Rooted Sangha - Session 18 - Svadhyaya
- sjholisticyoga
- Jan 17
- 3 min read
Theme: Svādhyāya in Everyday Life: Self-Study Through Action
At this week’s sangha, we continued to explore svādhyāya - the niyama of self-study - as it appears in The Yamas and Niyamas. Here is that section revised so it reflects *you* bringing Rumi into the space, rather than a general reflection. I’ve left the rest untouched.
We began with the ego, not as something to be battled or dismantled, but as something to be understood through the lens of svadhyaya.
We spoke about how the ego responds before we have time to think. How it rushes to protect, defend, compare, explain, or withdraw. Svadhyaya invites us to notice these movements without immediately believing the stories they produce. Noticing is the practice. The moment we see the reaction, rather than becoming it, something begins to loosen.
From there, we touched on the risk of becoming overly self-analytical. When svadhyaya slips into constant self-monitoring, it can harden rather than soften us. True self-study is spacious. It knows when to look and when to rest. It asks for curiosity rather than interrogation.
This naturally led us to the question beneath the ego and its stories. Beneath the roles we play, the identities we have learned to wear, and the narratives shaped by our past. Svadhyaya gently asks: if I am not only my reactions, not only my roles, then what remains?
Here, the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita offer quiet reassurance. We are reminded that our essence is not the fluctuations of the mind, nor the personality shaped by experience, but the awareness that witnesses it all. Svadhyaya becomes the practice of remembering this, again and again, in the midst of ordinary life.
I then brought in Rumi, drawing on themes from The Forty Rules of Love. They speak powerfully to svadhyaya as a lived, relational practice. One that unsettles the ego, disrupts certainty, and invites a deeper truth to emerge. Not through control or refinement, but through love, surrender, and transformation.
We also acknowledged how inner-child patterns and early experiences continue to shape the ego’s responses. Svadhyaya does not ask us to bypass this or to tidy it away. It asks us to see how old wounds and protective strategies still speak, and to meet them with compassion rather than judgement.
In the end, svadhyaya is not about perfecting the self. It is about seeing clearly. Learning to recognise when the ego is speaking, when the past is steering the present, and when something deeper and steadier is quietly present beneath it all.
You might like to gently explore one or more of these, in writing or simply in quiet reflection.
You are invited to notice where the ego has been active for you recently. What do you sense it was trying to protect or preserve?
You are invited to sit with any familiar patterns or old stories that arise. What changes when you meet them with curiosity rather than judgement or the need to analyse?
You are invited to sense into what feels most steady or true beneath your roles and reactions. What do you notice when you rest your attention there, without needing to name or define it?
There is no need to reach conclusions. The noticing itself is the practice.
Giving Back
After covering room and fuel costs, all proceeds from Rooted are being saved to support a local cause, to be chosen together later this year - as a small act of Bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion in action.
On 21st September, we made our first donation (£110) to Kettering Samaritans.
On 23rd December, we donated £100 to Johnny's Happy Place, a wonderful mental health support cafe in Kettering.
We agreed that our next beneficiary will be The Green Patch, Kettering. There is currently £25 in the pot!
Going Forward
Thank you for taking a moment to pause, to sit with the quiet honesty of svadhyaya.
May you begin to notice the ego's movements in your daily actions and relationships, seeing its protective impulses with clarity rather than judgment.
May you recognise when old patterns and early stories surface, not as problems to fix, but as invitations to understand more deeply.
May you honour the many layers that have shaped you, including the tender and unfinished ones, meeting each with patience and compassion.
May you tend your practices of movement, rest, truth, and care as acts of self-study, not self-improvement, allowing them to soften rather than sharpen the sense of self.
May you trust that awareness itself is transformative, even when the outer shape of things appears unchanged.
And may you remember that each time you pause, notice, and gently return to what is beneath the stories, the practice of svadhyaya is already alive.
With love,
Vicki x
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