Satya

Satya literally means truth, but it is more than simply telling the truth or misrepresenting facts. Satya means to live our life according to spiritual values and in order to be able to do this we must be aware of our perceptions and their accuracy. If our perceptions are clouded by misinformation then how can we be truthful? We must cultivate our consciousness so that we can know when we are really coming from Sat, truth. Until we have cleared up all of the baggage that we have picked up throughout our lives we can not be fully acting from Satya.

A good measure in Satya is to always keep your word...to yourself and others. Know what you want and follow it through. Be true to yourself, be fully aware of who you are and how you act, what you say and what you think. Until you know yourself you can not be truly true towards yourself or others, and if you can't be true to yourself then you can't be true to others. Know when to offer the truth rather than blurting out information just because it is the truth. Sometimes it is wiser to be silent.

We generally only see a part of a whole picture, a subjective view. We should try to be detached and objective, that way we will be able to see things more from the whole perspective. We have no right to pass judgement unless we have the whole picture, if we do, then any judgements we make will be deluded or misinformed. We have to realise that our senses and our thinking are inconsistent and must make attempts to bring to our attention any such contradictions. Through this we will refine our position and advance towards our more spiritual and natural state.

We could look at oursleves as we do a computer. A computer picks up viruses and gets a bug in its programme. Until the bug is de-programmed then the system will not run efficiently. This is the same for us. We pick up bugs all through out our life, from when we were kids, at school, at work, from our parents and so on. They can vary greatly to someone saying how useless you are to not liking sprouts because you didn't like them when you were little. We are sculpted by all of this and they hinder us from acting from our true self and our full potential. Until we have de-programmed these 'bugs' our system will not run properly.

Here are some questions that you can ask yourself to see what your relationship is like with Satya...

How aware of myself am I?

Do I see life through the make-up of what has happened to me in my life?

Am I aware of any of this baggage?

Or do I perceive my self as not really having any and that everyone else is imperfect one and not me?

Do I act in accordance to who I really am?

Am I truthful to myself in the sense that I do not kid myself into not minding when I really do mind?

Do I do things that I do not really want to do?

Am I honest to other people?

Do I tell the truths or do I tell harmless truths?

Do I misrepresent facts when relaying them to others?

Do I keep my word?

Do I judge situations so that I tell the right truth?

Am I aware enough of people and the environment so that I am able to judge circumstances and situations correctly?

Am I detached enough so that I can be objective and get clear pictures of things?

Am I true to the extent that I know that I have risen above my bestial nature and act in accordance to my true spiritual nature?

Is truthfulness best if it hurts someone I care about?