Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation, with a friend, with your children, with someone you love, and realised your mind was already somewhere else? Planning the next task, thinking of the next appointment. Half listening, half gone.
Your body was there, but you were not.
I notice this in myself more than I would like to admit. Someone is talking to me, and I am nodding but inside I am already thinking about what needs to happen next. The conversation ends, and I cannot quite remember what was said.
That is a kind of stealing too.
It’s not from a shop, not from a person’s belongings, but from the moment itself. From the person in front of me and from myself.
That is where Asteya, the third of Patanjali’s Yamas begins to hit home.
What Is Asteya?
In the Yoga Sutras, Asteya is the third of the Yamas (read about the first two yamas here- Ahimsa, Satya) the ethical principles that form the foundation of the eight-limbed path of yoga.
Yoga Sutra 2.37
Asteya pratisthayam sarva ratna upasthanam
‘To one who is established in non-stealing, all jewels and wealth present themselves.’
Most of us understand not to take what belongs to someone else. That is pretty obvious, right?. But Asteya goes much further than physical stealing, it asks us to notice the subtler ways we take without awareness.
Stealing someone’s idea without acknowledgement. Taking more of someone’s time or energy than they willingly offered. Borrowing attention that was not freely given and then there is the stealing we do to ourselves.
The Stealing We Do to Ourselves
When I compare myself to other yoga teachers, the numbers in their class, their social media, their follower counts, their polished content, the effortless way they seem to show up online, I am taking something from myself.
I am stealing the energy I could have used to focus on my own work.
When I am in a yoga class, and I catch myself watching another practitioner’s perfect posture instead of staying with my own body, I am stealing the experience I came for.I am stealing my own joy.
And when I am in a conversation but mentally rehearsing my to-do list, I am stealing from everyone at that moment. The person in front of me does not get my full attention. The work does not get my full focus, and I am left with that quiet guilt that comes from being nowhere completely.
I think the comparison and the copying come from the same place. A quiet feeling that what I have is not quite enough. Someone else has figured something out that I am still missing. Hustle culture deliberately feeds that feeling, but Asteya asks us to notice it instead.
I Find It Hard to Practise Asteya
I want to be honest here.
Social media asks us to follow trends, replicate what is working, borrow ideas that have already proven themselves. The line between inspiration and copying is genuinely blurry and I navigate it imperfectly.
I am not writing this from a place of having figured it out, but from a place of paying attention.
What Asteya Means for the Nervous System
That split, body in one place, mind in another, is not just a philosophical problem. It is a nervous system problem.
When we are physically present but mentally elsewhere, the nervous system cannot fully settle. It is trying to be in two places at once. The result is that low level restlessness that feels like neither work nor rest. We do neither well and we recover from neither properly.
Asteya, at its most practical, is an invitation to be where you actually are.
The Jewels
The sutra says that when we are established in non-stealing, all jewels manifest.
Those jewels are not things but moments.
The conversation with your child you were actually present for. The work session where you were genuinely focused. The yoga practice where you stayed with your own body instead of watching everyone else.
Those moments are available to all of us but only when we stop stealing from them.
A Question to Carry With You
Where are you physically present but mentally somewhere else?