Santosha: Living In Inner Peace & Contentment

Let's explore the yogic niyama: SANTOSHA. "Contentment". What does inner peace feel like? When do you experience it? How can we live with this all of the time regardless of our circumstances? Let's explore how to experience this amazing inner peace. Part 7 of The Yogic Path Series.

Transcript

So today we're talking about sentosha and this is part of our Yogic Path series.

So this is about the seventh talk in our Yogic Path series and we began with the yamas which are the restraints.

Now we're talking about the niyamas which are the places we expand into.

So the yamas are restraints and the yamas help us keep us on our path by not letting us get distracted.

But what's interesting is when you think about those distractions,

They're really other people.

All the distractions in our lives,

All the things that will take us away from our truth are other.

Whether those are individual people,

Partners,

Family,

Parents,

Children,

Friends,

Bosses,

Colleagues,

Whatever.

Or they're the expectations of society that you have to be successful,

You have to be thin,

You have to be whatever,

A rocket scientist,

Or you have to be an artist,

Or you have to be fit,

Or whatever.

These are all distractions created by other.

Or you might be distracted by beliefs that were passed down through a church or society or just the simple mores of the society that these are the roles of a woman,

These are the roles of a man,

This is how you're supposed to live your life,

You're supposed to be monogamous,

Polyamorous,

You're supposed to be straight,

Gay,

Bi,

Whatever.

These are all expectations from other people.

And the Yamas keep us clear on our own path and not pulled off path by other people.

The Niyamas remind us that our path to truth is only ours.

Our path to Samadhi,

Our path to moksha,

Our path to freedom is actually only about us.

So the Yamas kind of clear the path of everyone else's ideas that we maybe have taken in that are confusing our personal journey.

And the Niyamas say in the end,

It's only about you.

This is a journey between you and yourself,

Between you and God,

Between you and the universe.

It's only about you.

So our last talk was about saucha or purity or staying on your clear path.

Again,

This has nothing to do with other people.

This is just you being honest with self saying,

What do I feel called to do here?

It has nothing to do with anyone else.

What brings me joy?

What is my path all about?

This is saucha.

And that talk is on Insight Timer on my YouTube channel.

Today's talk is about santosha.

And santosha means contentment or satisfaction.

So again,

This has nothing to do with anyone else.

If something comes up and says,

Yeah,

But what about then we have to go to the Yamas.

What about if someone else,

We have to go to the Yamas and say,

What are you being pulled off your truth for?

And we have to study satya.

Why do you have to defend yourself?

Why are you in a position like that?

You have to look at a hymza.

So now we're in the Niyamas.

And the question is,

Could I live in a state of total contentment all the time?

Could I live in a state of happiness all the time,

Regardless of my circumstances,

Regardless of what's going on around me in the lives of other people?

And this is really important.

And one of the reasons this is part of the yogic path is it's a philosophy of living.

It's not just something that happens if we're lucky.

The first thing is,

We have to believe that this is even possible.

And that it's a worthy goal.

Because we have a lot of training that says this is not a worthy goal.

And in fact,

If you are content,

While other people are suffering,

You must be cold.

Do you not even have any emotions?

Do you not care?

So this is it's a very important personal question for each one of us to say,

Do I actually believe when it comes right down to it,

That it's okay to have a feeling of contentment,

Even when other people are hurting or suffering?

So then of course,

The question would be posed.

If you do believe that,

If you believe that it's not okay to be satisfied in life,

While other people are suffering,

Will there ever be a time in your life where you couldn't find other people who were suffering?

Will you ever feel content inside?

Will you ever be satisfied?

What is the real nature of humanity?

What is the nature of us being here?

Then of course,

That blends into,

Well,

Who am I to even know what another person's path is?

What if what they're going through is exactly perfect for them?

Who am I to look into their life and say,

Oh,

But look at them suffering?

How can I be content?

So then the real question and if we can get rid of all of that,

And we can get rid of all that,

We get rid of all the judgment and we say,

Okay,

You know what?

Everybody's on a journey.

Everybody's connected to God.

Everybody has the same connection.

Remember,

I went and saw Wayne Dyer speak many years ago,

Like maybe 30 years ago,

Just after my mom died,

25 years ago then.

