Satya is the second Yama in the method proposed by Patanjali. It represents the truth.
There is no word that has such an elastic meaning as this one. For every human being on the planet there is a truth by which they are guided, this happens because nobody really knows it.
Perhaps the true sense of truth in this method is related to not lying, avoiding hypocritical behavior, assuming one's nature, not creating masks to adjust to external demands, and so on. To believe that something as powerful and unknown as the Truth is part of the behavior of a raja yoga practitioner is utopian. Truth is the end and not the means.
Pilate asked what the Truth is for Jesus and he did not answer, nor could he. Jesus would not find resources with our poor language to explain something that cannot be explained with words. It is not possible for a blind person to know yellow, nor is it possible for a sighted person to explain what yellow is.
The truth is in another instance, it cannot be reached by the human mind, it has to be experienced. Those who talk about the Truth don't know it and those who know don't talk. To know the Truth is really to free yourself, to break the shackles of ignorance that hold us in the body-mind reality to reach it within ourselves.
There are many merchants of truth that guarantee fulfillment through the maps they have, but you have to be very careful. We will always be exposed to the charms of magic flutes, leading us like mice out of the inner village where our goal lies. The villain in the Brothers Grimm tale is the Pied Piper, not the mice.
But for those who seek to follow the path of self-realization, observing Satya, meditating around a behavior consistent with one's own nature, is already of great help.
Low self-esteem induces the human being to create a false self, as primitive group instincts compel him to do so. There is a need to be approved, to be accepted, and often to be revered, so using a varnish is almost natural.
Satya advocates a change, it is necessary to review, through self-enquiries, our true needs. To what extent do I need the other's approval? To what extent should I care about the evaluations they make of me?
As long as we live with saucers in hand in search of acceptance, affection, affection, respect, we will be far from this precept.
Man needs to discover that he is not a vessel waiting to be filled with people or things, everything he needs to have he already has, everything he needs to be already is, simple as that. The great challenge is to get rid of all the conditioning and false truths that structured this anachronistic and destructive emotional program.
“You will know the Truth and it will set you free” said the master. Until we free ourselves, the path proposed by Patanjali, with all these ethical prescriptions, including the adoption of Satya, follows as a safe and real roadmap. By the way, Raja Yoga means Union with its own essence through reality.
