As part of Axis Yoga’s teacher training, students are invited to spend some time applying one of several yogic principles to their daily lives. Students reference principles such as non-harming and truthfulness as they relate to the practice of yoga. In the following paper, one student explores her understanding of truthfulness. She explores how truthfulness relates to her experience as a cyclist on the road as well as in her work as a paraprofessional at an elementary school. Her experiment leads to an expansion of her definition and understanding of the concept of living truthfully.
Tag Archive for: Yoga
A few days after I made a commitment to implement satya, truth, into my daily life, I found that I’d slowed down my speech and made a greater effort to actively listen to my interlocutor. I thought that maybe I’d continue in this vein, but over the next two weeks, satya seemed to sneak up on me in forms that I had not anticipated. I began to refine my understanding of the Yama, and to explore more deeply various relationships through the lens of satya. I noticed a consistent struggle with the concept of satya in two relationships in particular: my relationship with my work environment and my relationship as a bicyclist with motorists on the road. Because satya has taken on personal meaning for me, I’ll first describe how I have interpreted it in my daily life, and then I’ll offer two examples that demonstrate how satya has transformed how I work in my job and how I ride my bike.
Satya is the second Yama. According to T.K.V. Desikachar, “yama” can mean more than simply an ethical precept. It can mean “a ‘discipline’ or ‘restraints,’” and Desikachar further suggests, an “‘attitude’ or ‘behavior’” (98). In particular, the Yamas refer to an attitude we adopt toward others: in this way, Satya confronts language, communication, and the ego in the tricky process of interacting with the world.
My colleagues and I had discussed in our initial meeting what satya means and our own understandings of how it might apply to us: why did we choose this Yama? My struggle with truth manifests itself overtly: often, it is obvious that I am not telling the truth. I hyperbolize, overstate, stretch, bend, and spin what would otherwise be true. We agreed to ponder the question: What is my motivation for non-truth? When and where does it happen? I hypothesized that I exaggerate for social reasons – for humor or shock value for example – in order to augment others’ perceptions of me. Through this experiment, I realized that also commit non-truth by omitting the truth.
In my process of examining satya, I began to consider the space that non-truth occupies. I find it useful to use the words “fabrication” and “omission” to describe that space. A fabrication is the creation of something that was not already there: for one who lies about the world her or she lives in, fabrication creates distance between the self and the world – between the subject and the object – the same subject-object distance that Derik described during his discussion of ahimsa. In his discussion of satya, B. K. S. Iyengar offers the following analogy, “as fire burns impurities and refines gold, so the fire of truth cleanses the yogi and burns up the dross in him” (33). Non-truth is rubbish. It is extra. I will examine my relationship as a bicyclist with motorists on the road from this perspective of fabrication.
Satya, as a restraint, means to control and limit non-truth. As I discussed, this can mean to refrain from amplifying the truth. It also implicates truth that should be spoken, but it not: omission, the negative space that non-truth occupies. I will examine my relationship with my work environment from the perspective of omission.
Non-truth, lies, fabrications, and omission prevent the subject from being fully present in the world. Satya asks the practitioner to confront the world.
Lately I have begun to feel that my role as a bicyclist is also that of a diplomat: I ride my bike to demonstrate to others that it is accessible. I also represent the bicycling community to motorists on the road – more and more, I view it as my responsibility to represent that bicyclists deserve a space on the road.
I was riding my bike home from work, and reflecting on an incident that had happened on my morning commute. Seven hours later, I replay the events in my mind like so: My water bottle had been ejected from my bike when I rode over a sudden bump while traveling on Evans over Santa Fe. The water bottle tumbled onto the street in front of a car waiting anxiously for the light to change. I dashed off my bike to retrieve the bottle when the light changed. I’d become an obstacle in the road during the morning rush to work, and as I made eye contact with the woman in the anxious car she threw her hands off the wheel into the air, flailing with exasperation and sighing her frustration. She honked her horn, and … and I notice that I’ve ceased to replay the event. I’ve begun, instead, to recreate and author the event in preparation of sharing my outrage with my roommate, boyfriend, and fellow bike-commuter, Michael. So, in observance of satya, I pause in my storytelling to consider what might actually be going on.
