Yama: The Ethics of Not Being an Asshole

28 May

If you had accused me in my mid-thirties of being unethical, I’d have looked at you like you’d just accused me of being a centaur. Not offended. Just... confused.

I thought I was a good dude. I held doors open. I bought rounds. I didn’t kick puppies or con old ladies out of their pensions. I had friends who loved me and exes who hadn’t set me on fire. Case closed, right?

But that’s the great con of ethical delusion — you build a cardboard cutout of yourself and spend so long polishing it that you forget it’s not actually you. It’s the persona. The PR version. And mine was full of more holes than a junkie’s alibi.

Patanjali’s Eightfold Path of yoga lays out a roadmap for spiritual awakening — not through levitating or chanting your name backward, but through grounded, actionable principles. These eight limbs range from how we treat others and ourselves, to breath, posture, focus, and ultimately, the dissolution of ego in a state called samadhi. I’m going to explore them one by one, starting here with the first limb: Yama — the ethical restraints that call us to stop being a heaving, grabbing, maniacal threat to the world around us.

Let’s start with truth. Or in my case, the artisanally crafted white lies that floated through my days like air freshener in a rancid car full of fast food wrappers and B.O.

“Just had two drinks.”
“I was working all afternoon.”
“Yeah, I totally read that book.”
Smile-and-nod like you agree with the guy at the bar, because it’ll go down easier than saying he’s full of shit.

I told these lies like I was brushing lint off a jacket — automatic, harmless, a gesture of social grace. Until I realised they weren’t harmless. Not to me, not to anyone. They were acid drops slowly eating through my sense of self. The person I was presenting had drifted so far from the person I actually was, I needed a passport to travel between them.

Then came the revelations — little landmines going off under the surface — that brought me to Asteya, the yogic principle of non-stealing. But I wasn’t a thief. Was I?
Oh, you mean that kind of stealing? Not just diamonds or bank heists, but things like:

Clocking in spiritually or professionally but only showing up 30%?
Pocketing cab vouchers at my old law firm like it was Monopoly money?
Creeping an unclaimed hoodie from the apartment building laundry room because “finders keepers”?
Sneaking off with a little extra from the communal drug fund like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter?

Yeah. That counts. All of it counts. It’s not just a matter of what you take — it’s the energy of taking what was never offered. And in that energy, you fracture connection, which the older I get, I know understand means everything. It’s all about connection and I was using my flexible morality to hack away at my emotional connections like a rusted machete.

But wait, there’s more!

Because then there’s Brahmacharya — moderation. The practice of not riding every pleasure train straight off the tracks. As someone who required an industrial-strength spiritual intervention just to function like a semi-normal adult, let’s just say: moderation and I were not close.

And Aparigraha — non-possessiveness? I held on to resentments, people, fantasies, old hurts, and outgrown dreams like a gambler clutching a winning ticket. Even if it was poisoning me. Maybe especially if it was.

Then there’s Ahimsa — non-violence. That one seems easy until you count the slow drip of emotional sabotage, the way sarcasm can cut deeper than fists, the harm we cause by disengagement, silence, flakiness, cowardice. All forms of violence.

It turns out that ethics aren’t binary switches. They’re currents, and the cleaner they run, the clearer your channel to connection — with others, with the divine (whatever that means to you), and with yourself.

Because here’s the thing: the real damage wasn’t in what I got away with. It was what I lost. I lost intimacy. I lost presence. I lost the quiet confidence that comes from integrity. I lost connection — that sacred thread that ties me to community, to the mystery, to myself.

That’s where the Yamas kick in. They’re not commandments or guilt trips. They’re tools. Spiritual drain-cleaners. Cosmic roto-rooters. They keep the psychic plumbing clear so that life — real, soulful life — can flow through.

And for me, that flow is sobriety. Sanity. The sacred pulse of a life lived awake. I use a trusted array of tools to keep the channel open:

Recovery principles and the 12 steps
Meditation
Yoga
Community
Reading things that punch me in the heart

None of it works unless it’s in motion. The Yamas are not something you “study.” They’re something you live or don’t. They’re not “concepts.” They’re hammers. They’re scalpels. They’re invitations to walk through fire — not because you’re a sinner, but because you’re done being a stranger to yourself.

So yeah, maybe back then I’d have bristled at being called unethical. But now? I’ll own it. I’ll carry it like a scar and a trophy. Because the truth is, it’s not who I was that matters — it’s who I’m choosing to become.

And that choice starts every damn morning.