Honesty: The Doorway to Truth
So, we continue our journey with the Yamas.
We’ve announced them
as classical initiations
onto the path of yoga.
So the yamas are the first limb —
the first step, classically,
into yogic life.
They’re the student,
the novice,
the aspirant
approaching the spiritual teacher
and asking for initiation
into a new life —
a spiritual life.
The novice has come for training.
You can picture that any way you like.
Wherever the spiritual teacher
has made their hermitage —
whether it’s in their family house —
the student makes a pilgrimage.
Actually —
it’s the end of a very long pilgrimage
for this student.
Just like coming to the yogic path
is the end of a very, very long journey for anyone.
It’s taken us so long to get here.
We’ve been off and away everywhere
before we started
to want to turn back to the source.
At this point it gets serious enough
that we approach a teaching,
we approach a teacher —
and we ask for initiation.
This is an amazing moment on a soul’s journey.
And then, classically —
in the yogic tradition —
you would be initiated then
into an understanding
of what was going in happen to you
as a result of this training.
That you would be informed,
that you were going to be dissolved in this process.
That everything
you thought yourself to be,
imagined yourself to be,
and indeed anything you want yourself to be —
this is going to slip away.
And you’re going to be replaced
with five qualities:
Love,
Truth,
Integrity,
Commitment,
and Generosity.
We’ll get to all of those eventually.
But essentially,
these are your nature.
You are love.
You are truth.
You’re integrated.
You’re naturally given to Life —
because Life has given itself to you.
And you have no sense of limit
in your generosity.
So —
first initiation,
first yama —
we did it last week.
We initiated ourselves —
or we’re initiating into Ahimsa—
Non-violence or, Love
We confess
that actually,
it’s not our nature
to wish harm on others.
It’s not our nature —
our intrinsic nature —
to be violent.
To wish to bring everything down.
Our actual inherent nature,
if we come out of our mental fabric,
Is to rise and to bring things up.
Our nature is to love.
Our nature is deeply kind.
You’ll see it in anyone —
you’ll see it in yourself —
whenever somebody isn’t operating
from their personality,
isn’t manipulating according to
“What will I get?”
and they’re just resting in their heart —
It’s so kind.
People will do — literally anything,
when they are acting from their heart.
We’ve all been on the receiving end of it.
So we reintroduced ourselves to this.
We took a little look
at how we can subtly create harm to others.
Especially when we’re in our psychology —
we’re always trying to manipulate.
We’re always thinking about ourselves.
It’s all relating through a me.
And as long as it’s relating through a me,
it’s not there solely for you.
So I have all kinds of vested interest.
Therefore,
I’m going to be manipulating —
either consciously or unconsciously —
and I’m going to be trying to control the situation
so it fits a me.
And this is the great harmer.
Subtle violence.
Of course, sometimes it’s very gross.
But it can be incredibly subtle.
But a yogi moves past the whole lot —
by simply training him or herself
to rest in the heart where only kindness comes —
and then seeing how the ego,
the separate individual,
wants to stake claim
to everything.
So we did this.
Now you’re ready for the second initiation.
Initiation into a new way of living.
So I’m endeavouring
to live non-violently.
But I’m also endeavouring,
To live in truth.
So Satya —
Means Truth
How to live in a way that's true
In the core of our being
To live a life that’s clean
and conscious
because it resonates
with the deepest part of ourselves.
Because the deepest part of you —
that isn’t your “you” —
the deepest part of me
is resonant with the whole of Life,
and the universe.
It is not separate from everything.
So when you’re true in yourself —
when you’re true to the inner voice,
to the deepest part of you —
you are true to everything.
In other words —
you are then in alignment,
with the whole of existence, in that space.
So it’s not your truth we’re talking about here.
We’re not talking about “Steve following his truth.”
This is a very new age idea.
Just following yours, eh?
Your private one, eh?
Truth doesn’t belong to you...
When we get down to where we’re going,
there is no private truth.
There’s just Truth.
Life is resonating through you —
and actually, if we get good at listening,
it’s guiding us constantly.
The voice of truth within us —
that resonates with the whole of the cosmos —
is constantly trying to offer us guidance
in our next move.
It’s literally unfolding in truth.
Of course,
we’re usually talking over the top of that.
We’ve got noisy with our own personal truth.
My wants, my needs, my opinions.
So, of course —
there’s a necessity —
to quiet and still
and drop beneath the noise
of the personality
in order to gain access
to this inner voice.
And so the path of Yoga unfolds.
But lets take it deeper
So honesty —
being honest with ourselves
is the doorway into this deeper truth.
Otherwise,
it can seem like too much, can’t it?