The incident of my water bottle falling on the street confronts me as I communicate – though intention or action – with the people with whom I share the road. I often expect that drivers will be annoyed by my presence on a bike, and while this can help keep me safe, it also creates a sense of competition (that exists maybe only in my mind) between motorists and myself. This attitude also casts me as a victim: it says, how difficult it is to be a cyclist! I frequently receive surprise and praise for my (seeming) dedication to commuting by bicycle. This reminds me that the concept and the action of riding a bicycle are difficult for some people. Although most days I am happy to ride my bike, I sometimes feel that it is difficult for me too. By amplifying my interactions with motorists, I victimize myself and validate other’s suspicion that bicycling is a difficult choice of transportation – neither of which I believe! This sort of exaggeration also contradicts my desire to demonstrate that bicycling is accessible and, maybe, not as tough as it might seem. It is possible, furthermore, that if I anticipate that motorists will treat me with respect, and confront them and their steely vehicles as such, I will be treated in kind.
Violent Words and Children
I am in charge of monitoring lunch recess for first, second, and third graders. For part of the time, a teacher who has worked at the school for about a decade accompanies me on the playground. In the hierarchal system of power at the school, I, as a new employee and a paraprofessional (which means I work “next to” professionals, ha.) am at the bottom of the hierarchy. I have little power. Only the students occupy a place below me on this scale.
My playground colleague likes to exercise her power over the students with a megaphone: the playground is large and she needs to project her voice across the expanse of monkey bars, slides, swings, and grass. We are required to carry a megaphone, and I try to use mine sparingly. The playground rules are logical and have been designed to minimize risk to students’ well being as well as to minimize risk to the school as an institution – to reduce liability. These rules, I believe, should be implemented on a case-by case basis. One loan student jogging across the blacktop to the grass, for example, does not constitute a punishment while a group of students racing and chasing on the blacktop do.
My colleague waits for the students to burst through the doors with her megaphone in hand, raised and ready for action. She is ready as soon as the students arrive. She spends thirty minutes barking commands, “Don’t run!” “Don’t push!” and exclamations of outrage, “There is no running on this playground!” “What do you think you’re doing!?” Her language is abrasive both in content and in its aural quality.
I believe that students should be given the opportunity to correct a minor infraction without punishment – to choose to follow the rules – and that, as people, should be treated with kindness and respect. The character of the lunch recess is such that students are releasing the repressed energy and frustration that a classroom environment can create.
In the staff room, the same teacher often makes inappropriate comments about students, “Keith was probably dropped on his head. That kid can’t do anything right.” My usual response to such a statement is to offer a technique that works with that student and to give an example of something good the student can do. This, however, is ineffective and indirect.
I want to confront this teacher more honestly, by saying what I’m not: I want to tell her that her attitude and voice affect kids so dramatically that they hate her class. I want to offer her different language. Instead of “Quit breaking the rules!” “Students who can follow the rules are welcome to play the game.”
I’m currently working on a solution…
I knew that I struggled with exaggeration, but the process of this experiment has challenged something I hadn’t acknowledged: that I often hold back and omit the truth, and that in doing so I limit my capacity to truthfully confront the people I am surround by and myself as a result. Satya has been an opportunity for me to examine my attitude towards the world I live in: to examine my mental projections and compare my perception and emotional experience of an event with what is happening outside of me. I have become more conscious of the subtle role of honesty in my daily interactions. I have uncovered more work to be done.
As part of Axis Yoga’s teacher training, students take their yoga off the mat by applying yogic principles to daily life. Students reference principles such as non-harming and truthfullness as they relate to the practice of yoga. In the following paper, one student explores how to develop patience for people she perceives as inconsiderate and annoying. She reflects on her own bias and judgement around others and sees how her attitude effects her experience.
Yama: Ahimsa—non-harming, kindness. My definition for the experiment was more focused on patience, goodwill, and respect for people who annoy me.
Main Issue—Thoughtless People: I don’t physically harm people, but I certainly feel impatience and disdain for those who are inconsiderate about the impact of their actions on the people around them. It almost seems that people are sometimes fully oblivious to the fact that they do not live in a bubble and that their actions can negatively affect the other people/animals/etc. who share this earth with them. My reaction to thoughtless people is twofold, neither of which is particularly helpful: harming myself (getting fiercely angry and stressed because there is no solution/recourse to the insensitive person’s actions) or harming the perpetrator by way of verbal condescension.
Goal: I wanted to understand better why people act the way they do—the true nature or impetus behind their actions—believing it may somehow help me accept or at least appreciate the complexity of decisions made by people in today’s world. Inconsiderate actions will never fully cease, so I was hoping to find a way to be ok with them recurring in daily life—largely through a change in my own attitude. In order to do so, I needed to witness the situations that caused my anger and take a minute to step back and assess the situation with some dispassion before reacting.
