How To Understand and Observe Truth (Satya)

Patanjali yoga has eight limbs. Truth (satya) is the second of five abstentions (ahimsa) a practitioner/Yyogi should observe. Here, a yogi should give up falsehood and accept truth. Patanjali describes that by establishing truth, one achieves everything for which one acts or desires. One becomes successful in life. Let us see what truth is and how one achieves everything for which one strives.

1. What exists is truth. Suppose one borrows money and admits it, then one is telling the truth. If one borrows money and doesn't admit it, then one is telling a lie. This is a social truth or falseness. However, truth in the context of yoga or spiritualism has a greater meaning. According to spiritualism, truth is that which has eternal existence. If we simply go through a dictionary, we shall see that the meaning of existence is life or being. This is also spiritually correct.
2. Only life has existence. In the whole universe, we shall observe only two things - one is life and consciousness and the other is lifeless and unconscious matter. Life has eternal existence whereas matter is ephemeral. Matter always changes its form and state. So life is truth and matter or material world is false. Matter has only imaginary existence. It exists in the imagination of conscious beings.
3. Those things exist which feel their existence. Anything that can feel and express its own existence really exists. Beings which have soul, life and consciousness can feel and tell their existence. They have a feeling of self or I-ness and this self gives the feeling of existence. So those things exist which have a feeling of I-ness.
4. Every action has equal reaction. Every action has equal reaction - is not only scientifically true, but also socially true. Good action gives good result and bad action gives bad result. When a man realizes and practices truth, he cannot act in a way which may harm others. By this, he receives the good wishes of others. This helps him to be successful in life. When a yogi realizes his self, which is nothing but truth, his willpower becomes so powerful that he can command over nature as well as people. He rises from ordinary mortal to the status of God. Buddha, Rama, Krishna and Jesus were all Gods.
5. What is meant by one achieving everything? A yogi who has realized his self is a self-satisfied, self-content and complete man. So he has no desire to amass all the wealth on earth or to concentrate all governing power in himself. He is absolutely a free and liberated man. So he achieves everything. To achieve everything doesn't mean that one becomes the richest or most powerful man on earth. It means one has realized his self and become most powerful spiritually.

So a practitioner/yogi who practices yoga should try to realize the truth (which is nothing but his own self) and keep away from all imaginary and worldly things. By this, all his actions bear fruit. He becomes able to mitigate the woes of people.