And I remember him saying,

If you ever wonder if you're connected to God,

If you're connected to that eternal life force,

Just look and see if your fingernails are growing.

Because as long as your fingernails are growing,

You're connected.

So to actually look around us and say,

Everyone's connected in their own way.

And everyone's going through their own journeys.

So if we come to that place,

And we realize that,

Okay,

Everyone's going through their own journeys.

So then the question becomes,

So why am I not content?

We can't blame other people anymore.

We can't blame the status of the world or other people or anything like that.

So why am I not content?

And now we're faced with our own questions.

What is it about my life that I'm not okay with?

So then we get to look at things like expectations.

This is something that would take us away from an inner peace and inner contentment.

Because my brain has developed or absorbed or accepted expectations that have nothing to do with reality.

Maybe I have expectations of the people around me,

That they're supposed to act in a certain way.

And if they don't act in a certain way,

I'm going to be upset.

That's just how it is.

How can I be upset when you treat me this way?

How can I be upset when you don't show me love in the way I want to?

How can I be happy?

Why does my happiness depend on how another person acts?

This really drives us again back into self saying,

Isn't that odd that I've placed my happiness in the hands of another person who's on an entirely different soul's journey?

Isn't that curious?

Or maybe I have expectations of me.

And again,

To understand that expectations are all just an internalized external structure.

Maybe I can't be content because I'm overweight.

Maybe I can't be content because I don't have an intimate partner.

Maybe I can't be content because I don't have enough money.

Really?

Why?

Like why?

Why do these things change our sense of inner peace?

These are all external.

This isn't even like,

Let's say even you were struggling financially.

What if this was a real thing?

Like forget about all this pie in the sky philosophy stuff.

I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent.

How in the world can I be content?

Well the question becomes,

On a spiritual journey,

This is just me having an experience and in this moment,

I cannot balance the rent I need to pay and the income I have.

I'm still sitting here in the middle.

I'm still this divine being having this experience going,

Hmm,

Interesting human problem.

But I can be content while I sort this out.

So then from this place of contentment,

I can start to ponder,

Alright,

Well I either have to decrease the costs here or I have to increase my income one way or the other.

If I am not content,

If I'm all upset and freaking out inside,

If my inner state of being is,

Ahhhhh,

Am I going to solve it?

Is there any benefit from not choosing contentment?

And I don't mean fake happiness.

I don't mean just put a smile on your face and pretend it's not real.

That's not what I mean.

I mean on a philosophical level,

To really ask myself,

I can go down all these mental rabbit holes going,

Oh my god,

This is always the way it is and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

And you know,

It's ancestral this and you know that.

And we can go into that.

But that's a choice.

It's a choice to go into those mental horrible arenas.

Or we can sit still and say,

Alright,

How do I solve this?

But it doesn't have to alter our state of peace.

Because again,

It's even this huge idea that's come into us from the shadow world that's kind of said,

This must rule you.

Money is everything.

Status is everything.

Where you live is everything.

What you do is everything.

It's not true.

And the other thing that's really interesting is to really embrace the idea philosophically that life is always changing.

And again,

This is sentosha.

This is your personal journey has nothing to do with anyone else.

So we have to look at our personal philosophy.

Do I believe that life is always changing?

Really,

Not just intellectually,

But really,

On a day to day basis,

Can I find inner peace knowing that my life is in a constant state of change.

So if life is in a constant state of change,

And I'm always learning new things,

And I am always evolving,

Why would I let this moment throw me out of my inner peace?

Because even if it's money,

Or health or whatever,

It's always changing.

Like the wind is blowing.

I can't be upset about this moment back there when the wind was here and the leaves were there because everything's changing.

So if everything's always changing,

Why would I be upset about any particular moment in time?

But this is why it's so important for each one of us to ask ourselves,

Do I believe that the world is always changing?

Am I willing to change?

Am I evolving?

Am I constantly learning?

Is this true?

Because if I'm not,

If philosophically,

I actually believe in staying the same,

Because maybe it feels safe,

Maybe it gives me a sense of security,

Then it'll be very easy to get very upset about whatever the current status quo is.