Living for a few weeks with ahimsa in mind; talking with family, friends and co-workers about it; and discussing the larger concepts with the other yoga students taking on this yama, several varied findings became evident:
- The process of being aware/witnessing my anger was a big part of the practice itself. When a triggering event would happen (someone’s inconsiderate action frustrating me), my first reaction during the experiment would be to say to myself, “non-harming.” And that was enough to momentarily distance myself from the situation and give myself time to think rationally. I don’t mean to say that I never ultimately got angry, but I was able to see how my mind was focusing on the situation, with detrimental consequences.
- In talking with family and friends about the experiment, I came to realize that perhaps I expect too much out of people and need to be more gentle with them. I need approach a frustrating situation giving the perpetrator the benefit of the doubt—believing that they are doing the best they can. No one is perfect: we all have human failings and we all deserve respect (we’re all family/connected/related). My parents taught me growing up that the most important thing with whatever task was in front of me was not to be the best at it, but rather, to do the best I could/give it my all. I need to accept that others are doing the best they can.
- In caucusing with my fellow ahimsa yoga students, I realized that “judging” my own reactions to thoughtless people was also harming. As long as anger is kept in check, it does serve a purpose at times, and like all other passions, is very human! Beating yourself up about a reaction, or replaying an event over and over in your head serves no positive purpose going forward. It is important to learn from a negative situation/reaction, but not to have it define you.
- Preparing in advance for events I know will be frustrating is an effective strategy. I am a stickler for punctuality, so being late for something is a sure-fire way to build stress in myself that usually leads to poor action. On two recent occasions, concerns for being late to work and to yoga practice made me drive irresponsibly/inconsiderately and significantly raised my blood pressure. I have to be gentle with my own faults (give myself the benefit of the doubt sometimes and accept that life can be hectic and I may be late sometimes, but that luckily people are generally understanding) in the same way that I work to be gentle with others.
- Don’t let someone’s initial inconsiderate action lead to my own inconsiderate reaction. The circle only feeds itself! I realized, while keeping ahimsa in mind during a phone conversation with a service rep from Wells Fargo, that being kind in the face of incompetence is a graceful attitude that helps the individual and my own sense of well being. Pointing out someone’s incompetence is rarely useful.
- “Work toward a value system that supports a higher ideal.” (Not sure if it was Santosh or Derik who had these words of wisdom to share, but they stuck with me throughout the experiment as a grander purpose for taking on a minimal, though important, task.)
Several of my findings helped me in addressing a particular event that was ongoing and continually frustrating. A neighbor in my apartment building would get up very early—both on weekdays and weekends—and leave home before many residents were awake (5:00 a.m. or so). He would rev his car engine several times very strongly, tear down the alleyway, and honk his horn at the end of it several times (presumably to let passersby know he was coming). It’s hard enough to find time to sleep, and this disturbance would wake me up about an hour earlier than I had to be up every morning. What was worse than the shortened sleep time was the terribly angry state I’d find myself waking up in each day.
So my initial reaction (after a week or so of this and realizing that even with winter coming and my windows closed, his routine in the morning would continue to wake me up) was to write a note and place it on his car. I first wrote a note directly after waking one morning—in full anger mode—and luckily he was still gone when I went out later in the day to place it on his car. This gave me a chance to put time and perspective between the event and my reaction, and, based on my findings from this experiment, give the guy the benefit of the doubt. So I rewrote the note, simply informing the driver that his actions were waking me up and would it be possible for him to be a little quieter in the morning. I concluded with a big “Thank you!”
To my somewhat jaded surprise—and really heartened return to confidence in the general kindness of the human race!—he has been extremely quiet ever since. I haven’t woken up once due to his actions since I left that note. I believe this positive reaction to the note can be attributed to the fact that I gave the driver the benefit of the doubt. I came at it from the perspective of, maybe he just doesn’t realize that his actions are having this negative effect on his neighbors. Calling it to his attention in a respectful way stopped the circle of ill will that a nastier note would have continued.
About Us
The Denver Yoga Underground began in 2003 at the request of dedicated students who wanted to study yoga as a holistic system. Over the years, a diversity of people, seeking education outside of a studio, found a welcome refuge in DYU.
Today we specialize in grassroots Pay What You Can workshops, accessible retreats and our signature yoga teacher training, for the outlier yogi.
Contact Us
Denver Yoga Underground Director:
Derik Eselius ~ 720.934.6934
Training Location:
Sixth Ave. UCC 3250 E. 6th Ave
Derik Eselius ~ 720.934.6934
Training Location:
Sixth Ave. UCC 3250 E. 6th Ave