ASTEYA: Being Content in Your Own Skin

When we attend to our own growth, we are engaged in the joy and challenge of building ourselves.

 

The third Yama is ASTEYA: Non-stealing, non-coveting, not being jealous. This applies both to the physical act of taking something that doesn’t belong to us, and to the moral act of stealing or borrowing another’s ideas. Knowing that jealousy may spring from a perceived lack of abundance. ASTEYA implies a generosity of spirit, being content in your own ‘skin’ enough to let others shine and grow. It is also a way of remaining truthful (SATYA) by not stealing other people’s ideas or dreams.

“This third jewel, ASTEYA, calls us to live with integrity and reciprocity. If we are living in fear and lies, our dissatisfaction with ourselves and our lives leads us to look outward, with a tendency to steal what is not rightfully ours. We steal from others, we steal from the earth, we steal from the future, and we steal from ourselves. This outward focus leads us to compare ourselves to others, and when we do so, we either find ourselves lacking which makes us feel somehow cheated, or we find ourselves superior, which leaves us feeling somewhat arrogant.

We are captured in a culture where our very identity is tied up with our accomplishments. In the rush to get to the next thing, we have no time left for ourselves to digest and assimilate our lives; this may be our biggest theft of all. We need time to chew and ponder . . . to rest and reflect and contemplate. The tenet of ASTEYA asks us to get excited about the possibilities for our own life. When we attend to our own growth, we are engaged in the joy and challenge of building ourselves. And in so doing, we automatically serve the world rather than steal from it. ” Deborah Adele

Next post: we’ll explore BRACHMACHARYA: conscious use of our life energy.