The doorway that leads into the truth of Life
within ourselves
is the doorway of honesty.
That is —
if we practise honesty,
that will inevitably lead us
to the deepest possible truth
within ourselves.
So this means —
being honest about how we feel.
Not pretending we feel different
to how we feel.
Being honest with where we’re at.
And not pretending to be somewhere we’re not —
or something that we’re not.
Living essentially in an honesty
that means we don’t need to project
a persona,
or an image,
or an idea of ourselves
in order to feel like we’re enough
for the world.
I’m not projecting a false image of myself.
I’m just resting.
I’m enough.
It’s okay.
Then — honesty prevails.
In fact, that honesty gets quite radical.
Everything gets checked in with that.
Being honest with what you’re feeling,
with what’s going on.
Can you see what we need to come out of?
A whole load of ideas about:
how we should feel,
how we should think,
what we should be doing,
where we should be
The lies.
The should produces the need to lie.
That then produces the projection.
And society has a lot of these.
Shoulds, oughts, musts.
In order to fit,
there’s a criteria.
And this creates endless falsity.
And endless lies.
In that —
everybody is trying to fit that.
So everybody joins together
in a collective lie.
Everybody pretends they’re all right.
Everybody pretends they’ve got it sorted.
Everybody pretends all kinds of things.
We develop massive institutions around this lie.
We develop social media around this lie.
We project this constant image —
which puts everybody else
under more and more pressure
to also lie —
which deepens the feeling
of not being enough.
Fuck it.
That’s a great mantra, isn’t it?
Used in the right context, it’s so brilliant.
Om Namah Shivaya.
Or:
Fuck it. I am done.
That’s what we are being —
invited into the second you make the shift
and decide,
I am done with that.
I don’t do shoulds anymore,
I do checking.
I check in,
with the deepest part of me,
then I’ll let you know.
I go to God.
I don’t go to society.
I go to Source.
I don’t go to,
the big show.
I go in
and I check in.
And I do a lot of checking in.
And I find an authentic response
from within myself.
And if I don’t get one—
I wait.
That’s the path of truth,
but you’ve got to get honest,
before you can get true.
All of us came out of a source
that you could call truth, love, or God.
We created a pathway
as we manifested out of it —
In yogic terminology,
hundreds and thousands of lives
you’ve lived —
projecting,
trying to be something
in the great lie.
Until you go...
Fuck it!
And then you make the turn.
Now the path you created
on the way out —
no problem, eh?
Now you just follow the same path
back in.
To truth.
But the point of the turn is honesty.
And that’s why it is the second Yama.
Are you ready to get real?
Or do you still need to project something in the world?
If you are on for truth—
Just be done with it.
Get radically honest.
What will you do then
for the world —
just in that moment?
You don’t have to wait
to be a prophet,
a messiah,
or a master,
to be a great benefit
in the world.
What happens
when somebody’s just in that honesty with you?
Do you feel uptight,
or more relaxed?
Or do you feel more relieved,
or more like on edge?
Sometimes when somebody’s just honest—
I’ve seen it in group sessions —
you know,
I see like 30 other people going:
“Ohhh…
It’s not just mel.”
And that one person
that dared to be honest —
has just liberated
like a bucketload of prana around her.
“Oh... that’s better, isn’t it?”
Liberate Life through honesty.
You liberate yourself.
You liberate everything.
You can’t do it in private.
Honesty pays off.
You might feel some shame.
You may think
“Oh, maybe I shouldn’t be honest about that.”
“That makes me look a bit stupid.”
Of course,
you need to be appropriately honest.
But fundamentally —
is there someone in me
that’s holding back
due to expectation upon me?
Because I’m in a role?
Because I am trying to be something that I’m not?
Why don’t I just be myself?
That is a great way to get back to God.
I get the feeling that LIfe,
Is just waiting for us to get over ourselves
Then it cries:
“Halleluja!
Come home,
into truth,
and I will guide you
from this point on.”
It is so beautiful to be inwardly guided.
I mean,
who knows their way anyway?
Only the great pulse
that came out
knows the return.
First, we must get honest.
So — be honest.
Start being honest with your body.
We put so many shoulds on our body, don’t we?
So many.
Almost now, already,
the body knows:
“Oh, here we go...”
Is he going to stand up now in his asana practice
and impose its dishonesty on me?
Or is he going to listen
to how I actually am —
which is honest —
and then take me on a journey into truth?
into the journey of un-truth?
To be deeply honest.
That is how to take Ahisma,
into truth.
And then truth will start showing you things.
It will start speaking to you.
The inner voice will get louder,
because you created the space for it.
It will guide you.
Be honest.
Be true.
Comments
Post a Comment