06/29/2026
Morning Meds & Mindset:
As a student of my own self inclinations , Iām always challenged to see if Iām acting as a truthful and honest person. Am I really walking my Christ centered and yogic talk in life, myself?
āAsteyaā, in The Yoga Sutras is from the Yamas and means Non-Stealing. We often think of stealing or non-stealing as something we either come by in our natures or never come by because of our own experiences or interpretations of what stealing really is. Why I love the Yamas and Niyamas so much is because they go much deeper into the ways we can actually steal from ourselves or others. The scripture says, ā Thou shalt not steal or bear false witness against your neighbor.ā We might have stolen some material thing in our lives but have we ever thought of stealing energy, time, inspiration, identity, or just having a sense of āprivilegeā that we thought was ok? What about stealing someoneās consent? Have we ever taken away someoneās ability to respond or consent or reply? I remember once that a medium came into my personal inbox and slammed me and then blocked me so that I could not respond to her allegations. She stole my freedom of response and left me with shame. Of course, I didnāt receiver her shame but I did feel like she had stolen some of my autonomy. When we become self centered, we take from others their consent, their time, energy, and privileges. Do we tell other peopleās stories and put our own spins on them? Do we gossip about others ( possibly bearing false witness) and take away the ability for their own interpretations or defenses? If weād really consider how each one of us may be stealing from others, we might continue being thieves ourselves without ever realizing it. Each of us become thieves in our own ways. Satya is another Yama and it means ātruthfulnessā. If we really want to be truthful in our lives, we would really look deeper into our own ways that we might be stealing others thunder, identities, energy, stories, reputation, and consent. Scripture says, ā I-desire truth in the inner being.ā
This is what it means to practice Contemplative Christianity and Contemplative Yoga. We seek to go within and excavate the spaces where we hide our false selves as if they donāt exist, but, we actually live from them rather than living from who we truly are. Who we truly are is to come to the realization that we are not our own but Gods, and to live from that understanding that we have been born anew. The work of GRACE is the power to say āNoā to robbing others of anything that is theirs or allowing others to rob us the same.
Truth in the inner person is available to us if we truly want to be authentic and honest people. Honesty is so much more than truth believing. Honesty has to come from a space of truth loving and truth living if we want to be authentic. Iām truly challenged by this idea of, rather than condemning or even spreading things I hear about others, rather than looking at any logs or specks in my own eyes. It reaches across so many aisles! It teaches me to ā consider myself lest I myself be temptedā to engage in robbing others.
Yikes!š³
