Svadhyaya: Self-Awareness in Reflecting on our Separateness or Duality

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.