Wholehearted sincerity. Complete and total interest in what you are doing. True zeal. This might be the definition given by Sri Swami Satchidananda of an ancient Sanskrit word – Shraddha – but it reminds me of something else: Sinterklaas. For all non-Dutchies, I’ll explain in a nutshell. Sinterklaas is basically a very old man with a beard, in an extravagant red outfit with a big old hat. He may remind you of Santa Claus or similar figures who deliver gifts, reward well-behaved children, and embody the spirit of winter. Sinterklaas sails to Holland on a steamboat in November, with his tall white horse and happy helpers called Pieten. (There’s a very racist history around the Pieten, which I am consciously choosing not to get into here.) The most important date is December 5th, called Pakjesavond (Gift Night). It’s Sinterklaas’s birthday, and to celebrate he gives gifts to others, each accompanied by a poem he wrote himself. Great guy.
However, the wholehearted sincerity, total interest in what you are doing and true zeal didn’t make me think of the man himself. It made me think of the children who ‘believe in him’, as we say in Dutch. If you grew up with this tradition, it means you started singing special Sinterklaas songs from a very young age. You learned them from your parents or at school. You would start to feel all tingly when Sinterklaas arrived in Holland. At night, you could put one of your shoes at the back door or the fireplace (yes- the Pieten climb through chimneys), and you belted out the Sinterklaas songs with all your heart. Then you would put a carrot in your shoe – for the horse, of course – or a drawing of Sinterklaas you had made very ferociously earlier that day. You would go to bed full of joy and excitement. In the morning, you would wake up, heart pounding, and run straight to your shoe. And there it was! A gift in your shoe! Usually some kind of chocolate. The carrot and drawing were gone; Sinterklaas took them with him when he left your gift, because you sang so well and you were such a good kid. The ‘shoe-gifts’ were small, while the bigger gifts came on Sinterklaas-eve. Even magical old men have budgets. But the small gifts didn’t seem small; they felt extraordinary. Except when you got, like, a pen, and your brother got chocolate cigarettes (I am not kidding, those cigarettes were gifts for children, 25 years ago). Then you would be a little disappointed in Sinterklaas.
If you were lucky enough to grow up in a household that had the means to celebrate Sinterklaas, you experienced this definition of Shraddha. You would completely believe, you would love, you would be single-mindedly focused on Sinterklaas for a month, becoming slightly unhinged on Pakjesavond itself. Especially because the gifts were nowhere in sight! You would sit there in suspense until suddenly, a loud knock on a window and a scatter of candy across the floor would make you jump up and scream a little. That was Piet! He delivered the gifts somewhere around the house! Try to find them! The night has begun! I will never forget that feeling.
Shraddha may not mean the blind faith that these children have. For years, there was no doubt that this was completely real. A complete trust in something mostly unseen. Without proof and with the fullest of hearts. So while in yoga we may question a little bit more, if I want to call on the feeling of experiencing pure faith, I now know what to recall.
Esther is a writer, creator, and yogi from Amsterdam. She is a student and Karma Yogi at Studio 108 and does her best to be kind, gentle, and to laugh whenever she stumbles.
