Thou shalt not lie
I was raised in a family where there was not much worse you could do than to tell a lie. Perhaps because my childhood fear of being “caught” in a lie made me disinclined to risk telling one, when I discovered that the second guiding principle of yoga’s philosophy was satya (YS 2.36) or truthfulness, I thought, “No worries! I’ve got that one in the bag. Thanks, Mom and Dad!”
Come to find out, it’s not quite that simple. While watching out for those moments when we are tempted to lie to others is absolutely important to satya, it’s just the starting point for a practice that gets very nuanced very quickly. As easy as it can be to be aware of when you’re being dishonest with a friend or loved one, it can be much more difficult to tell when you’re being dishonest with yourself. Let me tell you a story that might help you see what I mean.
Introducing Amy-the-Yoga-Lady
Once upon a time, a girl fell in love with yoga. She loved yoga so much that it quickly became all she thought about. In fact, it was all she wanted to learn about, so she signed up for a teacher training program. Soon, not only did the girl only want to think about and learn about yoga, but it became the thing she most loved to talk about, so she decided to put that to good use and began to teach.
She taught a lot. She taught a lot for a very long time. She thought about yoga, learned about yoga, and taught about yoga to so many people for so long that when she met people in her small town, they would often say, “Oh! You’re Amy-the-Yoga-Lady.” And so she was.
Until, one day, out of the clear blue, the girl’s small town (and in fact the whole wide world) was stricken by a very bad, very contagious illness. The girl had to close her studio because it was not safe for her students to practice together. Without warning, even though she still loved yoga and still loved to think about and to learn about yoga, teaching yoga was no longer something she did.
One day, while the girl was walking her dogs, a person in town waved to her and said, “How are you doing? You must miss teaching yoga an awful lot.” The girl waved back but found herself speechless. The person’s question had revealed a truth that the girl had not allowed herself to consider in the months that her studio had been closed: was it possible that SHE DID NOT MISS TEACHING YOGA?
The truth can be obscured by some of what seems to make you YOU
The truth, it turns out, can be hidden by our talents, by our interests, and by what we’ve “always done.” The truth can be hidden by our deep desire to continue to share our gifts with people we care about. The truth can be hidden by our fear of not knowing who we are if we stop being who we used to be. The girl, it turns out, needed to take a deep dive into satya to find out if it was possible that she might not be Amy-the-Yoga-Lady any longer.
If you haven’t figured it out already, I am the girl in the story. Realizing that my answer to that lovely person’s question was not, “Yes! I miss teaching yoga so much,” but was precisely the opposite scared the heck out of me. As I pondered the question, I realized that not a cell in my body wanted to return to teaching 14+ yoga classes a week. Yet, as clear as I was about this, I was entirely unclear about what I wanted to do instead. This was also terrifying.
Practicing truthfulness with and about yourself can be a leap into the unknown
Satya, it turns out, can be difficult and uncomfortable. I don’t know when I stopped being Amy-the-yoga-lady. I don’t think I was ever pretending to be her. I think, instead, my truth was revealed rather suddenly when my life (and the whole world around me) changed so dramatically. But, once I saw that I had changed, there was no denying that it was truth.
More than twenty years after I first decided that satya was a no-brainer, I see now that part of an ongoing practice of truthfulness is allowing our truths to change and grow as we change and grow. It turns out that satya is not for the faint of heart. I am deeply grateful that I girded my proverbial loins and persevered because satya has drawn me toward more freedom and fulfillment than Amy-the-yoga-lady ever imagined. I’m willing to bet it can do the same for you, too.
Satya is the state of mind free of lies and untruths. The mind is like a computer, and telling lies or untruths (or simply old information that used to be true) to oneself or others is like putting wrong information into the computer. The data becomes corrupted, the system bogs down, and the computer eventually crashes. Making a conscious effort to remove lies and untruths from the mind creates satya and helps the mind to stay balanced and clear. – YS 2.30 as translated and taught by Alan Finger