The Yamas Week 3 - Asteya: Standing in Your Own Integrity

 Every experience depends on where we're experiencing it from.

What we hear depends on where we’re listening from.

When we listen from our deep, we hear things deeply.
When we experience ourselves from that depth.
We experience everything from there.

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I love what is happening in our breath meditations—
to be invited into such intimacy with Life.
It’s a rare thing.

How intimate is your breath with you?
How close is it?
How Life-oriented is it?
How sensual?

We use two mantras:
open and surrender.
They’re one thing,
but they reflect opposites.

“Open” says: engage, receive, say yes.
Step forward.
Rise into Life.

It’s active.
I have to do it.
You can’t open me.
I can’t open you.

I have to open.

Surrender appears to be the opposite,
but they’re actually married together.

I yield.
I let go.
I give way.

Whatever you put into the breath
is offered into the reciprocation with Life
and is dissolved into it.

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We have discovered this for ourselves.

You put an emotion into your breathing —
and it gets absorbed.
It moves from an isolated experience of contraction
into a fluid experience of energy.

That is some tool. 

Like:
“What can I put into the breath,
  that it doesn’t liberate?” 

You can put shyness into it.
Fear.
It doesn’t make them go away,
but it transforms the context,
from something that’s dominating us,
into something that’s flowing through us.

And what flows through you…
Can work for you.
Can work for God.
Can work for the universe.
Can work for everything.

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I come in the afternoon to lay out cushions in the cabin for the session.
I’ve been doing it for decades.
So has Sarah.

It’s one of the most sacred parts of my day —
preparing this space
for you to come and sit.

When I lay the cushion down,
my heart starts to pound.

Not from stress —
from love.
From energy.

Because this
is the arena
where truth will be shared.
Possibilities will rise.
Where people set themselves free.

That which constricts us
doesn’t win here.

What an arena to prepare.

This ain’t no coffee shop.
This is a place of transformation.

And sure —
we could do it anywhere.

But if you keep doing
the same thing
in the same place,

something happens.
The energy gathers around the truth that is shared within it.

The yogis say
the truth will never be lost —
because they’ve poured these teachings
into the earth itself.

Even the rocks will cry it out
if it’s ever forgotten.

The Himalayas will speak.
The mountains will talk.

That’s what we’re doing here.
We’re making this space
ring with truth.

The idea is that after a while,
anyone who comes into this space
Will only have to sit and open,
and the truth that has been shared in this space
will start to permeate their body. 

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The Yamas

You know what’s coming…

A new Yama.

We’re hungry, aren’t we?
Hungry for truth.
For a new life.
Hungry to open.

And we’re getting
less afraid
of what’s on the other side
of our minds.

We’ve taken three initiations already —
but really,
we take them fresh all the time.

They’re not one-offs.
They’re ongoing initiations.
They’re living in us.

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Ahimsa.

When we impose our will,
or assume a position,
we create harm.

Subtle or gross —
it’s still violence.

And we’re okay with accepting that.
It’s humbling.

But sometimes now —
we don’t do it.
Because we rest in the heart.
We listen for the inner prompt.
We listen more to Life,
  and are less quick to believe in our own thinking and agendas.

And that makes us
more sensitive
to what’s really needed.

It allows us to listen,
rather than shouting over the top of everything,
And that allows us to act with love.

What a beautiful way to live.
As a kind person.

You can’t imitate that with your psychology,
it’s a being thing.
It is native within us. 

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Satya.

Honesty.
Truth.

Being true to ourselves.
Not needing to perform.
Not needing to wear a mask.

Starting to doubt the persona.

Becoming vulnerable —
and finding strength in that.

We become permeable.
And things start to move.

It allows things to be shared.

The moment you come into that space,
it invites others into honesty as well. 

If I’m putting on a show,
trying to impress you —

am I inviting your truth?
Or your mask?

Am I calling forth your friendship —
or your competition?

Just be real and honest.
Just be you.

It’s a massive gift.

But it means we have to loosen up our roles as well,
otherwise the fear that we need to be this or that,
for everyone else,
will override truth.

This Yama says:
You don't have to be this or that,
for anyone.
The best thing you can be is yourSelf.  

That will be your greatest gift.

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Now this week’s initiation…

Asteya.

To take on a life in which
we no longer wish to steal.

A life where we don’t need to have
what someone else has got.

Because we already have what we’ve been given.
Which is what we need.

I no longer need what you’ve got.
Because I value what I’ve got.

Now the stealing is over.

Now I’m happy for what you have.
Truly happy.

