On Satya (Truth)…
By Angela Rust Jones, Owner of City Yoga in Saint Augustine, FL
Reprinted with permission.
Satya (Truth) is much more than simply being an honest person. Maintaining honesty is an expected behavior in society, we’ve all been taught not to lie (for the most part) and I believe for the most part humans do try to achieve honesty. Non-truths do not feel right, I can’t imagine one desires to live an unauthentic life. The above to me; however, is not the meaning of satya.
My perception of this yama is the belief that the real satya comes from a relinquished sense of fear and an exposure to all the layers of the self. Truth is equal to purity and the rawness of the person or object. Without the ability to seek out and accept ones personal truths, I do not see how it is possible to live in truth… meaning; if you don’t know who you are and accept everything about your own self, how can you emit honesty and truthfulness to the outside world? Your perception of truth until found would be skewed. In fact, your entire life could become a lie – a constant state of seeking and dissatisfaction. I believe many people in our world suffer from unawareness of their personal truths. Finding personal truth is a large component of self-realization.
Eliminating the fear of self is not easy. We may not always like the truths we find… this is usually only because of what we’ve been programmed to believe is good and bad, dark and light. We must begin to understand that all truths are beautiful no matter how devastating they may be or seem. When we begin to embrace our truths both light and dark, we begin to see that polarity is a part of existence and it is indeed a necessary component of our being. It is only when we begin to understand this, that we can understand the yama satya and begin to actually live in satya.
It is important to note that not living in satya is a large block on the path to both self and god realization; moreover, it becomes a substantial block in ones energy; thus, halting the ability for one to progress. Instead we are sent into the same repetitive cycle over and over until these truths are discovered.
If we want to obtain contentment and realization we must begin to work on peeling back our layers of pre-programmed non-truths and expectations which were never meant to be in our personal truth stories. These expectations and non-truths may have been imprinted into our brain by our parents, friends, relatives, media– anywhere, at any point in time. I believe we may also be carrying some remnants of past life karmic type non-truths as well– or even ancestral belief systems we aren’t aware of.
Most of us must do hard work to begin the process of discovering our raw, true authentic selves and remove any fears attached to our discoveries. When this process of discovering truth has begun… one begins to see how naturally satya evolves into everything. When truth becomes a part of who you are it begins to bring joy, wisdom and purpose. Once satya is incorporated into each second of ones life then this person can say and feel that they are genuinely authentic. This will become visible not only in ones progressive actions but also in ones physical presence. Ultimately, the hope is that finding and living in satya will become contagious to others.
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