Satya, Truth

"All the joy the world contains has come through wishing happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains has come through wanting pleasure for oneself"

Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva
Shambala Publication, Inc.
ISBN 1-57062-253-1

Truth is the second Yama, and just as difficult to follow as Non-harming. Truth can seem to be a relative thing - when one clings to false views, ego, or is ignorant of certain facts a situation can seem to be one way when it is in fact completely different. How many times recently have we heard in the news that an innocent man has been freed from prison or even from death row by the new miracle of DNA evidence which has shown that he could not possibly have committed a terrible crime? We so easily jump to conclusions based on appearances, assumptions, preconceptions when keeping an open mind and making a careful evaluation of all arguments would be best.

In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, it is ignorance (avidya) that is the root of all other afflictions, or kleshas. These five kleshas are the cause of future suffering:

avidya - ignorance/lack of knowlege - if you know nothing, you fear everything. How can you make a reasonable decision without knowlege of your subject? How can you deal with people if you don't try to know them? Conflicts occur because of fear; get to know others, fear disappears, conflicts disappear.

asmita - ego/I am-ness - if you always think only of yourself and never of others you may often find yourself making others angry with you. Learning to put yourself in someone else's shoes and understanding how they feel before you say or do something can help you prevent misunderstandings and promote better relations with your family, friends, and coworkers.

raga - attachment, passion, desire - clinging to much to things or people in a negative manner can drive them away. It is one thing to love someone so much that you will protect them from harm, but quite another to smother them so they cannot grow as human beings. That old saying "if you love something, set it free" is a truism on non-attachment. Besides, the result may delight you even more as those you love flower into new and more beautiful versions of themselves!

dvesha - aversion, dislike - there are always things you dislike, but to allow this to rule yourself and control how you behave causes you to suffer even if you do not recognize this. Hatred breeds fear and changes how others view you, particularly how the object of your dislike or hatred views you. It may even change how your friends view you if they think your view is unreasonable. Consider those who are controlled by phobias - they are controlled by aversions to heights, the outdoors, using elevators, etc. to the point of nausea and inability to function. Others are controlled by a fear or hatred of certain ethnic groups or skin colors or religions. These people tend to separate themselves from society as a whole and become quite dangerous to others.

abhinivesha - will to survive, fear of death - this may seem like a reasonable thing to maintain, everyone wants to live, but taken to extremes people again become simply fearful and cannot function joyfully. How can you live in the moment if you are constantly living in fear of death? Everyone and everything must die one day so why not fully live? Few things brought this home for me more acutely than the great duct tape run - everyone was encouraged to go out and buy plastic sheets and duct tape to make a little safe room in their homes to keep out anthrax and poison gas in case of a terrorist attack. So many Americans immediately ran out to their local hardware stores and bought every bit of plastic and duct tape they could. The people who make duct tape and plastic made alot of money, the hardware stores made alot of money, the shareholders made alot of money, alot of people were scared out of their wits. There was no terrorist attack, but even if there had been, would those preparations have done any good? Years ago, in Bhopal India, a terrible accident at a chemical plant in the middle of the night killed thousands of sleeping families. No one had any warning.

It makes no sense to fear death. Be present in your life now. The Truth will always be there whether it is spoken or not. The Truth cannot be hidden.

Ahimsa, non-harming

Ahimsa, the principle of not harming others, is a difficult practice and one that many think to be impossible to follow. But some have practiced ahimsa successfully; The Buddha, The Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, numerous Saints from many religious traditions, and even secular ones have all managed to live peacefully and co-exist with others even in the face of death.

So how to begin this practice? A Buddhist practice of Vipassana Insight Meditation teaches that first one must begin with oneself. As applied to your Yoga practice, notice your breathing; does it remain slow, steady, and measured? Or does it become shallow and ragged? Uneven? How do your muscles feel in each posture? Do your joints feel strain? Is your weight distributed evenly? Use your powers of observation to adjust your posture, shift your weight, change your breathing accordingly and you will become more comfortable in your practice.

When you get tired, stop and rest! Following the traditional guidelines, do not force your body to do more than you are capable of in each practice session. You should be able to master the first Sun Salutation fully before attempting the second (and be able to perform five to ten in a row). Once you can do this six days in a row with one day off (resting on your back for at least five minutes before going about your day), add on to your practice).

Be sure to notice how you feel throughout your day as well as the next morning. If you feel thoroughly trashed, you know you did too much and should do less the next day. Don't be harmful to yourself by overworking your body, you will only end up making yourself sick or injured. It is better to do less and increase gradually than to do too much and set yourself back.

Once you have mastered the principle of being non-violent with yourself, you can begin to practice this with those you love - your family, your friends. Surely you remember times (holiday meals, stressful times....) when someone said something that escalated out of control and somehow people ended up not speaking to each other for a time. By looking deeply into your own heart first and then by being able to put yourself into another's heart before engaging the mouth one can practice slowing down and finding other ways of expressing concepts that are less harmful and disturbing. By looking at patterns which lead up to conflict and learning to defuse the patterns, one can avoid the conflict entirely! Moving on to those you are merely acquainted with, having neutral feelings for is the next step.

Having mastered this, one can then attempt the most difficult practice of all: focusing on those who hate or do violence. This is truly the path of divine love. Feeling love for those who hate you is not a practice for beginners. It may take many years of meditation at the level of the self before you can begin to move to the level of friends and family, but less time to move up to acquaintances. But loving those who have hate against you, especially if you ever lost a loved one to such a person requires a heroic effort.

This is why Ahimsa is the first Yama, or Limb, of Ashtanga Yoga. It is the most important leaf on the Limb of the Tree of Life; without it, the Tree withers and dies. With it, the Tree bears beautiful flowers and fruits which feeds the human family and sends a wonderful fragrance into the air while giving us shade and shelter.