Because on a very deep level,

I'm trying hard to make sure nothing changes.

And this is a very interesting thing to think about.

Personally,

Why am I holding tight?

Why am I grasping on to the current reality?

And again,

This goes back into the Yamas of a peregraja of non grasping.

We don't want to grasp onto things,

We want to allow the flow of life.

So as soon as we can actually embrace this natural flow of life,

In all spiritual traditions,

We learn about this,

Allowing the birth,

Change,

Death,

Rebirth cycle,

This is nature.

If you go into the woods,

If you go out into nature,

You'll see this incredible circle of life.

And when we can flow with that,

We stay alive.

If you even look at our own body,

Every cell in our body is constantly in a state of absorbing nutrition,

Digestion,

Releasing,

Renewing,

Changing,

Every cell in our body is constantly changing.

This entire existence that we have is in constant flux.

So imagine while we sit in our center,

And we allow the flux around us too.

We allow our bank account to go up and down.

We allow our fitness levels to go up and down.

We allow our weight to go up and down.

We allow our thoughts to change.

Maybe we even allow our friends to change.

We allow our relationships to change.

Everything is in constant flux all around us.

And we are in the center here,

In a state of contentment.

Because we know that life is always changing.

So it's very interesting to just simply ask ourselves,

Do I believe that I could be the center of all that change,

That still space in the middle of all of it?

Because it's a philosophical question.

It's a foundational question whether or not I even believe this is true.

You know,

When I was researching my book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer,

For anyone who's new,

In 1999 I was sick with breast lumps and I had a miraculous healing through this journey with this teacher,

Jim,

Who I'm having lunch with this week.

How fun is that?

And then later,

I decided to write a book about it.

I was trying to find other scientific examples of people who had spontaneous remissions and all that and try to understand like what's really going on here because healings like that don't really make sense according to the current medical model.

Ironically,

I found many,

Many stories of spontaneous remissions within the medical journals because when I was researching it,

There was no internet.

I actually had to go to big libraries and look through the medical journals to find the examples.

But what was really interesting,

This was actually the beginning of my launch into quantum physics and chaos theory and things like that because these sciences actually map the human experience much more completely than the Newtonian physics of I take a ball,

It weighs this much,

It falls to the ground based on gravity,

What have you.

These other sciences actually map this intricate multidimensional experience.

Not exactly,

It's still a growing exploration,

But it's closer and it gives us little hints as to how this system actually works.

And one of the things I remember studying about chaos theory is when you look at a system that seems to have a million things going on.

If you imagine,

If you look into the human experience and you look at our minds and how incredibly complex they are,

And if you look at your emotions and if you look at your spiritual aspirations or if you look at your dreams or if you look at your fears and then you look at all of the experiences you've ever had and you look at the trauma you've experienced and the challenges you've overcome and the multidimensional things and the ancestral memories in karmic and all these things,

If you look at how incredibly complex this seemingly simple form actually is,

Chaos theory,

Nonlinear systems theory,

These things give us more clues as to how we actually work.

And one interesting thing was if you look at a chaotic system like a forest,

If you look at the details,

You'll get lost.

You'll kind of think you keep seeing all these individual tiny systems,

Which is true,

But they actually fit into a much greater system.

And if you want to understand where the system is moving,

Why and how all these things fit together,

You have to look at what the goal of the system is.

What's the overriding goal of the system?

And if say you look at a forest or even an ocean or anything like that,

If you imagine that the overriding goal of the system is survival,

Then as you go deeper into the details,

We know that all of those pieces are somehow moving towards long-term survival.

It might look like little mini deaths all over the place.

There are even certain kinds of forests that require forest fire because the ash from the fire actually allows other trees to grow and it allows those seeds to actually open in the short term.

And maybe even a human lifespan,

We think,

Oh my God,

I know this is terrible.

But if you look at the much longer,

Maybe even millennial length of time of this forest,

It's actually working towards survival.

It's healing itself.

And that's why when we look at these niyamas,

When we look at the places that as a soul we are expanding into,

It's really important to look at these philosophies.

Because if I believe that life is constantly shifting and changing,

Then that is what my consciousness will constantly be evolving with.

So if my goal is that nothing changes,

This is entropy.

