The Yamas & Niyamas

by Deborah Adele

  Stealing from Others

  An outward focus leads us to compare ourselves to others and to send our energy into their lives in unhealthy ways. When we compare ourselves to others, we either find ourselves lacking, which makes us feel somehow cheated, or we find ourselves superior, which leaves us feeling somewhat arrogant. Our attention on others from a place of discontent within ourselves can lead us to live vicariously through others or to try to control, manipulate, or manage them in order to boost our own sagging ego. We may find ourselves trying to “trump” or “one-up” their stories and successes and experiences by coming behind them with our own more fabulous tale. It is all an attempt to make ourselves feel better about ourselves.

  Perhaps someone is sharing their excitement about an upcoming trip. To which we immediately pipe in with a much more exotic trip that we have planned, or maybe we say that we have already been where they are going. Either way the conversation becomes about us and our trip and we have stolen their excitement about their own trip. We do the same with others’ successes. We can even do it with death. For example, if someone’s mother has passed, and we shift the conversation to our story of losing our own mother we are making the situation about us, instead of being present for the other person.

  Or perhaps we steal from others by not paying attention to them or discounting them. In all the instances where we steal, we have made the situation about us, not about the other. Whatever words have or haven’t come out of our mouth, the intent has been to serve ourselves, not the other. When we feel unhappy with ourselves or our lives, we have a tendency to drag people down with us or make snide comments that come from jealousy. When we are genuinely caring of the other, that caring finds expression in ways that feel supportive and tender to the other.

  When I was training with Yogi Bhajan, he used to say, “Be a forklift; you should always be lifting people up.” The question we can ask ourselves in our encounters with others is, does the other person feel uplifted and lighter because they have been with us, or do they feel like something precious was taken from them? Have we brightened their day by taking a moment to listen, to sincerely compliment them, or simply to smile?

  Stealing from the Earth

  Not only do we steal from others, but we steal from the earth. We forget that we are spirits having a human experience. We are visitors to the human experience; we are visitors in the fullest sense of the word. You wouldn’t go to a friend’s house for dinner, complain about the food, leave your trash lying around, and walk off with the candlesticks because you wanted them. And yet, this is so often how we treat our world.

  We are visitors to this land, to our bodies, to our minds. To fully appreciate this reality is to accept that nothing on this physical plane does or can belong to us. To “own” something then, becomes a form of stealing. We use the term “I,” “mine,” and “my” with almost everything… my house, my car, my clothes, my kids…we even say, “I had a flat tire.” The ownership of things is steeped deep in our language and culture and makes it hard for us to appreciate the extent to which nothing really is ours. This guideline asks us to view everything in our possession as something precious that is on loan to us. And for the time that it is on loan to us, we are asked to care for it.

  On this globe there is an increasing gap between those who have and those who do not have. It would be ludicrous for us to think that things could be or even should be evenly divided on this earth, but there is something wrong when children starve and elders wander homeless. Theologian Walter Brueggemann writes that the bounty of the earth is for the community, not the individual. I often wonder what the world would be like if we understood this profound statement and lived as if everything we now think of as “mine” could be used for the good of the community.

  Nonstealing implies more than not taking what isn’t ours. It is an inherent understanding that from the moment we are born, we are in debt to this gift called life. The ancient Vedic scriptures speak of taking nothing without giving something back. Imagine what would happen if each time we took something, we gave something back. I don’t think the Vedic writings were talking about trash. They were speaking to an inherent sense of reciprocity.

  Stealing from the Future

  We are not only stealing from the earth, we are stealing from the future and from our children and their children in such massive proportions it often feels like we are caught on a speeding train with no brakes and no way to get off. And yet we remain insatiable, a collective giant hole that we can’t seem to fill. The excess in our bodies, our calendars, our closets, are all signs that we are living as if there is no tomorrow and no one to live here after we are gone.

  We have lost our sense of gratitude. It is as if we had been invited to the most fabulous weekend at a friend’s home where we enjoyed scrumptious meals and delightful entertainment only to leave without so much as a hint of a thank you. Our focus seems to be on what we don’t have or what we might not have in the future, rather than on the abundance right before us.

  If we stop long enough to gaze at what is laid out before us, to let the mystery of beauty and the wonder of the seasons sit deeply in our soul, our hearts cannot help but burst forth in thanksgiving and gratitude to life itself. Inborn to this kind of wonder is gratitude for where our life came from and indebtedness to the future. I am reminded of the native wisdom to make all decisions as if they mattered seven generations into the future.

  I recently saw the play Handing Down the Names by Steven Dietz. It is the story of two hundred years of German ancestors, beginning with those who left the German states to become farmers along the Volga River in Russia, eventually immigrating to America. The story is profound in its ability to show the strength of a people and their love and hope for future generations. As Dietz states, “My ancestors picked sugar beets for generations so that now, in 1995, I can pick words. Tell stories.”

