Satya is translated as “Truthfulness.” In what ways are we dishonest? What “counts” as being less-than-truthful?
According to Patañjali … everything. If we are to attain the highest practice of yoga, called Samadhi (like the Buddhist “enlightenment”), then we have to be in complete unity and harmony with the Prana.
I have started to think about it like this: Yoga is a mind-science whose goal is to bring us into total and perfect alignment. (The root for “yoga” literally minds to yoke or bind … in this case: bind the mind, body and spirit to one another.) If I am dishonest, my mind knows I am being dishonest. It is the part that tells the lie, right? However subtle or “harmless,” the mind knows it’s lying, and that knowing creates an obstacle.
Of course, maybe you think of it differently. I’d love to know!
Contemplation
Are there ways in which you’re less-than-truthful? Carry a journal around throughout the day — or use the notes app in your phone — and just try to track times when you aren’t purely truthful.
There are the overt things: You told someone you were busy when you really just didn’t feel like talking. You told your boss you were stuck in traffic when you really just overslept.
And then there are the subtle things. The little stuff that slides by without even noticing. From smiling and nodding when someone says something incorrect (or bothersome) to saying you’re full when you’re not. Maybe even as insignificant as telling your dog you’ll be right back when you know you won’t be.
It all counts
…because it all separates your mind (the one doing the lying) from your spirit (which can only be truth).
Will any of us ever live perfectly, fully truthful lives in every millisecond of every day? Maybe not. But it’s possible to be aware and to decide rather than to mindlessly stumble through life.
Meditation : Reflection
In this week’s guided meditation, we reflect on what is really going on for each of us in the moment. Really. Do you ever sit to meditate and find that you’re actually just quietly thinking? Ruminating on what you have to do after this or about something that got under your skin earlier?
Honestly, I find in my own meditation practice that I spend a lot of time thinking about how to teach whatever it is that’s going on for me. Weird, right?
How about you?
Practice : Vinyasa
What does it mean to have a truthful Vinyasa practice? I think it primarily means radically embracing and accepting where you are. Without filter or judgement. One day, that might mean that your balances are open and you’re super flexible. Another day, however, you might spend a considerable amount of your practice in child’s pose.
I went through a phase where I just couldn’t come into my headstand. It’s always been a fairly easy pose for me (there are plenty that aren’t!), but I just couldn’t balance. After a few classes, I asked my teacher, and she gave me some pointers … but until then, I had to just accept that I wasn’t going to come up “today,” and work like a beginner. Honestly, in those classes, I was a beginner!
What are the poses you try to muscle? Which ones do you arrive in with ease?
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