Asteya: Non-Stealing

Asteya is the third of the five Yamas, the ethical restraints Patanjali outlines at the very start of the eight limbed path. Literally translated, Asteya means non-stealing, and on its surface it sounds like the simplest yama to follow: most of us are not walking around taking things that visibly belong to someone else. But Asteya asks for something subtler and, honestly, harder. It asks us to examine every place we take more than we need, whether that's material things, credit for someone else's work, another person's time, or our own rest and peace.

At its root, Asteya is a practice of trust in sufficiency. We take more than we need, or hold on tighter than a moment calls for, when some part of us believes there won't be enough later. Practicing Asteya means noticing that belief and testing it against reality. Do you actually need to check your phone one more time, or say yes to one more obligation, or hold onto one more thing you don't use? Or is there, underneath the reaching, already enough?

This month, notice Asteya wherever restraint shows up naturally: taking only the space you need on your mat, listening fully instead of already composing your response, leaving something for someone else without keeping score. Small as these moments are, they are Asteya's actual practice ground.

Annamaya Kosha: The Physical Body

Last month, we spent time with Pranamaya Kosha, the energy body, the layer made of prana moving through us. This month, we come back to the layer just beneath it: Annamaya Kosha, the food sheath, the physical body itself. It is the most literal and tangible of the five koshas, the layer built from what we eat, made of bone and muscle and breath and skin, the one you can actually touch.

Annamaya Kosha is often treated as the least sophisticated layer, the one we move past quickly on our way to something more subtle. But this month asks you to slow down and sit with it instead. Your physical body is not just a vehicle for something more important happening elsewhere. It is, quite literally, the ground you stand on. Every other kosha, energy, mind, wisdom, joy, rests on top of this one.

Grounding into Annamaya Kosha means paying attention to the body as it actually is right now, not as a project to improve or a problem to fix. It means feeling your feet on the floor, your weight in the chair, your breath moving your ribs, and trusting that this body, exactly as it is today, is a sufficient and worthy home. On the mat, this shows up in standing poses, in postures that ask you to feel your foundation before you reach anywhere else. Off the mat, it shows up whenever you choose to actually inhabit your body instead of living entirely in your head.

Parvati: The Archetype Goddess of the Grounded Feminine

In the yoga mythology, Parvati's name comes from the Sanskrit word parvata, mountain, and she is often called the daughter of the Himalaya itself, born of stone and stillness. Where other forms of the Goddess appear as fire, motion, or fierce transformation, Parvati is Shakti settled into her most patient, rooted form. In the well known story of her courtship with Shiva, she did not chase him or force his attention. She practiced tapas, sustained, disciplined austerity, for years, simply becoming more herself, more steady, more whole, until he finally noticed her on his own. She won devotion not by reaching, but by standing still and trusting her own ground.

In archetypal psychology, the field that grew out of Carl Jung's work on the collective unconscious and was later popularized for goddess mythology by writers like Jean Shinoda Bolen, a figure like Parvati isn't only a deity to be worshipped. She's read as a pattern already living inside us: the part of the psyche capable of patient devotion, of staying rooted through difficulty instead of forcing an outcome, of trusting that steadiness itself is a form of power. Where a goddess like Durga meets a threat with a sword, Parvati's archetype meets it by not moving at all, by becoming so grounded that the threat eventually has to reckon with her stillness instead.

So what does actually working with a goddess like this look like day to day? It's less about devotion to a distant deity and more about borrowing her qualities as a practical tool. Naming a specific quality, Parvati's patience, her stillness, her trust in her own ground, gives you something concrete to reach for in an actual moment, instead of a vague instruction to just be calmer or trust more. In the middle of a hard conversation, a frustrating wait, or a day that wants to pull you into hurrying, you can simply ask what would Parvati do here. Not literally, but as a question that shifts you out of your own reactive pattern and into hers: steady, patient, rooted, unwilling to force what isn't ready yet. Some people work with a mantra or a mudra dedicated to her energy. Others just borrow the image itself, a mountain, unmoved by weather, still fully alive underneath its stillness. However you use it, the goddess stops being a figure to admire from a distance and becomes a working part of your own inner life, something you can call on the way you'd call on a trusted friend's example.

This is exactly the energy September asks you to practice. Not the dramatic kind of strength that pushes or performs, but the quieter kind that simply holds its ground, certain that what it's built is enough to stand on. If this idea of Parvati as an inner archetype speaks to you, you'll get to spend real time with her energy at the Goddess Retreat on September 26, where the day opens with a full practice devoted to Parvati and the Earth element before moving through Lakshmi, Durga, and Saraswati.

Bhu Mudra: The Mother Earth Gesture

Bhu Mudra, sometimes called the Mother Earth gesture, is a simple and direct grounding tools in yoga, and one you've likely practiced with us many times already. Bhu means earth. The gesture itself is just fingertips resting down, touching the floor or ground beneath you, a small physical handshake with the surface that holds you up every single day without asking for anything in return.

You've probably done a version of this with us before class or at the start of a grounding sequence. Here's the fuller shape of it. Sit comfortably with your spine long, either directly on the floor or in a chair with both feet flat on the ground. Turn your palms to face down, and bring the tip of your ring finger and the tip of your pinky finger in to touch your thumb, letting your index and middle fingers stay straight and relaxed. If you're seated on the floor, lower your hands so those two extended fingertips rest right on the earth. In a chair, let them rest lightly on your thighs instead. Close your eyes if that feels right, breathe slowly, and let your attention settle on the point of contact between your fingers and whatever is holding you up.

This month, let Bhu Mudra be your answer whenever the old story of not enough gets loud. Instead of arguing with the thought, simply bring the mudra back, even just resting your extended fingertips on your knee or the nearest surface for a few breaths if the full form isn't practical in the moment. You're not asking the earth for reassurance. You're just remembering it was already offering some.