  I left the play with intense emotion. My ancestors sacrificed so much for me. They endured hardships beyond my comprehension with only one thought, that of the upcoming generations. They literally gave their lives to create beauty on the earth and better times for the future. In that moment, I realized the incredible love that my life stands on. Remembering our ancestors and the mystery that brought us into being is a way to reframe the sacredness of our own lives and the sacredness of the lives that will come after us. It is to find ourselves as current caretakers in this lineage of past and future lives. It is to find ourselves with our direction pointed to those who will come after us.

  I felt this lineage the other night when I was up into the early morning hours having a discussion with my teenage granddaughter. In this conversation she chose to express her view of what is facing her. From the standpoint of her and her friends, they are inheriting a huge mess that feels almost insurmountable. In chemistry class they had covered the capabilities of nuclear destruction, the long shelf life of nuclear material, and the challenge of nuclear disposal. In another class they spoke of the world’s hatred and fear of this country. In another class they spoke of the challenges and choices they will have to make about genetic research. As she continued, I could only shake my head and say, “I’m so sorry; it shouldn’t be this way for you.” My heart felt heavy.

  Stealing from Ourselves

  Not only do we steal from others, the earth, and the future; we steal from our own lives. In all the ways that we impose an outside image of ourselves onto ourselves, we are stealing from the unfolding of our own uniqueness. All demands and expectations that we place on ourselves steal from our own enthusiasm. All self-sabotage, lack of belief in ourselves, low self-esteem, judgments, criticisms, and demands for perfection are forms of self-abuse in which we destroy the very essence of our vitality. All the ways we live in the past or future steal from ourselves. And all the ways we put up fences, whether real or imagined, around our physical belongings or around our mental idealisms, we put up barriers that steal from
the full expansion of our own lives.

  We are captured in a culture where our very identity is tied up with our accomplishments. We wear all we have to do like a badge on our shirt for all to see. In this rush to get to the next thing, we have left no time for ourselves to digest and assimilate our lives; this may be our biggest theft of all. We need time to catch up with ourselves. We need time to chew and ponder and allow the experiences of life to integrate within us. We need time to rest and to reflect and to contemplate.

  I experienced the truth of this need a few years ago when I was on the fast track. After three years at a grueling pace, I woke up one morning to realize I no longer had access to the experience of my life. It was one of the strangest feelings I have ever had. I have no other words to describe the feeling except to say that I no longer could remember any experiences of where I had been or what I had done. It was just too much for my system. I was on overload and my system shut down. It just quit. I had taken no time in those three years for even the semblance of reflection or integration; it was just on to the next thing, full speed ahead. Because I had not taken time to pause and allow my experiences to become part of me, I did not get to keep the experiences, they were gone. I had stolen this part of my life from myself.

  Shifting Our Focus

  Small children, as they reach a certain age, begin to want what the other one has. It doesn’t matter what it is, they want it. Looking at the state of the world, it seems many adults are still caught in the toddler stage of wanting what the other one has. The tenet of Asteya, or nonstealing, asks us to shift our focus from the other to ourselves. It asks us to get excited about the possibilities for our own life. When we attend to our own growth and learning in the area of our interests, we are engaged in the joy and challenge of building ourselves. From the fullness of our own talent and skill, we automatically serve the world rather than steal from it. This shifting of focus is illustrated by the following example.

  In India, during major festivities, elephants are paraded down the narrow streets, proudly dressed in silks and jewelry, carrying the likeness of a deity on their backs. Along the way, vendors, displaying luscious treats and sparkling jewelry, are numerous. The elephants, being curious and playful by nature, can’t help but swing their trunks this way and that in an attempt to capture the glitter and treats lining the streets. Destruction and chaos quickly follow. However, the trainers, knowing their elephant’s adventuresome nature, have learned to coax them into wrapping their trunks around a bamboo shoot. Now, as the elephants march down the street carrying their bamboo shoot, the parade continues smoothly.

  We are much like those elephants. When we don’t know what we want or we don’t have the courage to pursue it, everything that everyone else is doing looks tempting to us. We begin to lust after others’ accomplishments and others’ possessions. We get sidetracked from our own dreams and our own realness. However, when we are focused on our own dreams, we can move forward with dignity, much like those elephants holding onto the bamboo shoot, undisturbed by the glitter and sparkle along the way. By holding on to our “bamboo shoot,” we can begin to build our competency and create the circumstances within us to have what we want.

  Building Our Competence

  My spouse tells a story about how he used to glue himself to the TV to watch the Olympics every four years. There he would sit, slumped over in his chair, hour after hour, with mayonnaise on his protruding bare belly from eating more food than he needed, telling himself that when the next Olympic games rolled around, he would be representing the United States as a skilled, in shape, athlete. When the next Olympics rolled around, he was still in the chair watching, a spectator to what he wanted.

