Niyati cloaks Awareness
“I keep my side of the street clean, you wouldn’t know what I mean….” so says Taylor Swift in her hit song Karma
(yes, I’ve been eagerly waiting to fit a TS reference into the blog!)
I admire this woman for many reasons. The biggest one is how unapologetically and authentically she lives her dharma as a singer/songwriter and performer. But I also admire that in her entire career there are no reports of her being a diva. The staff at every hotel she visits say that Taylor treats them with kindness and respect. She is incredibly gracious with her fans. And, even when Kanye West interrupted her, took the microphone out of her hand, and told her that she shouldn’t have won the award she was accepting in front of an auditorium full of people and a worldwide television audience she didn’t lose it on him. (She just wrote some incredible music - channeling her experiences into her art)
Whether or not you like her music or agree with her politics, there’s something to be said for someone navigating the music industry without inciting scandal. She seems to quite literally keep her side of the street clean. We could say that she wears the final cloak with the gold side out.
Here comes Karma
The last kanchuka (cloak of consciousness) is niyati (nee-ya-tee). Niyati is often translated as: Causality or sometimes Necessity. This cloak binds you to cause and effect - that means it creates karma. Niyati reminds you to be attentive to what you do and say because you will reap what you sow. In the NST mind your actions are extremely important. What you choose to do or not do will have a tremendous effect on your life moving forward. You will absolutely experience the result of your own actions. So pay attention to what you’re doing.
Niyati is the final cloak of māya. It cloaks cit śakti - the power of the peaceful ground of all reality, the power of Awareness. Niyati, the culmination of your life experiences determines where you are in space. Scholar Christopher Wallis writes: .. “because of your karmas you are born on Earth, living where you do and not in another city, country, or planet. Thus the inverse of niyati, or rather it’s full expansion, is all-pervasiveness or non-locality.” So niyati grounds us where we are, without it we could be everywhere all at once. Clearly, this is an important cloak if we’re to experience ourselves as singular beings with dharma to fulfill.
Shadow Negative Seeds
Again, the idea isn’t to completely escape the kanchuka, but rather to wear it well. In the case of niyati the shadow side is a doozy. Every single thing you do has an effect big or small that will play out for you. The shadow side includes actions that are greedy, negative, filled with hatred, or corruption. These kinds of actions perpetuate themselves in one’s life and spill out into the world. Look at national and international politics and you’ll see a lot of shadow niyati.
Most of us would not take such obviously harmful actions. But karma works in the smallest words, thoughts, and deeds too. Tiny transgressions: white lies, taking advantage of another for personal gain, seemingly harmless theft of ideas, purposefully cutting someone off in traffic, also create negative karma that will come back to you.
In the yogic mind, your actions plant seeds that will come to fruition unless they are weeded out. Negative actions plant negative seeds that eventually bear negative fruit in your life. This is why wearing the shadow side out is so detrimental. It’s all coming back to you. Maybe not in the timeframe you expect, but eventually it always bears fruit.
Golden Service for the Highest
That is, unless you do something about it. Wearing the gold side of niyati is how you deal with your negative karmic seeds. If everything you say or do has a ripple effect on the rest of your life, then it behooves you to live in integrity. Wearing the gold side out means offering your life in service and dedicating your actions to the highest good. It invites you to act with integrity even when it’s difficult - admitting mistakes, taking ownership of past negative karma, and refusing to commit more transgressions, big or small. It includes living life in service to yourself and others as if everyone is the most Beloved One.
Remember, your actions plant seeds that will grow to fruition. When you wear the gold side out, you do not accumulate negative karma. In fact, strong service, without attachment to the outcome, actually burns away negative karma. Those seeds that you planted when you were a jerk the other day don’t have to take root and come back to you. It’s hopeful that one can undo the mistakes of the past. The gold side of niyati sets one up for more peace, harmony, and freedom in the future.
It’s why Taylor Swift can say karma is her boyfriend.. or karma is a cat purring in her lap… karma takes all her friends to the summit. Everything she’s done in her entire life has led her to this moment - now she’s Time magazine’s person of the year. That’s not because of one summer tour, but because of all of the tiny and not so tiny ways she’s lived her life.
The Journey ends…
So, my friends, we’ve reached the end of the Powers and Cloaks journey we’ve been on all fall. I hope it’s been interesting reading for you. And I encourage you to take it further so it becomes more than just a mental concept. If you want the real benefits of living yoga philosophy it needs to come alive in your life.
Practice the Powers and Cloaks
Here’s a mindfulness style practice to work with these concepts:
Determine which cloak is the biggest struggle for you. (limited action, limited knowledge, limited desire, time, acting with integrity/karma)
Notice when that cloak shows up for you (example: you think “I don’t have enough time”)
Pause, soften and remind your self of your innate power - especially the one that is being currently cloaked (ex: time cloaks bliss. Pause, remember there is always time - open to bliss)
Return to the gold-side of the cloak and move into the world with the remembrance of your innate POWER
You could also journal around the cloaks or powers. Allow your inner wisdom, the power of jñana śakti to guide you into any actions you could take next.
If you have questions or want help with any of this, know I’m here to help. Thanks for reading this series all fall. It’s been a great joy to share these teachings with you.