Satya: Truthfulness

This second yama, Satya, deals with truthfulness of speech, thoughts, intentions and actions. Truthfulness (Satya) has a deeper meaning than just not telling lies.  It means that our attitude to others is marked with sincerity, integrity and authenticity, to use a term loved by existentialists. 

There is a also the deeper dimension expressed in the saying: “Truth is God, God is Truth.”

Practice: Honesty, owning feelings, loving communication, assertiveness, giving constructive feedback, forgiveness, non-judging, and letting go of masks.

“Satya is about living our truth: it is that simple.   There are many ways to do this, as there are people who practice Satya, and no one can tell you how you should listen for and find that truth within yourself.  It makes sense to talk things over with someone you truth, but the point of the discussion is to come closer to your truth, not to have someone relieve you of the responsibility of discerning your truth.  For some of us it is a long road back to our own truth, for we live in a culture in which truth is a rare commodity.  Our work environments, home lives, and friendships are often permeated with falsehood.   We distrust the slogans of the media, the promises of our leaders, the testimonials of politicians, the declarations of business people.  Many of us come from families in which appearances are more important than reality.  Still others have grown up in upside down households, in which children took care of parents or were expected to play prescribed roles in order to meet their parents’ needs.  Elaborate no-talk rules must be deconstructed.  Old fears must be released.  Habits of silence must be examined.  Are we failing to speak the truth out of a desire to protect or care for others?  How do we respond to information we know to be untrue?  How do we get in touch with what is true and good within ourselves?  The list of ways in which we have obscured the truth from others and ourselves is as endless as the suffering such obfuscation produces.

Before we begin this work, it can feel overwhelming.  But we are each possessed of an inner compass.  When we stand still in the wilderness and take our bearings. We are able to apprehend the truth—about ourselves and the world around us.  And once we commence the practice of Satya, we will never want to look back. We have only our suffering to lose.  As Plato said, “Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in heave and on earth: and he would be blessed and happy should be from the first a partaker of truth, for then he can be trusted.”  Over time you will have the pleasure of watching this beautiful practice blossom in your life in a way that is honest and authentic.  As we learn to speak the truth, you will learn to be true to yourself, to all that is best in you.”

 - Meditations from the Mat.

Brutal honesty as a weapon is not Satya

Honesty can be used as a weapon, so be careful to be COMPASSIONATE. It is not about being “right.” Love is higher than truth. “Brutal Honesty” is not truth. If LOVE directs how you use truth then you are practicing Satya. Ahimsa (non-violence) must be practiced with Satya.

Concepts and notions keep us from the truth, keep it murky. Learn to be accepting like a newborn baby. Don’t let Ego get in the way of Heart.

Telling the Truth: Satya 

Few things feel more like betrayal than a lie.

Like Ahimsa, this second yama, Satya, has many layers. A lie feels just as much as a betrayal as all other forms of violence. Pantajali guides us toward Satya in various ways. The first and most obvious is to tell the truth as best we can. This may not be as easy as it sounds.

Truth on a material level is always relative truth

Researchers have found that eyewitnesses to an event are notoriously unreliable. Amazingly, the more adamant the witnesses are, the more inaccurate they tend to be. Even this simple example shows that truth can be relative; we cannot really prove what happened five minutes ago. To speak the truth is to speak from a point of view.

Even trained scientists, whose job requires them to be completely objective and who study the most straightforward of events in nature, disagree on what they see and the interpretation of their results. 

So what does telling the truth, practicing the first level of satya,mean? It means that when given a choice (life is about choices) speak with the intention of being truthful. From this perspective, “truth” is filtered through our experience and beliefs about the world, but when we speak with the intention of speaking from truth, we have a better chance of not harming others.

Satya with Ahimsa:

A wise teacher once stated that nothing could be true if it was harmful to others. In other words, unless we speak first from ahimsa we are not practicing Satya. 

 Honesty vs Integrity (Inner Truth)

Another layer of Satya has to do with inner truth. This is the difference between honesty and integrity. Honesty or telling the truth, as best we can, is a more external practice. Integrity is an internal form of honesty. Honesty is what we do when others are around and might judge our actions or words. Integrity is to act in an honest manner when others are not around and will never know about our actions. Integrity is a deeper form of Satya. 

Eternal Unchanging Truth Beyond Knowing

A final way to think about the practice of Satya is to look more closely at the actual meaning of the word in Sanskrit. “Sat” means the eternal unchanging truth beyond all knowing. “Ya” is the activating suffix, which means, “Do it.” By this definition, satya means “actively expressing and being in harmony with the ultimate truth.”

When one is in this state of Eternal Truth one cannot lie or act in anyway untruthful because at that moment one is unified with pure truth itself. While we may only occasionally feel connected to this level of “truth,” it nonetheless is an important level of truth to understand.