3/20/15
Satya (Sanskrit: सत्य) literally means truth, reality. It also refers to a virtue in Indian religions, referring to being truthful in one's thought, speech and action. In Yoga, satya is one of five yamas, the virtuous restraint from falsehood and distortion of reality in one's expressions and actions.
Wikipedia
Living In Truth
I have been spending a great deal of time lately contemplating satya and its importance in the landscape of life. First of all, it is a beautiful word. Elegant, fun to say, and it reminds me of one of my favorite professors from college, Satya Mohanty. However, part of the complexity of satya is that it isn’t earthly in a way. Seemingly, more it is the glue that binds us. Consciousness is predicated, in a way, on this mutual agreement that we will see and enact and speak our truths as best we can and in doing so progress in the awkward ambling we call life.
In particle physics, they talk about how the majority of the universe is seemingly bound by a cosmic glue called the "God particle" or the Higgs boson. It exists, thankfully, and appears to keep the universe from falling apart. In my mind, the parallel is noteworthy. Without the lens of truth as a virtue, reality becomes relative, relative to the point of chaos. Anyone can say anything. But because truth binds us somehow, we differentiate, learn and progress. For example, in the pursuit of truth we mutually discovered and then agreed upon the fact that the earth is indeed round, thus discovering satya. It was there all along.
Truth is an exchange. As humans, we have sought a collective understanding through our senses and our language. It seems we are hard-wired this way. Isn’t that the point and power of propaganda? If someone is able to control the narrative, distort it and shut down all dissenting voices, terrible things can happen. We know this from the story history tells.
Living in truth feels mostly like a calling, an ideal, a way of life, and I think, in most ways, the most difficult path to travel. For most of my life, I have been so focussed on the truths of others, hoping and believing that I could repair or somehow shield them from the most difficult parts of life’s journey. I failed and depleted myself 100% of the time. With afflictions such as depression and cancer out in the world, the task was unrealistic and misguided at the outset. In giving, I almost gave it all away. In giving, at times, I even obstructed the journey of those I loved. I would appease people with what I knew they wanted to hear rather than speak my own truth. Satya doesn’t seem to be just about saying truthful things. It also seems to be about knowing your heart and your truth and living in accordance with it. For me, that is the harder piece, but I am determined to stay on the path.
When I was a Junior in college, a friend of mine recommended a course entitled Literature as Moral Inquiry taught by a Professor named Satya Mohanty. The syllabus looked promising, books such as Beloved, A Passage to India, The Heart of Darkness, 100 Years of Solitude, Things Fall Apart, and Middlemarch. Looking back now, I can easily see how the reading list chosen by Professor Mohanty was a concentrated list of what have become the most important books of my life. Professor Mohanty was a soft-spoken, thoughtful man, who had been raised in India and educated in both India and the United States. He had an uncanny ability to pursue meaning and truth through the lens of literary inquiry. Ultimately, he became my advisor and one of the most influential teachers of my life. He taught me about Hegel and Derrida, about truth and beauty through language. Literary criticism is about deconstructing texts and never does it shy away from difficult questions about morality or truth and so within that context, there can be no repression.
Freud developed a theory of repression and called it "the corner-stone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests" ("On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement”). It seems that to repress desire or truth is ultimately intolerable to the structure of the brain. It causes onset of mental health issues and neurosis, the internal must become external. And when it does not, it seeps out in every direction, through dreams, impulsive actions, neurosis, anxiety, etc… We are biological programmed to live our truth. Freud seemed to believe that ultimately repression of true desire was incompatible with the ego. The basis of talk therapy is the engagement of the truth dialogue. In speaking honestly a patient comes to know themselves and accept their true desires and, in doing so, finds freedom and a path forward from mental afflictions.
Satya is imperative. Living in truth, it seems, no matter how difficult that truth may be, is as essential as the oxygen we breath because satya is what binds us together and leads us forward both collectively and individually. It is the only pathway toward becoming whole.
"The true is the whole."