This is slow dissolution of self.

This is stagnancy.

This is where the system starts to wind itself down.

And it's just very,

Very important to ponder these things.

And that's why I talk about a lot of these in terms of philosophies more than even the nuts and bolts of life.

Because the number one question is,

Do I believe that I'm in a state of constant change?

And if I do,

The best thing I can do is observe it from a place of inner peace and contentment and satisfaction.

Which brings us to another aspect of how do we achieve this contentment?

How do we achieve this feeling of satisfaction in life?

And it's looking at what we believe perfection is.

Because I mean,

A lot of us are perfectionists.

I'm definitely,

Perfectionism is definitely something I've struggled with.

And it's also served me well,

But it's also definitely something I've struggled with.

But what does being perfect mean?

Because one of the challenges is in the shadow world,

In the world that we've been raised in,

We've been given pictures,

Almost still frames of what perfect is.

So if someone was to look at me and say,

Well,

Your perfect body would look like this.

You have now taken this multi-dimensional incarnation and placed it in a tiny little two-dimensional box.

Here's how much weight you should carry.

Here's how much gravity you should be using.

Here's how tall you are.

Here's what your measurements.

It's like this weird two-dimensional tiny box of what I'm supposed to be.

And this is what we've been taught is perfect.

Or that a perfect life looks like this kind of relationship,

This tiny little box.

This is what a perfect relationship looks like.

Here are all the possibilities.

Here are all the infinite possibilities.

But here's what perfect is.

That's not true.

It's like the ultimate oversimplification and the ultimate minimalization of the human experience.

The only perfect version of each of us is us whole,

Us with every single aspect of who we are on the table,

Every fear,

Every joy,

Every moment of ecstasy,

Every moment of trauma,

Everything.

That is us as a whole.

Because the beautiful thing is that every single piece,

If you take all those bits and put them all together,

It's so funny,

I keep wanting to say patchwork quilt,

But that's not it because a patchwork quilt doesn't fit together properly.

They're just sort of sitting side by side.

It's more like all the facets of the diamond that each of us actually are.

And that each one serves the other.

So every experience that we've ever had,

This life and all lifetimes,

They all actually blend together in a kind of perfection.

But the first thing we have to do is believe that that's true.

Again,

We have to look at our philosophy.

Do I believe that me in my wholeness right now is perfection?

Do I believe that reality as it is right now is perfect?

Or do I believe that there is a future version of myself that will be perfect?

And when I achieve that perfection,

Then I will be content,

Then I will be satisfied.

Like what do I really believe?

Because if I believe in that future self,

That when I arrive there,

I will be content.

We all know this isn't true.

One,

We don't reach that state because it's not real.

It's a fabricated idea.

It isn't true.

This is perfect.

Right now.

This is perfect.

This is the diamond.

And it isn't just that it's perfect.

It's reality.

Like there isn't an alternate reality.

Like I remember David Hawkins,

We did a whole series of talks about his book Power versus Force.

When I went to see Wayne Dyer speak,

He actually is the one that helped David Hawkins book Power versus Force be published through Hay House.

And so it was kind of David Hawkins work has it wasn't really out yet.

So Wayne Dyer was really talking him up.

And that's actually how I heard about David Hawkins was at this event.

And then a few months later,

David Hawkins was speaking in Toronto.

So I got to go and listen to him,

Which was epic and amazing.

And one of the things he said is he said,

There is no such thing as if.

He said,

If you want to ask me a question,

If you begin,

Wow,

Now I'm suddenly really conscious of every time I say if.

But if you want to ask me a question,

And you use the word if,

If your question to me begins with the word if,

I'm not listening.

He said,

The number one thing as humans that we have to start to do is live in reality.

Every question that begins with the letter with the word if is saying,

If reality was not as it is,

Then what would you do?

He said,

This is one of the most dangerous lines of thought that human beings can have.

We talk about the importance of living in this moment.

It's the same thing.

All change is possible right here in this moment.

All revelation happens in this moment.

All potential for action that can actually adjust these karmic patterns only happens right now.

And it's the same as this idea that if I imagine a different reality,

And then try to ask questions about it,

It's irrelevant.

It's literally a waste of our brain space.

