Niyamas: The second limb of the yoga philosophy
In the previous newsletter, we talked about the first limb of yoga, yamas. Let's now talk about the second limb: niyamas.
Hola hola!
In this issue of MindfulMess we’ll talk about Niyamas, the second of the eight limbs of the yoga philosophy. We’ll look at what they are and how you can apply them to your modern life to reap the benefits of such an ancient practice.
And yes, you can still apply the yoga philosophy to your life even if you never step on a mat. Yoga is much more than the physical practice that the Western world makes us believe is the only aspect of yoga. However, just like your brain needs to learn new things to fulfill its purpose, it’s good to move your body daily. 😉
Niyamas: The set of ethical and personal observances
The Niyamas are a set of ethical and personal observances that form the second limb of the Eight Limbs of Yoga as outlined by the ancient sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras.
They guide personal behavior and spiritual development, focusing on self-discipline and inner growth.
These are the five Niyamas:
Saucha
Santosha
Tapas
Svadhyaya
Ishvara Pranidhana
Let’s look at each of them in more depth:
Saucha
Saucha which means purity, invites us to purify our bodies, surroundings, thoughts, and actions. But besides the obvious “purification of the body” (eating clean, washing, etc.) there are some yogic practices that can help us further clean our body like:
Neti nasal cleansing: using a Neti pod to pass water from one nostril through the other
Nauli: rhythmic contraction and rolling of the abs to massage the internal organs
Kapalabhati: a breathing technique to cleanse the respiratory tract
There are a few more but you get the idea there. However, this Niyama goes a bit further. It’s not only about cleaning and purifying our house, office, and body, which it proposes as a way to be able to think clearly. Or, do you feel like you can do your best work in a cluttered office? No, right? Being clean and tidy is not just good for the background of your Instagram live sessions; it’s about living and being in an area that allows you to be without added stress and distractions.
Saucha also invites us to be pure with our thoughts, emotions, and actions. And what does that mean? Well, how many times have you acted on presumptions, or with an ulterior motive? How many times have you cluttered your thoughts with expectations and wished for things to be different? How many times have you tried to suppress or avoid an emotion because you deemed it bad or a waste of time?
All of these are examples of not being pure. Purity, according to the dictionary is “freedom from adulteration or contamination” so you can see when you put judgments, expectations, and presumptions on thoughts, actions, and emotions you’re contaminating them. You’re not accepting them as they are, you’re not taking the present moment as it is.
So, start to be pure to yourself, by accepting your thoughts, and your emotions. Realize there’s no need to hide anything from yourself. And start being pure with the world around you by accepting it as it is. Kiss judgments and expectations goodbye. Of course, easier said than done. But being human is a life-long journey and every day is an opportunity to improve a tiny bit. 😊
Homework to bring Saucha into your life:
By keeping a journal, start to add movement and better nutrition into your life, and write down how it purifies you from the inside out. How it gives you more energy, how you can think clearer.
Take one day of the week to deeply clean and organize your house and office. Notice how after that you can feel more at ease in your space, you can actually relax, and even work better.
Take a few minutes (or hours) to write in a journal to yourself. What are the things about yourself that you’ve been hiding from yourself, that you’ve been judging, that you haven’t accepted? See if you can bring them all to your attention and make a choice to accept them from now on.
Santosha
Santosha, which means contentment, is all about stopping the chase. The chase for what’s next. The chase for happiness on the other side.
There’s a Chinese proverb that says: “People in the West are always getting ready to live.” Sadly, it’s pretty spot on. We want to be older, richer, thinner, and smarter, than what we are now. We get ten views and complain that it isn’t a hundred. We get 10K from a side gig, and immediately feel unsatisfied because it’s not that 100K that the LinkedIn influencers are claiming to earn.
Most people don’t celebrate each milestone, because as soon as they reach it they have a newer goalpost that’s yards and miles away. And truly, that’s no way to be living. If you keep attaching your happiness to a goalpost, you’ll never be happy because it will keep moving.
Of course, we should all aim to be better, to improve, and not to stagnate. But it shouldn’t be due to a lack of appreciation for the present moment. It shouldn’t come from hate, it should come from love. As the fitfluencers say, “you can’t hate yourself to a better and stronger body.” You can only start from a deep appreciation of yourself, from respecting what your body is capable of, and from loving yourself for who you are now, and only then you can keep on improving.