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL, The Phenomenology of Spirit
Satya (Sanskrit: सत्य) literally means truth, reality. It also refers to a virtue in Indian religions, referring to being truthful in one's thought, speech and action. In Yoga, satya is one of five yamas, the virtuous restraint from falsehood and distortion of reality in one's expressions and actions.
Wikipedia
Living In Truth
I have been spending a great deal of time lately contemplating satya and its importance in the landscape of life. First of all, it is a beautiful word. Elegant, fun to say, and it reminds me of one of my favorite professors from college, Satya Mohanty. However, part of the complexity of satya is that it isn’t earthly in a way. Seemingly, more it is the glue that binds us. Consciousness is predicated, in a way, on this mutual agreement that we will see and enact and speak our truths as best we can and in doing so progress in the awkward ambling we call life.
In particle physics, they talk about how the majority of the universe is seemingly bound by a cosmic glue called the "God particle" or the Higgs boson. It exists, thankfully, and appears to keep the universe from falling apart. In my mind, the parallel is noteworthy. Without the lens of truth as a virtue, reality becomes relative, relative to the point of chaos. Anyone can say anything. But because truth binds us somehow, we differentiate, learn and progress. For example, in the pursuit of truth we mutually discovered and then agreed upon the fact that the earth is indeed round, thus discovering satya. It was there all along.
Truth is an exchange. As humans, we have sought a collective understanding through our senses and our language. It seems we are hard-wired this way. Isn’t that the point and power of propaganda? If someone is able to control the narrative, distort it and shut down all dissenting voices, terrible things can happen. We know this from the story history tells.
Living in truth feels mostly like a calling, an ideal, a way of life, and I think, in most ways, the most difficult path to travel. For most of my life, I have been so focussed on the truths of others, hoping and believing that I could repair or somehow shield them from the most difficult parts of life’s journey. I failed and depleted myself 100% of the time. With afflictions such as depression and cancer out in the world, the task was unrealistic and misguided at the outset. In giving, I almost gave it all away. In giving, at times, I even obstructed the journey of those I loved. I would appease people with what I knew they wanted to hear rather than speak my own truth. Satya doesn’t seem to be just about saying truthful things. It also seems to be about knowing your heart and your truth and living in accordance with it. For me, that is the harder piece, but I am determined to stay on the path.
When I was a Junior in college, a friend of mine recommended a course entitled Literature as Moral Inquiry taught by a Professor named Satya Mohanty. The syllabus looked promising, books such as Beloved, A Passage to India, The Heart of Darkness, 100 Years of Solitude, Things Fall Apart, and Middlemarch. Looking back now, I can easily see how the reading list chosen by Professor Mohanty was a concentrated list of what have become the most important books of my life. Professor Mohanty was a soft-spoken, thoughtful man, who had been raised in India and educated in both India and the United States. He had an uncanny ability to pursue meaning and truth through the lens of literary inquiry. Ultimately, he became my advisor and one of the most influential teachers of my life. He taught me about Hegel and Derrida, about truth and beauty through language. Literary criticism is about deconstructing texts and never does it shy away from difficult questions about morality or truth and so within that context, there can be no repression.
Freud developed a theory of repression and called it "the corner-stone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests" ("On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement”). It seems that to repress desire or truth is ultimately intolerable to the structure of the brain. It causes onset of mental health issues and neurosis, the internal must become external. And when it does not, it seeps out in every direction, through dreams, impulsive actions, neurosis, anxiety, etc… We are biological programmed to live our truth. Freud seemed to believe that ultimately repression of true desire was incompatible with the ego. The basis of talk therapy is the engagement of the truth dialogue. In speaking honestly a patient comes to know themselves and accept their true desires and, in doing so, finds freedom and a path forward from mental afflictions.
Satya is imperative. Living in truth, it seems, no matter how difficult that truth may be, is as essential as the oxygen we breath because satya is what binds us together and leads us forward both collectively and individually. It is the only pathway toward becoming whole.
"The true is the whole."
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL, The Phenomenology of Spirit
NACL- Sodium chloride- salt,a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions.
