Satya.

Satya is one of the five ethical principles of yoga, or yamas.  In brief, it means truthfulness, denying reality neither to ourselves nor others.  It goes deeper than simply telling the truth, which itself requires an understanding of what exactly truth is, but it also means seeing things for what that they are without the lens clouded by our own experiences and opinions.

Our expression of satya must be in line with the yama of ahimsa, or non-violence.  Though the truth itself might seem overwhelming, scary, depressing, cruel or violent, our sharing of truth must always be done with utmost compassion and understanding.  Our words must reflect reality, but possess the caring human element that reality often lacks.  Satya must serve a higher purpose, it must serve others and ourselves.

So, what is truth?  I think of truth as the baseline of reality, the flat line from which random spikes and valleys occur like a heartbeat on a monitor.  It is the unaffected stillness that runs through our lives and the world around us when untouched by opinion, untouched by judgment.  For example, a truth of life is that it ends.  Death itself is neither good nor bad, neither depressing nor joyful.  It is through our own experience of the event of death that it is given these adjectives.

This brings me to the topic of the Little White Lie.  Is it acceptable?  Perhaps.  Little White Lies as they are called are "lies" told for the benefit of others.  Sometimes, they might not be lies at all but simply the humble concession of opinion.  For example, the answer to the question "Does this outfit look bad?" can be "No" when you feel that indeed it does.  Satya here is maintained, because we have to realize that our opinions are not the truth, and if our opinion could hurt someone's feelings or insult them it would be against the philosophy of ahimsa.  The outfit doesn't actually look bad; it is just an outfit, and as such is neither good nor bad.

I was thinking about truth today, which is why I decided to write about it.  I had a bad day, but if someone asked me how my day was, I would have felt perfectly comfortable telling them it was great.

I took the kids to the library today, where my son was engaged in running full force around the children's area, smacking the aquarium, throwing tantrums, drawing all eyes on me while my daughter was doing who knows what because I couldn't keep an eye on both of them.  Deciding the library wasn't the right place for us today, I took them to the park where these bursts of energy and noise are not only better received, but are fully expected.

While at the park, I had to chase two toddlers running in various directions over potentially dangerous tall playground equipment that was a little too advanced for their ages.  I had to stop several attempts to run into the parking lot, to run in front of the kids swinging.  Then my daughter had to use the bathroom, which involved gathering them both up despite a horrific tantrum from a little boy terrified of the dark public restroom.  As I was covering the seat with toilet paper, I turned around to find two kids with their hands in a puddle on the public restroom floor.  The sink was too high to wash their hands, so I had to rinse soap off their hands by cupping water and splashing it on them because I couldn't complete the balancing act that would have been required to hold a child on a bent knee while trying to get the motion-sensitive water to turn on, reach the child over and help rinse his or her hands before the water shut itself off.  They enjoyed it; I didn't.

Finally, when it came time to leave the park I had to contend with tears from both children.  Mothers and caretakers at the park in a well-to-do neighborhood who had their noses otherwise buried in their cell phones turned their perfectly coiffed heads to watch us leave, my threenager pulling me back and screaming that she didn't want to go, my other toddler balanced on my hip trying to nosedive into the wood chips that lined the playground.

When we made it home after stopping at the grocery store, I found that my rescue cat who still maintained some bad habits from living in a cat hoarding situation had managed to get rotten raw chicken out of the garbage can and spread its odorous juices all over my kitchen floor.

My experience with today, the impatience, the exasperation, the exhaustion, the feeling of just wanting to throw my hands into the air and announce my surrender, were just peaks and valleys on the steady base line of my reality.

The reality is that we went to the library, we went to the park.  We went to the grocery store where we were able to comfortably afford fresh, nutritious food for dinner.  There is still a roof over our head, a kitchen to cook in, cats lounging comfortably in the windows.  So the day was a little difficult, a little messy, a little noisy.  I am deeply loved, and I deeply love.

Saying that my day was great really isn't a lie, is it?

Balance.

Balance is a still facade over the truth of constant effort.  To put our weight on a small point is to require consistent stabilizing movements from our muscles, who ripple and shift as our center of balance moves gently with the rhythm of our breath.  It is an act of will, to look into the eyes of gravity and accept the risk of stumbling and swaying, but remaining strong of body and of mind.