And if we want to be hippie (I’m 100000% hippie and cringe), think of it this way: If the universe sees you don’t appreciate 10 dollars, it sure as s#it won’t give you a million to play with. Appreciate the now, be genuinely happy with the now, and more doors than you expected will open up—and even if they don’t, you’ll be happier now. 😉
Homework to bring Santosha into your life:
Journalling! Various ways in which you can use journalling to bring Santosha into your life:
Write three things you’re grateful for in your life every morning. They can be “the smell of coffee,” “the family I was given,” “the pretty pen I bought yesterday,” “my new job,” or “that I have a body that allows me to walk outside”. Whether it is small or big, write it down. Keep it up for a week, or forever, it will positively impact your life—guaranteed.
Take a moment at the end of your day to write down how much energy you spent chasing what you like and pushing away what you don’t like. Realize how accepting and letting things come to you could have saved you energy. Note how you could spend this saved-up energy.
Notice what are you waiting for to happen that’s taking away from being in the present moment. Where is your happiness goalpost right now? And why can’t you make it be in the present moment?
Tapas
Tapas refers to self-discipline, dedication, and the commitment to self-awareness. It is about cultivating the inner strength to overcome obstacles, develop resilience, and maintain focus on spiritual growth.
But, I’m going to be cheeky here and point you towards an article I wrote on Medium about tapas: Tapas — The Yogic Way to Personal Growth. I think this is my favorite Niyama, so definitely worth the read!
Svadhyaya
Self-study or introspection. This Niyama is all about seeing past the many layers of who we think we are to finally reach the precious gem we are at the center, our true essence.
In the yogi philosophy, we are seen as a true essence (divine essence) that has been layered up with our family’s ideas of us, our ideas of us, the things we learned when growing up, the ways the traumas have changed us, and so on. There’s an essence, that’s joyful and pure, but we’ve buried it down under all of these layers.
However, through self-study and profound introspection, we can slowly peel away the layers and start to find ourselves, our true selves, again.
The introspection and self-study that Svadhyaya calls for can be done through psychotherapy, and self-study with the assistance of a priest, shaman, taita, or trusted friend or family member. It can be done through reading scriptures, and also through journaling. Whatever method you find, just make sure you’re using it as a way to study yourself. To understand where your preconceived notions of the world came from, what your core beliefs are, what your expectations of the world are, what you genuinely value, etc.
I once had a friend who was a great self-study buddy because he would even reassess why he thought killing someone was bad. Sure, it’s illegal. Sure, our society frowns upon it. And it’s not nice, we can all agree. But he would think out loud for hours until he would reach as to why he would personally never kill anyone. He would discuss his values. He would make hypothetical scenarios with crazy suggestions until he could vehemently say, “I do not kill because of this.” And he would do this with almost everything. And I always found it fascinating. It’s not often that you come across people who so rigorously study themselves—and help you understand yourself better.
Was his life perfect? No. Was he the happiest person I’ve ever seen? No. But, the one thing that he had that I don’t see that often, is that he understood himself better than I’ve seen anyone else. He understood his shortcomings and his strengths. He was certain of who he was. But at the same time, he was not afraid of taking in new ideas or changing his previous answers. He knew himself so well that he could change his mind about something because he would understand the train of thought that would lead to that change of mind.
Now, how can self-study improve your life? Well, imagine if you could live your life by knowing who you are, and understanding why you are how you are, imagine the assertive life you could live.
How many people you know make decisions based on what other people would think, based on limiting beliefs, based on societal pressure, based on fears, or based on misconceptions? Millions. Billions. Too many people. All of us at some point have done so. But if we were diligent with our self-study, we could lead a much more genuine life. We could be led by what our true self wants, not by an un-decyphered subconscious that just runs on autopilot—and that has been unwillingly affected by a lot of factors.
Homework to bring Svadhyaya into your life:
Get a journal and actually use it! (😉) Doesn’t have to be every single day, but once a week would be a good way to start learning more about yourself. Write down how you felt, what you did, what thoughts you had, and what you are struggling with at the moment, and slowly you’ll have great insight into who you are, how you feel, and why you do what you do.
