Jivamukti Yoga on the Yamas and Niyamas and Veganism

Transcript

apart from a how else do you see um your practice specifically addressing some of the other yamas andas um well truthfulness I mean the yamas are Aima satyaa Braha um sucha means to tell the truth and and as we know it's quite normal uh in the world today not to say what you mean um or to mean what you say and so that's an emphasis in jukti yoga to purify one's speech and to not speak unless you really feel impassionate about what you're saying um that that changes a lot in someone's life when they think about saying something before before they say it and we feel that to see the picture of the happy cow uh emblazoned in a label on the kadav in the butcher shop is not truth-telling it's deceitful it's double talk and I think that's part and parcel of what needs to happen in the world truth telling yeah also I mean there's so many aspects where Satya um comes into play and and relevance to how we're treating animals I mean I've discovered that so many yoga students when they come to a yoga class or to an immersion or a teacher training or a workshop they find speaking in public or singing in public very difficult um they feel inhibited they feel shy um and it's almost like they're being strangled and I feel that that comes from the fact that we do that with animals we don't listen to what they're saying in fact most domesticated animals don't talk much when they're in the presence of of adults wild animals on the other hand if you've ever had any um experience with wild animals they're talking all the time in their own languages but through the process of domestication which is uh a soft way of of describing slavery um the voice is is is pushed back um a slave suppresses their voice and I think that if we um participate in that kind of in that uh practice of slavery then we have problems speaking ourselves and speaking Our Truth and just feeling comfortable with our own voice um AA is another one of the yamas it means non-stealing and that's directly related to meat eating because and dairy products because we have to steal we have to steal from those animals we steal their milk we steal their eggs we steal their lives we steal their um steal their babies babies um most animals that are raised for food don't even get to see the sunshine I mean that's stolen from them the right to choose their friends to have sex with who they want that is not a choice for an animal raised for food um all of those rights are taken away from them um brahmacharya that's another Yama and that means not to abuse others sexually well all animals that are raised for food or you know fur or wool or whatever other exploitive means are manipulated sexually they're raped um they're abused you know it's not a it's not a nice way to relate to to others that we share this world with and patan says that if you practice brah mataria meaning if you if you don't abuse others sexually then what you should see happening in your own life is Vitality you will have you will enjoy good health um your face will glow you will uh look younger than you are it you will you will not be you will not be sick we our term in English for this of this way of treating animals is call animal husbandry I call that a bad husband time for a divorce yeah and the last Yama is aa aa means greedless and in our culture as as I think any of us can uh agree um we're encouraged to be greedy we're encouraged to take more than what we need and um that what that does to us as individuals is it makes us feel dependent upon things for a sense of self-worth um we lose our self-confidence um we feel we have to have a lot of stuff to make us feel attractive to others and um like I said our selfworth is based on how much money we have in the bank or how many cars we have or how big our houses are what kind of how many designer labels we have in the closet that that kind of stuff you know and um yoga helps us to be to be free of that and to to emerge from that kind of um mind trip um the self-esteem the whole financial system is based on uh this possession of others possession of animals even terms like capital capital means the head of the cow or we have terms like the stock market uh originally a a person wealth was was gauged by the number of animals they controlled the lives of and we retain that still inside of us this idea that if we could control the life of another take that life away whenever we felt like it that then we would truly have wealth you know we started to teach yoga because we felt it could provide us with a platform to speak out for animal rights and we feel like this is the the next most important thing to address as human beings um in the past we have come to terms with racism and uh all the isms uh um uh the way that we've treated animals the way that we' treated um people of color the way that we we've treated people that don't have the same religion um the way that men have treated women those things have been questioned but what hasn't been questioned is how human beings are treating animals and that's called speciesism and so we feel that the the next biggest shift of Consciousness is addressing that that ISM that separates us off from the rest of uh of Life other earthlings who we share this planet with it's it's not a new idea it's an ancient idea but it's an ancient idea that the future of the world is hinged upon we feel it is an essential idea that needs to be embodied in the world