Satya - Truth
Satya is the next Yama. Satya is truth. Truth is much more than just speaking truth. It is living truth. Living the truth that our
life demands if we are to grow as individuals, if we are to truly live. Satya is Dharma, the alignment with our highest truth. Truth
requires courage, requires willingness to truly see, to truly take stock of our
life and see what it is that we truly need, what we truly need to do in order
to live life to our fullest potential.
If we have the courage to follow
the yama of satya, of truth, we will be able to more clearly see where it is
that we do violate ourselves (referring to the first yama of ahimsa). Truth requires light to come in to all of the
dark, hidden corners of our selves. We cannot hide in the light of truth. We
cannot escape our selves and our games any longer. We are forced to pick up the rugs and sweep
out the dust. We are forced to clean out the closets, long ago packed with
things long forgotten.
Truth can be bitter in the
beginning when we first start to look, just as it is painful to clean the house
when we have long let it go. However, we will get nowhere on this path of Nadi Yoga unless we have this willingness to take a look at everything in our life. There can be no stone unturned. There can
be no closet neglected.
Truth is not about following some
code of conduct and seeing where we match up and where we don’t. This can
actually be a form of deep violation. Truth rather involves deep acceptance.
Deep compassion and love for ourselves in our process. It may take time. It
most likely will take time to do this work. It will not happen all at once.
Even after one layer gets peeled back, there will be more.
This is a process that we will constantly
be working on. In this way it is important to look at the gross things in our
life first. What is our relationship like? What is our job like? What is our
infrastructure like? Are we doing too much with our time? Do we have time for
our selves and our process? Are we taking care of ourselves and our families? These and others are all the most important
questions to look at first. When the gross gets taken care of, we can then look
towards the subtler ways that we sabotage and harm our selves.
As the layers get peeled back more
and more we may realize we have not dealt with certain things for many years
and that certain themes keep reoccurring in our life. We may find that even our practices, even our "spirituality" has only been a front, an escape, a bypass of the real truth that has been hiding underneath all along. It is important to examine ourselves and our process deeply and thoroughly and honestly.
In this way, satya/truth goes hand
in hand with ahimsa/non-violation. Ahimsa is the agreement with our selves not
to violate our life force. Satya is the willingness to see clearly the truth of
where we do violate ourselves. At the deepest level, satya is the truth of our existence itself
and the willingness to be witness to this. So in a practical way if we can truly learn to see where we do not have the first yama of ahimsa, we will be shown clearly the truth of where we need to go, what we need to do, how we have to act, to bring our life more into balance with our dharma.
Only when we have satya will our energy be truly liberated to flow naturally and in balance with our life. It is here in the light of truth that our blockages start to release, our physical and mental problems start to dissolve, and our pathways become clear. In truth we have freedom to move in unlimited directions without the binding of conditioning.
These first two principles are the
foundational guideline that steer the rest of the 8 yamas and niyamas.
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