It's a waste of our time.

It's a waste of our thoughts,

Not to mention all the emotional ups and downs and everything that our poor body goes through.

Every time we have an emotion,

Our bodies respond chemically.

It's literally sending chemical responses through our body all the time.

So if we're not even dealing with this moment,

It's one thing to respond emotionally to what's happening in this moment.

This is very healthy.

Something happens and my body grieves.

This is important.

If something happens and I feel happy,

This is important.

But if I'm imagining a reality that isn't even here,

And my body is going through all of these emotions,

Those emotions will cycle and continue because it's not based in reality.

We're not actually allowing the world to keep turning.

And we're stuck in a fantasy land.

And this is very dangerous.

Not to mention,

You'll never feel content.

If we allow ourselves to fantasize,

Because that's what it is.

If only this,

If only I hadn't married that guy,

If only I could have a partner,

If only I could lose 50 pounds,

If only I could win the lottery,

If only I could get that job.

All it does is torturous.

It's of no value.

And so it was a fascinating thing to watch David Hawkins because he was this fiery man.

I just,

I love teachers who are super fiery because it just entertains me so much.

And so people would get up and they'd say,

Okay,

Yeah,

But if this happened,

And he'd say,

Sit down.

And it was like,

Oh.

And then someone else would say,

Okay,

But if this,

And he'd go,

Sit down.

He says,

Does anybody in this room of 2000 people have a question that actually is based in this current reality right now?

Is anybody capable of actually having a conversation in this reality right now?

It was so interesting.

So it brings us back to this idea of perfection.

What if where I am right now in my journey is perfect?

All the challenges,

All the gifts,

All the people,

That everybody who is in the arena with me right now is actually the perfect part of my journey.

That for some reason,

These are the players.

This is what my chessboard looks like.

Imagine.

And we just sit in this contentment.

So then the question becomes,

So does this mean that you have no desire for things to change?

Does contentment mean that you have no passions or nothing you want to change or you don't want anything new?

Is that what you're saying?

And of course,

This isn't true at all.

Contentment simply is accepting what is now.

This is what's happening.

Maybe it's accepting that it's raining.

Maybe it's accepting that for some reason it's 35 degrees in Canada Celsius today.

I can choose to be all upset and freaked out about it.

But to what end?

It doesn't change it.

Or I can have the philosophy that says,

All right then.

And now the question becomes,

What do I want to do in this state of contentment?

Maybe I want to go for a swim.

Maybe I want to paint a picture.

Maybe I want to write a book.

Maybe I want to hang out with my friends.

We can have all kinds of passions in a state of contentment.

I can even say I desire a relationship.

Oh,

Wouldn't it be great to have someone fun and I could hang out with them and have sex and go on trips and watch Netflix or whatever it is you like to do?

That can be also a reality that I would love that.

But feel the difference that I am content and I am happy with my life.

I also love chocolate.

I also love hanging out with people intimately.

I wonder what will come.

And maybe I will take action.

Maybe I'll get on a dating app.

Maybe I will join an art club.

But I'm doing it from a state of contentment.

And now change that and imagine that we have this belief system that as long as I don't have what I want,

I'm not content.

So now I'm not content.

This is imagine,

Right?

So I'm not content now.

And what I really need is I need to have a partner.

That's what I need.

Because my life sucks right now.

Because I'm not whole.

I can't be happy until I find that partner.

What does that feel like?

And what are the chances you'd find someone in that state?

And again,

So this simply brings us back to that place of philosophically,

Do I believe that human beings can live in a state of contentment?

Even if all their dreams are not fulfilled in this moment?

Do I believe this is a worthy goal?

Because another big part of contentment in the end,

This brings us back to this idea of the niyamas,

That the niyamas remind us that my journey to inner peace,

My journey to freedom,

My journey to samadhi,

True peace and enlightenment is only mine.

It's only about me.

So suddenly,

Whether or not I feel content,

Whether or not I feel satisfied with my life right now has nothing to do with my circumstances.

It has nothing to do with what I see in front of me.

It does nothing to do with the people around me.

All of these things are in constant flux anyway.

The journey is always within.

