Satya = Truth

As life circumstances are brought into greater focus the truth becomes more complex and a greater inconvenience it often proves to be.

Satya is the Sanskrit word for truth and is the second yama behind ahimsa. The yamas are a means of restraint and moral conduct which constitute the first limb (anga) of Ashtanga Yoga. They are the principles one first encounters when on the yogic path.

The word sat refers to “that which exists” or “that which is.” Satya therefore is seeing reality as it is, not as we want it to be. It’s being sincere in our communication and up front about what we know and don’t know. Whereas lies complicate and deaden the interactions between people, truthfulness respects the intrinsic worthiness of another and gives greater power to our words and actions.

These five yamas are the foundation of classical yoga in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

YOGA SUTRA 2.36

Satya-pratiṣthāyāṁ kriyā-phala-āśrayatvam.

When one is firmly established in truthfulness, actions begin to bear fruit.

Gandhi was well known to have channeled the yamas in his efforts to liberate India from the British, and it’s quite impressive what he accomplished with just the practical application of such basic tenets. He was often quoted as saying his “commitment was to truth, not to consistency,” which imbues the truth with a certain relativism that isn’t often appreciated because we think of consistency as being a primary characteristic of truth. But what was true ten years ago may not provide the same assurances today, and what is true for us certainly does not hold true for others. Truth is more a moving target than an unwavering set of conditions to which we align our actions, thoughts and speech. It’s seldom “just the facts” as our lower minds would like to think.

We find as life circumstances are brought into greater focus the truth becomes more complex and a greater inconvenience it often proves to be. Truthfulness requires a sobering honesty that while regarded as virtuous will inevitably test the social contract and violate personal boundaries, where there is often an unspoken agreement to avoid confrontation and let sleeping dogs lie. Truth is often averted in favor of words less affecting because the ways in which we've been socialized makes it more acceptable to dodge the truth instead of dealing with it head on. The propensity to lie stems from an unconscious desire for circumstances to be different from what they actually are. Hence dvesha, a Sanskrit word which describes an aversion towards “that which is” and proves to be one of the main obstacles on the yogic path.

When we encounter those whose worldview is corrupted by dvesha, we assume all it would take to “get them back on track” is to present them with the logical progression of “facts” as we understand them. But we increasingly come upon those whose incoherent logic is so deeply embedded that their “truth” becomes their own personal coping mechanism. Covid was a hoax. The Earth is flat. The Earth is 6,000 years old. The election was stolen. The holocaust never happened. The moon landing was faked, and so on. This trait has its origins in pre-rational cognition, a vestige of Dark Age thinking which has yet to resolve itself in the face of reason and modernity.

The cost of this is lack of trust and a regress of civilization, for where there is no truth there is no trust. Where there is no trust there is no connection. Connection is required to have well functioning societies and any semblance of social cohesion. The deterioration of social cohesion we see in the world today comes about as the world is flooded with lies on a scale that is truly unimaginable. As we are washed over with junk information and the fetishizing of opinions we must contend with the paradox that there is no consensus on truth, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be. This proves quite unsettling as we go about our day with the basic assumption that there are certain universally held axioms that serve as guide rails to steer humanity towards salvation and provide an epistemological foundation to our life as lived. “Our truth” poses as our comfort and security. But this is also how it can become so easily distorted, as our deepest commitments are ultimately not to truth but to our preservation of self. Truth without the practical applications towards making money, elevating status, getting laid, bettering health, etc. seems valueless and is why it’s in such low demand.

People go to extraordinary lengths to suppress or avoid truth because societies are built on fictions and lies. This makes truth a costly value and is why it is exalted as the highest possible index of one’s character. “Honesty is the best policy,” we are taught. Yet when applied to real world circumstances, we know speaking the truth could get us fired from our job, kicked out of school, cast out from our friend group, divorced from our spouse, bullied in the media, imprisoned by governments, or killed by corporate hitmen. “S/he spoke truth to power,” they applaud. To live in this world is to weigh what we assume our highest values to be against perceived threats to our reputation and survival. It often proves more convenient to surrender our truth and tow the company line, drink its kool-aid, accept marching orders and get on with business as usual. This tension between our idealized self-image and the downward pull of societal expectations creates one of the greatest existential conflicts in all human experience, with our personal truth as the value of exchange.