Now I’m happy for the gifts you’ve been given,
your life.
Your unique qualities,
your essence.

Then there’s no competition,
because I don’t need what you’ve got,
but I’m really happy you’ve got it,
because you do need it! 

If I try to take that from you,
I'm trying to steal what you need —
to have what I don’t!

This is asteya.

To realise,
we are infinitely resourced
from within,
with everything we could possibly ever need,
in this life,
in this moment, and going forward.

 It comes with the same creative force
that gave you your body,
and is currently giving you your breath and heartbeat.
It is also resourcing you
with every quality and understanding you need —
in each moment.

Don’t steal that from yourself,
by trying to have someone else’s gift from God. 

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Come out of competition.
Come out of comparison.

Free yourSelf.

Wish everybody well with their gifts,
but make sure you are using yours well.
because they are exactly right for you. 

You don’t need
anything you haven’t got.

Now rest in your heart.

This is called standing in one’s own integrity.

You’ve got to own it.

If you live from that place,
of not stealing from ourselves,
it becomes your way of being.

How we are on the inside,
becomes what we are on the outside.

We heal this great divide
between what we know to be true inside of ourselves,
and what we say,
how we think
and how we act.

We move as truth.

How full of integrity does that sound? 

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Here is a crucial mechanism to understand…

The feeling of taking the centre out of myself,
and putting it in something or someone else.

When I feel like I’m lacking what I need within myself,
I lose my centre.
I go out from myself looking for it.
I outsource it.

To go out from myself to try and fill my centre,
with what someone else seemingly has,
is to lose my integrity.

This is the great theft.

We all know how that feels.
It is good to get familiar with how that feels.

We know how it feels in a relationship,
The neediness, the desperateness.

How undignified we become in ourselves. 

It’s not shameful —
it’s just real.

When you really feel that —
how it pollutes the gold —
it gives you pause.

And you ask:
Why am I doing this?
What am I leaving?
And for what?

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Let’s take it a step further…

It’s totally understandable,
why we leave ourselves.

When insecurity rises,
it’s tough!
Its a difficult feeling to be with inside oneself.

We feel shaky, full of self doubt,
all of  these demons arise on the inside.
Stories get told in the mind.

In that instability,
to go looking for stability is just natural.

But going out to find it,
is just one option.

The challenge —
is to wait,
and stay in.

Stay in the feeling of insecurity. 

Because if we stay with the feeling of insecurity long enough,
what we find
  is security 

Insecurity
is actually
the sensation of security rising.

It is the feeling of you
deepening into a more secure space. 

Fear
is the doorway
into fearlessness.

Doubt
is the doorway
into doubtlessness.

The only way to get to security
is to follow the feeling of insecurity inside of ourselves.

The only way to get to fearlessness
is to follow the feeling of fear. 

The only way to get to doubtlessness
is to follow the feeling of doubt. 

These difficult experiences are their own rope,
that you can use to climb out of them. 

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So how?

Breathe.

Breathe with insecurity
and you will find your security.

Breathe with fear.
Breathe with doubt.

And you’ll find
what’s on the other side.

You can go out to look for these things,
but good luck… 

Or you can come in,
but the only way in
  is through this. 

That’s the sacrifice.
That’s the price of entry.

Everyone else is putting a plaster on it.
Trying to fix it.
To make it go away.
Looking for distraction. 

It doesn’t work.

We’re sitting on dynamite.
We are actually experiencing our own liberation process
all of the time.

All we have to do
is wait,
breathe,
and go with the feeling in the system.

Let the feeling work its way through.

Buddha did it.
My master did it.
Every surrendered being has done it.

Every beacon of light in the world
is such because they burned through these feelings.

We just have to be with what is going on inside of us.

Keep breathing.

It is taking you somewhere great,

 despite the mind telling you,
“it’s taking us to hell”.

It’s taking us to the opposite place. 

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So don’t steal this from yourself.
Don’t steal your own process.

Don’t pretend you’re sorted
when you’re not.

Be kind —
but go through these feelings.

With your breath.

Because nothing is more brilliant
than your own process.

The initiation is to commit to having our own life,
And not anyone else’s.

Because there isn’t anything more brilliant than yours. 

No matter what somebody else’s might look like.

If you swapped yours
for someone else’s,
you would suffer inordinately.

What looks great
will just be suffering for you.

Their life isn’t yours.
Their freedom won’t free you.

Yours will.

It’s yours for a reason.

A gift from God.
For your awakening.

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Honestly?
It’s almost too much for me.

The potential…
Is so immense.

Don’t you just want to shout it from the rooftops?

…Don’t.

Namaste