the midpoint, followed by Asteya & Saucha.  We cap the cairn with Ahimsa & Ishwara Pranidhana at the pinnacle.  Arranged in this way, we're clearly directed toward social activism and anti-racism; it's the only way forward with applied practice. 

yoga & anti-racism SERIES, PART 1.1 OF 8

June 5th reflections, as shared in the Coco Yoga Community Forum:

I am committed to incorporating a lens of social justice to my yoga practice both within the container of the yoga shala and outside in our larger communities.  I recognize that as someone who has benefited from a system ingrained with racism and white supremacy at the expense of black, indigenous, and people of color, I have responsibility to take part in actively dismantling racist systems and attitudes, and co-creating new systems and attitudes that honor and bring healing and justice to those who have borne the immeasurable inhumanity of racism and white supremacy.  I recognize that my part in this work begins with my own active and committed contemplative practice.

Where are my limits? I will never fully understand the multi-layered experience of those who live the oppression of these systems day in and day out.  Furthermore, I will never fully understand the extent of the benefit and privilege I garner owing to these systems.  I am not qualified to lead this revolution, and given how blind I have been to my own complacency with systemic racism, and how unaware I have been around my own ingrained white supremacy, I am not qualified even to assess how well I am doing in this practice.

Is this work risky or counterproductive?  Given my place of privilege, this work does not pose any risk to my own wellbeing.  The risk that engaging with this work poses is the possibility that my own unidentified racism surface in damaging ways, causing real harm and perpetuating racist beliefs and systems. I must be thoughtful in this work because it puts others at risk, but ultimately sincerity in pursuing new systems and ways of being with cautious care could never be counterproductive. This work is the only path for my personal liberation in dedication to raising my own bar for understanding, compassion, empathy, and integrity; and each person’s commitment to doing better is what will achieve the new reality for all for which this revolution is calling.

What are my capacities?  I am capable of educating myself, of seeking out and hearing BIPOC thought leaders as well as common and varied BIPOC voices and experiences. I am capable of engaging with what I am hearing, bringing new ideas and perspectives into my practice however uncomfortable I may feel, however difficult it is to hold the truths of the experience of oppression. I am capable of leaning into the discomfort, sitting in stillness with ideas that I have previously avoided, and applying yoga philosophy to reorganize and attune to a better way of being.  I am capable of listening and reflecting on feedback, of taking proper time for rest and pause.  I am capable of owning my blind spots, faults, and mistakes, and dedicating to repair damages done.  I am capable of learning, and unlearning,  revising and updating my perspectives and understandings.  This is not easy work, but I commit to keep with it into the long-term and stretch beyond my own resistance and discomfort.