  The Sanskrit word adikara means the right to know or the right to have. This word challenges us to the reality that if we want something, then we better grow the competency required to have it. Like the story above, we can dream and wish all we want, but we only get what we have the competency to have and keep. Anything else is stealing.

  Think about people who win big bucks in the lottery and within a year are back to being broke. Or think of CEO’s who run companies into the ground because they don’t have the skill to manage a huge corporation. In both of these cases, these people are stealing; they are trying to have something beyond their competency. Our outcomes in life are consistent with our abilities, not necessarily our wishes or goals.

  Competency includes the ability to see what is right before us. I used to tell myself the story that I worked hard and prayed hard, but never really got what I was after. Now, as I look back, I understand that I didn’t have the competency to see that what I had worked for and asked for was right in front of me and I couldn’t contain it or sometimes even see it!

  A colander is an excellent example of adikara. We may seek something so earnestly and yet, if we are full of holes like the colander, what we want will always elude us. Building our adikara is plugging our holes by growing our competency in the area of our desires. Building our competency takes practice and learning.

  Preparing ourselves to hold what we want is an exciting, full-time job. It moves us away from any victim stories into full responsibility for our lives. How many times do we wish for more money, but we wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it (at least sensibly) if it did show up? Asteya, or nonstealing, demands that we become capable of stewarding what we ask for. Learn about money and investments, be savvy with the money you do have, be prepared, be generous; have the adikara for what you want.

  You may have seen the delightful film My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Nia Vardalos was a struggling comedian who told stories about her Greek background and her non-Greek husband. Rita Wilson, wife of Tom Hanks, caught Nia’s comedy routine one evening, loved it, and thought her story would make a great movie. Nia Vardalos was prepared. She had already written the movie script. In Nia’s words, “Rita Wilson is Greek and she came to the show and she said this should be a movie and I handed her the screenplay. She sent her husband Tom Hanks to the show; he called me up and he said, ‘We’re going to make your movie and you’re going to play the lead role.’” Nia Vardalos was ready.

  If we are not prepared to contain our deep desires, we can easily find ourselves stealing in all kinds of inappropriate and destructive ways. This jewel asks us instead to focus on our desires and then build the competency to have them. It leaves us with the question, “Are you available to what you want?” It opens the door for us to seek out mentors and learn from people who have already accomplished what we are seeking; it also opens the door to the fun of learning new things. We can find someone more accomplished and skilled (maybe even radical) than we are and learn from them how to plug our own holes of incompetence. And so that we don’t steal from them, we can compensate them fairly.

  When I realized that somewhere along the line I had forgotten how to play, I hired my teenage granddaughter as my play coach. Not only did she enjoy creating scenarios for our playtime and giving me play assignments to do on my own (and getting paid as her grandma’s coach), but the whole process brought me into a new world of adventure and fun, as well as deepening my relationship with my granddaughter.

  In the book The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall, we meet a self-made billionaire named Red who is about to die. Discerning where to leave his companies, investments, and other assets, Red looks at his family and sees only selfishness and greed, a family spoiled by the money that has made their lives so easy. Red decides to make amends with his one grandson. The story unfolds as, after Red’s death, the will is read to a family gathered in high expectation, only to leave one by one angry at what the will has revealed. However to grandson Jason, Red leaves twelve tasks that must be fulfilled in order for Jason to receive his inheritance of unknown monetary value. Task by task, a begrudging Jason learns important lessons about the value of work, friendship, service, etc. until he has become an entirely different person. Rather than a spoiled trust fund baby, Jaso
n is now a competent, compassionate, skilled leader, ready to give millions away to people and projects that can make a difference. In case you aren’t familiar with the story line, I won’t spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, by the time we know what the full monetary value of Jason’s inheritance is, it doesn’t matter to Jason or to us.

  In the story above, the grandfather had the foresight to give his grandson step-by-step tasks that, should he succeed at each task, would grow Jason into a person competent to have a billion dollars worth of investments handed to him. I think life is like this. It gives us tasks, that should we succeed, grow us into the kind of people that life can trust with important things. And, like Jason, often we mistake these tasks as a burden rather than an opportunity to grow our compassion and skill level. The grandfather knew that it is not the accumulation of things that ultimately gives us satisfaction, but the accumulation of values and competency. The jewel of nonstealing, asks us to build our competency with life itself.

  Where stealing unleashes pain and suffering on our self and others, building our competency opens up a world of joy and possibility. It is a grand adventure to turn our attention away from stealing and towards the life long task of shaping ourselves into someone of value.

  Questions for Exploration

  Living with these questions, taking time for reflection, and journaling will give you new insights into your life and the practice of nonstealing. For this month, frame your exploration in the following statement by Albert Einstein:

  A hundred times a day

  I remind myself

  that my inner and outer life

  depend on the labors of other people,

  living and dead,

  And that I must exert myself