Yamas Through Tarot: Satya, Control, and Aquarius Decans
What does it mean for us to feel safe enough to express our truth?
सत्यं ब्रूयात् प्रियं ब्रूयात् | Satyam bruvat priyam bruvat
This is a Vedic teaching that can be understood as, “speak what is true, speak what is pleasant.”
Satya is the second yama, following ahimsa, listed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Whatever is first is considered the most important. It is the base. The root. The foundation. Before Patanjali compiled the sutras down on paper, teachers would orally share their collective wisdom to students. The most important statements were prioritized first, and the key information had to be repeated a few times as a memory aid to help students to remember.
Satya is our yama for Aquarius season and I want to share the three tarot cards associated with these decans and how they tell a story about the healing nature of nonviolent communication.
5 of Swords shows truth as a battle where there is a winner and a loser. The winners define history and therefore our reality. Like the swords they own in their arms and the fallen swords on the ground, the winners own the narrative and they have the resources to maintain the dominant narrative. The two figures walking away in the background are exiled. Any opposition is erased or rendered defunct. The winner is pleased as punch, but it seems a victory we, the viewer, cannot wholeheartedly support or rejoice in.
This card is a painful card for we cannot easily connect to either party. We do not necessarily relate to the smirking winner hoarding the weapons, delight coursing through their body as they watch the exiled figures leave in defeat. We do not feel sympathetic to the defeated figures, for their weakness is a target on their backs. Like my tarot teacher says, you don’t really want to be anyone in this situation.
Truth is a battle of absolutes in the west. We admire people who “tell it like it is,” are “straightforward”, and “cut the bullshit.”
It’s almost as though a criteria of truth is that it’s meant to hurt if it’s real. If it doesn’t hurt, it feels like we are sugarcoating our words, covering up the clinical nature of truth like we’re scared of something.
The journey of the exiled is continued in the 6 of Swords.
Some people don’t want to tell the truth. Perhaps they know they will not be heard. Instead, they leave the environment that will not accept their nonconformity.
Some people have avoidant attachment styles. This way of dealing with conflict can end up hurting people who do not understand these avoidant attachment styles, and they may end up feeling more hurt and retaliate.
While silence is complicity under systems of oppression, we also get to pick our battles.
If 6 of Swords is the exile on the journey of finding their people and not quite there yet, 7 of Swords shows that self-expression will always be a mask where we code switch.
The truth isn’t necessarily speaking every intrusive thought into the world.
The truth isn’t every thought that you have.
Have you heard the joke, Be yourself. But not like that.
When we look at charismatic figures in American politics who tell it like it is, we also have this idea of what Being Yourself is.
Being yourself is equated with thoughts that may be considered “politically incorrect.”
(There is no such thing as PC or un-PC. There is such a thing called human decency and respect. One is a political talking point to arouse ignorant people into emotional debate. The other allows us to see each other.)
Being yourself is not equated with embodying our soul. Our soul is already whole and possessing a nature of joy.
For some reason, being yourself is a game of gotcha.
We believe that the more reactive and habitual parts of ourselves reveal who we really are. Perhaps this is why alt-right groups, when they are “being themselves”, they are considered honest but when activists or people who are trying to change the world, are considered performative and corrupt when they show their ignorance.
When we embody our truth, it’s almost as though it’s only real when it’s an indulgent thing where we are giving in to our nature that is stuck in habitual patterns.
I see 7 of Swords as the moment when we start to embody our truth, we fall prey to judgment by others. That for some, our truth will never be enough for them.
7 of Swords is often read as a sneaky person because this is a card that is hard for the reader to look at without having an visceral reaction to the coded body language of the hunched shoulders, the lifted knee that all point to a a secretive, potentially duplicitous nature. What is this person stealing off to? Who owns these swords?
But 7 of Swords is someone who has learned to adapt and to take back agency. This may appear to others as though we are sneaky but we are making choices and we are choosing carefully.
Tapas is a Sanskrit term often thought of as austerity. It refers to the process of burning away or creating heat. Heat burns away impurities. In a similar fashion, when we accept the burn, it is a way to welcome purification. We have the self-discipline to thank a person or a situation for giving us pain because it is an opportunity to practice our yoga.
Unfortunately, people can always take this idea of tapas to an extreme. I have said in previous blog posts and on social media that discipline is not punishment. Undergoing extreme physical discomfort is not what tapas is about.
Sri Swami Satchidananda brings up this Vedic saying in his commentary on sutra 2.1. He shares how Krishna says there are three types of tapas in the 17th chapter in the Bhagavad Gita where there are three groups of tapas: physical, verbal, and mental.
Verbal tapas requires discipline to wield the truth in the proper way. You are careful with your speech because truth does not trump nonviolence. Satya is built upon the foundation of ahimsa. Nonviolence is more than not harming but it is about friendliness and kindliness. If nonviolence is the base, then truthfulness is not a weapon to hurt ourselves or others. It cuts away the excess.
The principles of nonviolent communication is about how we use language to coerce or lord power over others in order to punish, reward, guilt, shame, or create a sense of duty or obligation in the other. It does not have to be a physical threat. Nonviolent communication is a term coined by Marshall Rosenberg, but you can look to yogic philosophy concept like satya and ahimsa to understand what compassionate communication looks like.
When we look at the 7 of Swords, perhaps this is once again another person taking swords that do not belong to them. Satchidananda and B.K.S. Iyengar speak on satya in later sutras such as 2.36 and how when you are firmly established in your truth, you will get the fruit of your actions without apparently doing anything.
To the outside world, it may look as though you are constantly receiving abundance, or getting away with things, but what is actually happening is that when you are true to your nature, you draw others to you.
Written By: Irene Lo