When at a crossroads in your life, use the power of the written word to put all the messy thoughts into a piece of paper and better understand why you would take one decision or the other. What subconscious assumptions do you have of one path or the other?
Ishvara Pranidhana
Ishvara Pranidhana means surrendering to a Higher Power. This Niyama is about devotion and surrender to a higher power or divine force. It involves letting go of the ego and acknowledging that there is a greater force at work, allowing one to trust in the process and the unfolding of life.
This is a powerful Niyama, after all, even the 12-step program (which is very successful) has it as one of its steps. However, what does surrendering to a higher power mean?
To me, it means accepting things as they are, and trusting that when good or disastrous things happen in your life they are there to make you better. There’s not a punisher in the sky that just has animosity towards you so it sends you all the worst times for their enjoyment. No. Instead, there is a higher power, a divine intelligence (and it doesn’t mean a God per se, as religions see it) that works in perfect harmony and timing.
Surrendering to a higher power helps us stop feeling like a victim of life and instead learn to take it as it is with appreciation and always looking for the silver lining.
There once lived a poor farmer, who lived in a poor village, but this farmer was considered very rich and fortunate because he owned a horse.
One day, his horse ran away. His neighbors came to his farm to say they were sorry for his misfortune. But the farmer said, “I don’t know, it could be bad, it could be good.”
Several days later, the horse returned, with six strong horses. Once again, the neighbors came by this time to congratulate him, but the farmer said, “I don’t know, it could be good, it could be bad.”
Some time later, the farmer’s son went riding on one of the wild horses. But he fell off and broke his leg and arm. The neighbors came by to console the farmer. But the farmer said, “I don’t know, it could be bad, it could be good.”
A year later, a fierce war broke out between the farmer’s country and the neighboring country. Many young men were drafted into the army. When the army came to draft the farmer’s son, they found that he was disabled, thus exempting him from military service.
This Taoist story is a great reminder that we shouldn’t dwell on what happens in life, but instead keep moving forward, trusting the process. Trusting that it is all as it was meant to be.
Although it may sound counterintuitive, I also think that surrendering to a higher power helps us feel more in control of our lives. We don’t feel as if we’re an afterthought of the universe. No, we’re at its center and what’s happening to us is exactly what the universe (divine intelligence, higher power, you name it) had in store for us to help us reach new levels of self-awareness, self-development, and even joy.
Trusting that we’re given what we need, when we need it and are ready for it, makes us more conscious of what we’re doing. To ensure we’re checking the boxes for the next “level.”
For example, and this is a silly example, but with my partners, I kept seeing the same cycles and the same mistakes being repeated over and over again. Trusting the universe and not getting into the victimhood mentality of “I’ll die alone, I’m unlovable, boo-hoo.” I started to study myself to see what was in my subconscious or in my daily thoughts and actions that were attracting this type of relationship over and over again.
I kid you not, once I understood my own mistakes, once I understood my biased view of the world, once I started to change the inner dialogue and the victimhood mentality, I finally started to meet the right people. That doesn’t mean relationships are easy, but the endless cycle of repeated (bad) behaviors finally stopped.
“Once we stop fighting with life we can show up to it in a competent manner.”
Homework to bring Ishvara Pranidhana into your life:
Journal (honestly, it is such a great tool and practice) how you behave and feel when you encounter a situation that’s not what you wanted or expected.
Try to see how your body feels when you’re in a situation that isn’t how you wanted or expected it and purposefully try to relax it.
Instead of asking “Why me?” switch your judgment and victimhood to a more curious stance about life. What’s this moment giving you? What opportunities for your growth is it revealing? How can you make the most of it?
Aaaand that’s it. Another juicy post, but one I hope you enjoyed and that you can take even a little thing from it and apply it to your life. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, of course, you can do all those things without following the yoga philosophy, but to me, the way yoga has condensed down all of this wisdom into practical ways of thinking, acting, and behaving makes it so much easier to follow and apply.
Remember, it’s never too late to start knowing yourself a little better (AKA, if you don’t already, get a journal and start using it! 😉🙌).
That’s it for today!
As always, thank you for reading!
See you soon in the next issue of MindfulMess.
With MindfulMessy love,
Cris. 💌