Satya in the Digital Era

Satya in the digital era

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within.
– Rays of the Same Light, by Swami Kriyananda

Satya is a form of yogic discipline. As a principle it means truthfulness; as a practice it is often translated as non-lying.

Indeed, such a discipline is important not only for those who practice yoga, but also for the emotional and mental development of every individual. What other practice can give us the power of right orientation in today’s labyrinthine world? Without truth, even happiness becomes false!

Over the past decades, a grey cloud of gross electromagnetic pollution has enveloped our planet. The only possible escape from its influence is for each of us to go within, beyond the dictates of our dopamine-addicted brains, and allow the development of intuition. It is not easy to get there, for this pervasive cloud “connects” people everywhere, through radio, television, mobile telephony and internet. These media flood us with data and perspectives, both correct and incorrect.

In virtual space, items of information and misinformation are as abundant as the stars in the sky. Lo and behold, the polestar of Satya is there too, but how hard it is to find!

For truth isn’t centered on objectively measured facts or on the recent phenomenon of “alternative facts.” A wise man called truth “perfect correspondence with reality”: not reality as a series of details, but rather as the underlying creative and conscious energy that encompasses such details. Truth is wonderfully self-sufficient and has, as such, no need to differentiate between information and misinformation; it relies on neither, for it heeds its own counsel. It is an absolute state of pure consciousness in the heart of man, a still feeling, a clear knowing, uninfluenced by the outer world and always leading to some form of creativity.

Sometimes scientists may experience flashes of truth. Their enthusiasm soon becomes boundless, their patience infinite. Guided by creative intuition and common sense, they are thrilled to discover workings of the material universe that had long been hidden from mankind’s blocked or limited view. Science then provides the world with new information that people use or misuse — depending on their inner relationship with truth.

There will come a point in the lives of individuals when such sobering observations about truth become important. At that point, people seek in life something real, beyond the shallow, screen-bound, fake experiences that the digital world offers. They seek instead something more substantial, to be found only in wonderful inner depths of Self-realization. There our more intimate feelings, all too often overridden by the frenzy of modern society, come to the foreground, bringing intuition and guiding us toward transcendental states of consciousness.

Truth becomes increasingly attractive to us, as we begin to experience the emotional self-sufficiency, the inner strength and the joy it brings.

But when we move away from it, and subsequently from ourselves, a tide of lies may carry us from safe shores to waters constantly troubled by countless vortices, waves and thwarting currents. For a long time, we had been agitated and confused, unable or unwilling to discern the light of authenticity in the restless sways of information and misinformation. Now a flood has seized us and dragged us far away from the coast, the mainland of psychological stability and moral reliability.

Now fear and rage are our principal motivational forces. Holding on to rafts of lies, tossed left and right by storms of restlessness, we feel lonely and try to get other people on board by giving disinformation: their belief in our words must give us temporary relief from the torturing insecurities that haunt us.

Yet the mainland is never fully out of sight. Satya, like the beacon of a lighthouse, beckons us. We notice it, we begin to watch it, and we become gradually less interested in the lies we share with our fellow liars on the raft. They in turn become disheartened by our increasing indifference to their vapid chatter and dive back into the sea of chaos, looking for other liars.

We are now free to crawl back to the mainland. The closer we approach the lighthouse of truth, the stronger our strokes become. And then comes that glorious moment, when we set foot on the mainland again. The sea of falsehood, with its restless crosscurrents, vortices and waves, still rages behind us, but our feet now touch the ground. Now we can direct our own steps, through the practice of satya. Our gaze returns to the nearby lighthouse, built on a rock that for ages the stormy waves have tried in vain to assault.

Now the thrilling process of mental and emotional relaxation begins: we are letting go of what does not pertain to us. We realize that whatever worth we have attributed to the world, in its material and digital facets, we will leave behind at the moment of our final reckoning. And so we leave it behind now, to focus solely on something more worthwhile.

We become yogis that look up, first tentatively, then daily, then constantly, at the point between the eyebrows, where gradually our two eyes become one eye only. There, we seek attunement with the highest aspect of reality, which is the Truth that, as Jesus says, will set us free. Silently our hearts rejoice in this new found treasure.

Thus, unseen and unheard by the multitudes, let us humbly practice Satya, enabling us to join forces with all people of good will who contribute peace and aid to our fair planet.