Guest Post by Brenda McMahon
The Yamas & Niyamas, or 10 commandments of Yoga are a great tool to use as a guideline for how your mind is acting each and every day and when and where you should pay attention. The second Yama is Satya, which is a commitment to truthfulness. Satya is based on the understanding that honest communication and action form the bedrock of any healthy relationship or community and that deliberate deception, exaggerations and mistruths harm others.
This is a powerful yama to explore. First, it is important to note that always ‘speaking the truth’ is not always desirable it if will harm someone unnecessarily. For example, if you think my green dress is ugly, telling me the truth will probably cause more harm than keep you aligned with truthfulness. Honesty should not come into conflict with the first yama, Ahimsa or non-harming.
Deceit leads to a great deal of pain. Instead of having an affair, it would be better if a partner honestly talks about what is going on in the relationship before the affair occurs. Unfortunately, life does not always work that way. The obvious mistruths and big lies are easy to spot, but the more slight ones, perhaps that led to the bigger lies, are more of a challenge.
In yoga, it is believed that everything that happens is an opportunity to learn and grow in your own awareness. Satya is an exploration of a buildup of untruths, often unconsciously spoken, that leads to relationship difficulty.
In my past relationship, I was uncomfortable in my role as the one who paid all the bills, but I never said anything about it. That ‘not speaking the truth’ led to resentment, which led to fights, which led to greater difficulties. ‘He doesn’t share the burden’ became my mantra. But the truth is I allowed this to occur by my silence. Sometimes Satya is as simple as saying ‘this does not feel right’. That inner voice that tells you what is true and that you promptly ignore is an expression of not practicing Satya.
If you are in the midst of a relationship breakdown, where did you not practice satya? What truth did you ignore and how many were there? Did the ignorance of that truth, force another bigger non-truth to set in? Did your spouse act on that larger non-truth? Are you blaming him or her for that action without acknowledging your complicity in that non-truth? These are the more complex explorations of Satya.
Like an onion, we can peel away our understanding of Satya. Truthful speaking also means watching the ‘way’ you speak and to do so without judgment. Language is a powerful tool and a few words can have a lasting harmful affect if they are not spoken with care and thoughtfulness – in the spirit of Ahimsa. When we speak at the office if a job was done incorrectly, it is all in the presentation. That same information can come across with clarity and non-judgment or it can come across as an attack and an assault.
Satya is often speaking truthfulness, but with careful attention to how that truthfulness is articulated. A yoga instructor will not say ‘you’re doing that wrong’, instead she will say ‘it might be helpful if you straighten your legs while in this pose’.
As you explore Satya today, consider where you have not or are not being honest within yourself. Where are you not speaking your truth? When you speak, how do you use your words in the world, at work, with your children or to your spouse during these trying times? This is yoga, you can do it anywhere, anytime. You can pay attention to how you greet (or don’t greet) the cashier and to how you are truthful, or hold back from that honesty. Attend to the second Yama Satya and explore the power of language.
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Brenda McMahon is a full-time Ceramic Artist traveling nationally & internationally showing her artwork and teaching clay workshops. She creates meditative porcelain vessels and Yoga Oms in her private studio. Brenda is a passionate student of metaphysics and has been a Yogi for 10 years.
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