Yogis,
Hot enough for you!
Whew! Slows you way down and gets
that sweat pouring. Everything in the
garden and behind my house now feels so full and alive. Summer has definitely arrived….. and with it, my butterfly weed.
Last week I spoke to the first of the yamas. Ahimsa.
In its simplest sense, non violence, but so much deeper. We are truly living ahimsa when the desire to
harm is no longer present. Where the
very idea of causing injury is inconceivable.
Treating everything and everyone as sacred – including ourselves. This is the bedrock of the yogic path.
Now we move to the second yama. Satya.
Truth.
Truth. Well that’s a
little simpler isn’t it? Or is it. The more I sat this week with the concept of
truth and the concept of living from a place of truth, the more complex it has
become.
Once again we have the simple definition. Not lying.
Not exaggerating, boasting or speaking things that are untrue. Pretty basic, but that all assumes we have
clarity as to what is true. So ask
yourself, what is true?
Now it’s not that I believe most people walk around
deliberately lying. But we tend to speak
what we “believe” to be true and that differs for each of us. We all have our perceptions and our newest talk
track often depends on what we heard on the news that morning, or what someone
“told us”. Our upbringing, economic
status, physical abilities and emotional state each put their own angle on how
we perceive life. Our different lens
that we view life from give all of us a
slightly distorted view. Like viewing
life through a kaleidoscope.
A book that I just finished happened to have a paragraph
that talked about the word truth. It
said that the words truth and tree both originally come from the same root
word. So truth is simply a deeply rooted
belief. But these can change as our
life situation changes, or we mature, or there are new “findings”. What we clung to as truth no longer fits and
we shift.
The world is flat. Oh
no, sorry it is round. Low fat is the
best diet. Oh gosh sorry, we need fat so
eat plenty of avocados and nuts. Stay
out of the sun. Darn, what we really
meant is get at least 10 minutes a day to keep your vitamin D up. And so on.
So back to my original question……what is true? How can we live from a place of truth?
I searched further and I found one definition of truth that
began to make some sense to me. “Truth
is that which is unchangeable.” Now that
begins to feel right.
So I have been asking the Universe what are those things
that are true, that are unchangeable.
The one that keeps coming back to me is “spirit” or “self”. I talk often to how we are each one unique
spark of the universal energy. And we
are each perfect. We are ALL born open,
loving and special and it is only life’s layering on us that causes us to
question that. But that inner self, the
one that you can feel and touch when you close your eyes and go inward, that
part that feels exactly the same now as it did when you were 8 years old – that
never changes. That is your place
of truth.
Yoga is a journey that helps us peel back the layers of life
to reconnect and live again from that space.
I can say that every time I finish my daily meditation or my asana
practice, I feel closer to truth then I did when I started. But then it slips away. So I do it over and over and over. Inching my way closer and closer to source.
The other times I feel truth knocking on my door is when I
am connected to nature, music or writing.
These are the times I am the most present. Where I shift from the thinking mind to the
feeling mind. I don’t believe that the
thinking mind is capable of deciphering
truth for us, nor is it meant to.
Satya is felt in the body.
I have a baby bunny living in my backyard who spends most of
her day in my garden. The other night
when I went out she hopped right over and let me take her picture. The love and connection I felt with her at
that moment was satya. How could you
possibly look into those eyes and not see truth…..
I see each and every one of you,
SARAH
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