I am a bit late for my entry this week, I apologize.
The second Yama is Satya. Satya is truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, genuineness. Here is the sutra on Satya from Patanjali:
satyapratisthayam kriyaphalasrayavam
satya truth, sincerity, genuineness, honesty
pratisthayam firmly established
kriya action
phalah results
asrayatvam substratum, foundation, dependence
"When the sadhaka (practitioner) is firmly established in the practice of truth, his words become so potent that whatever he says comes to realization."
When I read this, I observed the goosebumps permeate my entire body. Not only because, holy crap, it's true, but because it resonated so much with what I am personally struggling with in my life right now, this week.
BKS Iyengar's interpretation of this sutra is none short of brilliant. He says, "If the stated intention is totally whole-hearted, not one cell dissembling, then we create the reality we desire. It is not our mind, but the inner voice of our cells which has the power to implement our intentions."
So, yeah, remember those goosebumps I talked about? They were more like goose-mountains when I finished reading that sentence. I re-read it over and over again, as it made so much sense to me, but I didn't really understand it intellectually (which is, ironically, what the sutra is telling me to avoid doing). It reminded me of my 5-week experience at Canada's National Voice Intensive. In short, the Voice Intensive is a deep exploration of the physical body and the voice, and how we may fully breathe into each experience and simply be, rather than organize or intellectualize it. I think this is in essence what this sutra is on about. Or, at least, what Iyengar's interpretation is on about. When do we really allow our bodies to tell us the truth? Our mind may say one thing, but our bodies tell us differently. If we really tap into what our body, our cells, are telling us, and we act with impulse and our body's intuition, then we are really being our truth.
How do we manifest our dreams into reality?
As a Pisces, with a so-called "water triangle" in my astrological chart, I struggle with this question every day. I have no problem dreaming my butt off about this or that, but when it comes to sharing those dreams, or making those dreams a reality, I could use a bit of assistance. That's why this sutra so deeply resonated with me. This sutra tells me that in order to create my desired reality, I have to simply be truthful. Iyengar goes further than this by telling me that in order to create my desired reality, I must fully embody my truth, not just in my mind, but in my cells. If every cell in my body is not fully on board with what I want, chances are lower that I will get what I want. Once again, the real truth of this Yama is deeper than what superficially meets the eye. Someone reading about Satya for the first time might think, "oh, so, don't tell lies. Say what you mean." Well, yes, this is true. But there's being "truthful" and then there's being truthful. What would it be to speak the absolute truth, speak everything our cells were experiencing, for one week?
I'll be honest, I didn't do that. In fact, that is one of my main motivators for writing. I had an experience this week that really brought home the concept and practice of Satya. I'll just come clean about something I'm struggling with in my life these days. Here it goes- I'll share my cells with the blogosphere. If I am in the presence of someone I find attractive, I observe my body retreating into sleep mode. I completely freeze up, something with the texture akin to cottonballs gets caught in my throat, I feel everything tighten, and I can't really speak at all, let alone let the person know what I feel about them. Yikes. So, here I am at Cornerstone Café the other day, sitting next to a young man that I've had several pleasant interactions with at this point. He came up to me several weeks back, introduced himself, said he recognized me from the shop. Anyway, here he is sitting next to me, we exchange a few words, laughs. It suddenly comes into my awareness that I could, at this point, ask this person out for a drink. I sit with that for a moment. A moment turns into a few moments, a few moments turn into an hour. I sit with this idea, the concept of this action that would undoubtedly alter my self-perception, perhaps make me feel awkward for a moment, but in the end, due to my capacity to release attachment to these situations, ultimately add jet-fuel to my somewhat punctured self-esteem around this issue. This action wants so badly to propel forward, but somehow I can't muster up the courage to turn around, face this person, and speak what I want to say, so it sits there. And this horrible feeling comes over my body, that I'm on the cusp of turning 27, and I still feel like a 12 year old girl when in these situations. My mind is racing, telling me things like, "Lisi, if you don't get up the courage to do this, you're going to get old with the knowledge that you lived your life in fear" and several other debilitating thoughts like that. Sara Bareilles' song Brave came to my mind, particularly the lyric:
"Don't run, stop holding your tongue.
Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live,
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in..."
That was a good description of what I have felt in these situations: like I'm in a cage. I feel like the terrified child I used to be, afraid of everything around me that moved, debilitated by anxiety. I overcame all my fears from when I was four years old: this is not really all that different. How did I overcome those fears? I wasn't tossed off the deep end and expected to swim, but I was gently encouraged to face my fears, one by one, and eventually overcame them. This is really no different.
Obviously the universe was trying to tell me something that morning, because while I was sitting there, stuck in my cage, another man I find very attractive came into the café. The funny thing about this was that I have never seen this person come into the café. I have only ever seen him and interacted with him in front of his house. I very much want to tell this person I find him attractive, even though I know he has a girlfriend. But I know that I want to express these things not because I have an attachment to the outcome, but because I want to feel empowered to say these things when I feel them. Through telling other people I find them attractive, I tell myself that I am attractive. But here I was, in the same room as two men I find attractive, stuck in my chair, unable to move.
So, what does this have to do with Satya, you ask? Good question. Well, I realized that Satya is basically the law of attraction: I attract that which I am. If I embody my truth, fully believing it to be true, not one cell dissembling, I will undoubtedly attract what I want into my life. This idea took me through a journey, then, of what my cells were actually telling me. I know intellectually that I'm attractive, that of course I am worthy of being happy and being loved. But what do my cells say? In those situations, my body goes into a state of fear, and, without even thinking about it, the thoughts that run through my body tell me I'm not good enough, for any number of bullshit-ridden reasons. Because most of my cells are telling me I'm not good enough, my body language is likely projecting that idea out there, and I'm telling the world "don't look here, you don't want this." That is when I realized that our thoughts become the way we are externally perceived. Holy crap.
When someone is truthful with their whole body, allow themselves to resonate in their truth, they may manifest whatever they express. If you are honest with yourself with what you want, and communicate it, you will probably make it happen. Perhaps not right away. But at some point, something will manifest. I have been on either side of this. Either I have communicated too much of what I think I want, before I've really checked in with the entirety of myself to see if its what I want, and have later regretted acting before I was sure. On the other hand, I'm honest with myself with what I want, but I can't communicate it. This is where I am with my situation in the café. Because I'm too scared to communicate what I want, nobody knows what I want. The truth that only resonates within a few of my cells would vibrate my whole body if I communicated it. Because I am fully being my truth. If its just my mind telling me I'm attractive, then most of my cells are communicating that I'm not. Ergo, my cells are vibrating that I'm not attractive. Those little bastards.
Perhaps just communicating what I want will get me there. If I fully believe in my whole being that I am attractive, then I will be attractive. But the only way I will fully believe it, I'm starting to realize, is if I go act on my impulses and go after what I want.
Unless all the cells in my body resonate with my truth, I am not being truthful.
I leave you with that for the week. In short, Satya is awesome.
Namaste,
Elysia
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