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 apply impeccable honesty in our ideas, phrases and deeds. The Buddha positioned truthfulness on the basis of his 5 precepts (non-harming, truthfulness, non-stealing, sensible use of sexuality, and refraining from intoxicants that cloud the thoughts). Truthfulness can also be a step alongside the Eightfold Path.

I’ll begin this submit with a disclosure. I’ve been laying aside writing about satya (truthfulness) for a number of years. It’s not as a result of I don’t assume it’s an vital topic. It’s usually because I really feel that it’s critically vital and I wish to be sure I symbolize it with the gravity and respect it deserves, inside the bounds of a shortish weblog submit. Practising satya appears to be extra vital than ever in lately of widespread disinformation—and the best way it has harmed our nationwide dialog. On this submit, I’ll focus on satya as each an intention and as a apply.

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

Truthfulness as a Basis

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

Many individuals will not be educated to know discern between fact and opinion, or between fact and fiction. This has resulted in media shoppers retreating into their corners, complicated opinion with reality, and selling unfounded conspiracy theories that demonize the “different.” We not share a standard basis of agreed-upon fact.

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

This will occur in interpersonal relationships as effectively. Our private relationships could be a laboratory for practising impeccable truthfulness. Most significantly, this contains our relationship with ourselves.

Shades of Satya

Practising satya in our lives just isn’t as simple as it would sound. The apply, after all, contains refraining from apparent untruthfulness, comparable to making up tales out of complete material. Satya additionally contains not committing lies of omission, fact shading or exaggeration. There are occasions after we could 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 method or one other. We’d like not choose ourselves for these lapses. In some methods, they’re a part of studying be extra truthful.

Practising truthfulness simplifies our lives and results in higher equanimity. Mark Twain stated, “For those who inform the reality, you don’t have to recollect something.” Have you ever ever advised a lie after which needed to make up a bunch of different tales to help it? After which, you must keep in mind what you advised 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 could be delicate, and even unintentional. It’s because we don’t all the time acknowledge the filters of notion that we layer over the reality. We could stand by a selected opinion piece just because it bolsters our views. Or within the case of an early romance, we could ignore an unflattering fact just because we don’t wish to see it. We might imagine we’re seeing a state of affairs clearly, however actually, the perceptions we use to outline ourselves and our world could also be performing as filters.

Satya and Mindfulness Observe

That is the place mindfulness is available in. Mindfulness apply provides us the talents to see by way of our filters—our deeply held beliefs and perceptions. Observing the habits of our personal minds helps us determine our psychological patterns and preferences. After we perceive what filters are retaining us from seeing a state of affairs clearly, we are able to start to see by way of them. This helps us make wiser selections.

This work could be humbling. It could actually shatter our concepts of who we’re. Typically the patterns we’ve chosen to nourish will not be flattering. However it’s all the time worthwhile to uncover them. First, seeing the place we’re liable to falter helps us generate empathy for the failings of others. Second, if we wish to dwell a lifetime of integrity, we’ve got to grasp the mechanisms that maintain us from clear seeing. Dwelling a lifetime of integrity and truthfulness results in higher ease.

Learn how to Observe Satya on the Yoga Mat

We are able to use our yoga apply and instructing as a laboratory for exploring satya. Listed here are a couple of ideas:

• Do you end up pushing past your physique’s limits whenever you’re in a category out of worry that your regular poses will not be “good” sufficient? Do you keep away from utilizing yoga props comparable to Yoga Blocks or Yoga Straps in school whenever you may be inclined to make use of them at residence? In that case, discover your motivation, and tune into no matter psychological state may be accompanying it. For instance, is anxiousness, competitiveness or envy current? These psychological states can operate as filters. How wouldn’t it be to apply the yoga that’s truest to your physique on this second, slightly than making an attempt to fulfill some expectation of what a “excellent” pose seems to be like?
• As a instructor, honesty with our college students is essential. This implies admitting you don’t know the reply to a query in case you actually don’t realize it. In fact, you’ll be able to analysis the scholar’s query and report again later in case you’ve give you a solution. You too can 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 apply, I’m effectively conscious that I do know solely a fraction of what there’s to learn about yoga. Admitting that you just don’t know is a chance to be taught extra.

Satya Is a Lifelong Observe

As with every apply, we could falter in our dedication to satya infrequently. Discover whenever you really feel tempted to shade the reality. And provides your self a pat on the again whenever you chorus from doing it. As you apply and change into extra expert at figuring out and talking the reality, you’ll uncover extra delicate manifestations of it. Typically, it’s possible you’ll must 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 instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each printed 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 gained two Emmy awards in 2010.