My yoga tonight took me through Virabhadrasana III, Garudasana, Ardha Chandrasana.  All of these asanas are one-legged balancing acts requiring a different center of balance.

Virabhadrasana III, or Warrior III, is a strong pose balanced on one leg with the opposite leg stretched strong behind while the core of the body and the arms are stretched in front.  I struggle here to find my center of balance:  My grounding foot rocks from side to side, my calf muscle tries to compensate for this weakness by rippling and swaying.  I try to keep my eye focused on something immobile in front of me, and I find soon that my entire sense of balance is carried in my vision.  Eagle Pose, or Garudasana, finds one leg wrapped around the other like ivy on a tree trunk, with one foot rooted strongly in the ground.  The grounded foot is at the end of a bent knee, the body is in a gentle standing seated position, the back is strong and stable.  The arms mimic the legs as they wrap around each other.  My center of balance here struggles as my back sways, my ankles rock.

In Ardha Chandrasana, or Half Moon Pose, the weight is again balanced on one foot, but the hips are open and the opposite leg opens outward so the outside of the foot is reaching for the sky.  The chest too is open, pointing out instead of down, and the arms are open with one hand reaching for the sky as the other brushes its fingers lightly against the mat.  The temptation to put weight on that hand and split the weight between the arm and the leg is great, but giving in would be detrimental to learning the delicate art of balance.

Here is where I crumble.  I find myself open and vulnerable in Half Moon, pulled in too many directions and I lose sight of my vision.  My heart feels open and my eyes feel closed; half of me is grounded and the other half is reaching into the clouds.  I fall backward, I lean forward onto my arm, I seek some kind of crutch as I find myself laughing at my inability to control myself, to even address the center of my balance.

All of a sudden, the time for Half Moon is over, and it becomes a small part of my past.  I don't know if I'm stronger and more balanced after the experience of wavering and losing myself to gravity, but I like to believe I am.  I won't know until I find myself in Ardha Chandrasana again, and when I do, I like to think I'll be a Warrior.

Ahimsa.

Ahimsa is an ethical discipline, or yama, that at its simplest means non-violence.  This concept is practiced in as many different ways as there are individuals who strive to adhere to its message, but the theme remains the same:  To practice a life of compassion, gentleness, and love.

Like a rose, the petals of violence are many and they unfold one atop the other.  At the center is spiritual apathy, a disjointed view of who we are as a species, who we are as individuals, who we are in relation to each other and where our place is in the natural world around us.  This apathy opens us to emotional despair - confusion, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and no sense of our own worth or the worth of those around us.  Finally, this leads to the outermost petals of the rose, the ones who seem to decay the fastest, those of physical violence, the manifestations of which are devastating to who we are a species, who we are as individuals, who we are in relation to each other and the natural world around us.

Ahimsa isn't only about those outer petals of physical violence, the blows we inflict upon ourselves and others.  It's about the emotional and spiritual violence, as well.  Hate, prejudice, anger - all of these things cause injury, all of them are harmful.  Our thoughts and our words need to come into line with a concept of non-violence if we are to reap the benefits of a life lived truly in compassion.

We all are guilty of planting seeds of violence.  When we exert our power over those who are smaller than us, like stepping on an ant, we are actively guilty.  When we walk past a beggar and avert our eyes, we are guilty by omission.  When we spread a rumor, hold a grudge, feed a deep-seeded hatred, we are passively guilty.

Ahimsa requires some initial discomfort.  We need to make ourselves small so that we can see how big everything else truly is; we need to make ourselves nothing so we can see the something in others; we need to let go so we can give back; step back so others can step forward.  When we are all doing these things, we will all meet in the middle.  If something pleases me but hurts six other people, I need to sacrifice that happiness, because I am only one but they are many.

In my own life, I fail a lot.  I am impatient, I am emotionally volatile, I am lazy.  Each time I stumble, though, I see it not as a fault but as a teacher, an opportunity to recognize the bad in me and hopefully exorcise it so the next time I'm walking down that same sidewalk toward a violent outburst, I can try to avoid tripping over the same cracks.  I have a long way to go, but I have a long time to get there.

You are stronger than me.  Walk with me.  Hold me up.  Forgive me my faults and know that I am trying.