Yoga 101: Satya – Truthfulness

Satya is the second of yoga’s yamas (ethical precepts) in Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga. Satya challenges us to follow impeccable honesty in our ideas, phrases and deeds. The Buddha positioned truthfulness on the basis of his 5 precepts (non-harming, truthfulness, non-stealing, smart use of sexuality, and refraining from intoxicants that cloud the thoughts). Truthfulness can be a step alongside the Eightfold Path.

I’ll begin this put up with a disclosure. I’ve been pushing aside writing about satya (truthfulness) for a number of years. It’s not as a result of I don’t suppose it’s an vital topic. It’s often because I really feel that it’s critically vital and I need to ensure I symbolize it with the gravity and respect it deserves, throughout the bounds of a shortish weblog put up. Training satya appears to be extra vital than ever in lately of widespread disinformation—and the way in which it has harmed our nationwide dialog. On this put up, I’ll focus on satya as each an intention and as a follow.

Satya is the second of yoga’s yamas (ethical precepts) in Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga. Satya challenges us to follow impeccable honesty in our ideas, phrases and deeds. The Buddha positioned truthfulness on the basis of his 5 precepts (non-harming, truthfulness, non-stealing, smart use of sexuality, and refraining from intoxicants that cloud the thoughts). Truthfulness can be a step alongside the Eightfold Path.

Truthfulness as a Basis

Once I was a teen, there have been three industrial TV stations, and one public station. Everybody obtained their information and data from these stations and from our day by day newspapers. Journalistic requirements required the usage of a number of sources and a number of layers of truth checking. Within the age of the web free-for-all, whereas journalistic requirements nonetheless apply to most main media retailers, the dividing line between journalism and opinion has turn into fairly hazy.

Many individuals usually are not skilled to know the right way to discern between fact and opinion, or between fact and fiction. This has resulted in media customers retreating into their corners, complicated opinion with truth, and selling unfounded conspiracy theories that demonize the “different.” We not share a typical basis of agreed-upon fact.

Like several construction, a relationship’s power depends on the integrity of its basis. I concern that as a tradition, we’ve misplaced this basis. The outcome has been a chaos of divisiveness and demonization.

This may occur in interpersonal relationships as properly. Our private relationships is usually a laboratory for working towards impeccable truthfulness. Most significantly, this consists of our relationship with ourselves.

Shades of Satya

Training satya in our lives isn’t as straightforward as it’d sound. The follow, in fact, consists of refraining from apparent untruthfulness, comparable to making up tales out of entire fabric. Satya additionally consists of not committing lies of omission, fact shading or exaggeration. There are occasions once we might shade the reality or omit pertinent particulars as a way to elevate our picture or to guard us from judgment. Everybody I do know, together with myself, has experimented with shading the reality in a technique or one other. We’d like not choose ourselves for these lapses. In some methods, they’re a part of studying the right way to be extra truthful.

Training truthfulness simplifies our lives and results in larger equanimity. Mark Twain stated, “When you inform the reality, you don’t have to recollect something.” Have you ever ever informed a lie after which needed to make up a bunch of different tales to help it? After which, it’s important to bear in mind what you informed which particular person? Telling lies or shading the reality complicates our lives. It typically results in our being caught for telling tales, which, in flip erodes others’ belief in us. It’s a lot, a lot less complicated to simply inform the reality.

Lapses in satya may be delicate, and even unintentional. It’s because we don’t at all times acknowledge the filters of notion that we layer over the reality. We might stand by a specific opinion piece just because it bolsters our views. Or within the case of an early romance, we might ignore an unflattering fact just because we don’t need to see it. We might imagine we’re seeing a state of affairs clearly, however in actual fact, the perceptions we use to outline ourselves and our world could also be appearing as filters.

Satya and Mindfulness Observe

That is the place mindfulness is available in. Mindfulness follow offers us the abilities to see via our filters—our deeply held beliefs and perceptions. Observing the habits of our personal minds helps us establish our psychological patterns and preferences. Once we perceive what filters are protecting us from seeing a state of affairs clearly, we will start to see via them. This helps us make wiser selections.

This work may be humbling. It will probably shatter our concepts of who we’re. Generally the patterns we’ve chosen to nourish usually are not flattering. However it’s at all times worthwhile to uncover them. First, seeing the place we’re vulnerable to falter helps us generate empathy for the failings of others. Second, if we need to stay a lifetime of integrity, we have now to grasp the mechanisms that preserve us from clear seeing. Residing a lifetime of integrity and truthfulness results in larger ease.

How you can Observe Satya on the Yoga Mat

We are able to use our yoga follow and educating as a laboratory for exploring satya. Listed below are a couple of options:

• Do you end up pushing past your physique’s limits once you’re in a category out of concern that your regular poses usually are not “good” sufficient? Do you keep away from utilizing yoga props comparable to Yoga Blocks or Yoga Straps in school once you is perhaps inclined to make use of them at dwelling? If that’s the case, discover your motivation, and tune into no matter psychological state is perhaps accompanying it. For instance, is anxiousness, competitiveness or envy current? These psychological states can operate as filters. How would it not be to follow the yoga that’s truest in your physique on this second, relatively than making an attempt to satisfy some expectation of what a “excellent” pose seems to be like?
• As a trainer, honesty with our college students is essential. This implies admitting you don’t know the reply to a query for those who really don’t understand it. In fact, you may analysis the coed’s query and report again later for those who’ve give you a solution. You can too discover the query alongside along with your scholar by asking them pertinent questions on why they’re asking, what they’re feeling, and so on. Even after 40-plus years of follow, I’m properly conscious that I do know solely a fraction of what there may be to learn about yoga. Admitting that you simply don’t know is a chance to study extra.

Satya Is a Lifelong Observe

As with all follow, we might falter in our dedication to satya once in a while. Discover once you really feel tempted to shade the reality. And provides your self a pat on the again once you chorus from doing it. As you follow and turn into extra expert at figuring out and talking the reality, you’ll uncover extra delicate manifestations of it. Generally, it’s possible you’ll have to chorus from talking till you understand for certain what your fact is—with out filters. That is all a part of the method, one that can enrich your relationships and result in a lifetime of simplicity and ease.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and people sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards in 2010.