Life in the Cheese Drawer

Write your thoughts and reflections on the yoga philosophy Asteya.

I am a gift giver. I loooove finding gifts for others and seeing them open them. I purchase things for family members throughout the year, not just for the holiday season. At this point in my life, I don’t expect or want anything in return, especially at our Christmas gift exchange. The only thing I say is that I really do want to receive at least a birthday card for my birthday.

Is that necessarily going against the practice of asteya? When I read about the different ways that we can practice the yama of not taking from others, it made me take a step back and wonder if telling the people I love that I expect some sort of recognition on my birthday goes against asteya. And I’m still not sure.

Receiving is also a gift – to allow the gift giver the opportunity to give. What really resonated with me, when Bachman said that gift givers tend to get awkward because they are so used to being the giver that they don’t know how to react when given. I have run into that multiple times! I enjoy getting gifts, absolutely, but sometimes if there is no reciprocation it can get awkward for me, and I have to work on that.

Giving and receiving is only part of asteya, which is not taking from others and only taking what is earned or freely given. This is, actually, very close to satya. The example I gave of stealing my coworker’s thunder for satya could very easily have also been tied to asteya, which shows how intricately entwined the yamas are.

As we dive deeper into the yamas, I find them a little more tricky to navigate. Ahimsa was easy to embrace; satya a little more involved. And now asteya is causing me to really reflect. And the fact that they build on each other is especially important. How does applying one of the yamas affect another? Like we discussed in class, if we are being truthful about something but at the same time hurting the person, what sort of imbalance does that bring? What is important in the moment – is it better to uphold someone’s mental health? Is it more about rhetoric and the way we talk and act toward others? What about the platinum rule, so to speak, a spin-off of the Christian golden rule: “treat others as they want to be treated”?

I am excited to reflect on the upcoming yamas and to see how they will all interact with each other. I’m deliberately not looking at the other yamas and sutras until it’s come up in class so I can have time to absorb the others. I also think it would be interesting to see the intersectionality of the yoga principles with other religions’ core principles, as well as general moral code – what it takes to be a good person living in community. That may be something I do a little research into after I finish this class.