And it's even interesting when you imagine that all of this flux around us in circumstances,

In people,

In whatever,

Where we live,

What we're doing,

Our jobs,

Our finances,

Everything.

The more we realize that these do not affect us,

The quieter we become inside.

It's often why when people do have great crisis,

Or maybe we get that diagnosis.

We get that thing like that was one of a huge thing when I was researching my book,

What if You Could Skip the Cancer?

How many people who had spontaneous remissions and again,

Spontaneous just means that it erupted from the inside.

It doesn't mean that it happened overnight or anything like that.

It just means that the healing happened from the inside out.

That's what spontaneous means.

How many of these people got the diagnosis,

Whatever it was,

Cancer,

Heart failure,

Whatever it was,

The doctors said,

You've maybe got a couple weeks to live.

And all of a sudden,

That person has this aha moment,

This I am moment that realized,

What in the world am I worrying about what that person thinks,

What that person expects of me,

What's going on in Timbuktu,

What am I wasting my life for?

And all of a sudden,

They had that realization that I choose contentment.

I choose happiness.

I can't change everyone else's life.

I can't change the choices they're making or what that person is doing.

And I'm going to die if I continue on this path.

They're like,

If I've only got a few weeks left,

I am not spending it worrying about all of you folk.

And then all of a sudden,

The cancer goes away.

You've no idea.

I'm not saying this always happens.

I'm just saying in the stories that I read,

In the medical journals,

Or through amazing people like Bernie Siegel or Carl Simonton or these people who worked with like the real pioneers of people who worked with the mind body spirit connection in cancer specifically.

I can't tell you how many of these stories are out there,

Thousands,

Not a couple,

Thousands all over the world of people that had this realization that,

Whoa,

My happiness is not dependent on my external circumstances,

Or anyone around me.

This is the enlightenment of Santoshia.

It's really our choice.

So it's a very interesting thing to practice.

In yoga,

Many people have various practices.

Maybe you do Kundalini yoga and you do yoga kriyas.

Maybe you do hatha yoga,

And you practice asana,

Or maybe you do meditation practice.

So all of these are practices.

So how do we practice Santoshia,

Even within the yogic world?

Well,

We don't criticize ourselves for what we can't do.

We don't criticize our minds if our mind is wandering.

We don't allow our brain to go off into,

Oh,

If only I just,

You know,

And if only I could,

You know,

Do that.

And while we practice,

We continually just bring ourselves back to this moment,

Continually bring ourselves back,

That we are thankful for the fact that we even have a body,

That we're thankful for the fact that we're doing this practice.

Or maybe your yoga is deep sea diving,

Or it's horseback riding,

Or it's writing.

Whatever your yoga is,

Yoga doesn't,

It's not asana.

Yoga is whatever it is that brings you to center.

And that whatever we're doing,

We just practice just being here,

Just being happy,

Just choosing happiness.

And if it's hard,

I would just practice it anyway.

Even if,

Like,

Let's say you're getting together with a friend later.

Imagine what kind of conversation would you have in a state of contentment?

Would you even know what to talk about if we're not complaining?

Or we're not just talking about almost gossiping about the world or other people or whatever?

So it's an interesting thing to actually practice that if I'm not in a state of santosha,

I'll just practice stillness until something comes to me.

And again,

This isn't avoiding,

Like maybe there's something really big going on in your life right now.

Maybe there's something that is needing the attention,

Needing a good chat with a friend.

So from that place of accepting reality,

We have a conversation,

And we try to chew it up and we try to find solutions.

This isn't about just putting a happy smile on your face no matter what.

It's just about going,

Wait a minute,

Is what I'm talking about current?

Is what I'm talking about actually based in reality?

Is this actually even bothering me?

Or am I uncomfortable with empty,

Quiet space in the,

What do you call it?

Am I uncomfortable with silence?

And I just feel a need to chat?

It's an interesting thing to practice because we have a lot of habits.

Thank you so much for joining me,

And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Love this with so much perspective to think about and practice. Thank you so much!

Clear and inciteful, many thanks for your work Katrina

♾️☯️⚛️⚘️☄️🌟💫
Thank you kindly for your offerings❣️🌸
Namaste✨️🙏🏽🖤✨️✨️✨️