Three Sides of Truth

We have all heard the saying there are three sides to every story – your version, my version and what really happen.
If we delve deep into the philosophy of yoga, we begin to understand the three sides of truth. My version and your version are based on our own perceptions, created by events and experiences from our lives. We begin to create ways of dealing with these events as they come up which become our habits or knee-jerk reactions. With repeated use they then become parts of our personalities – our definition of who we are.
Since all of our experiences differ, our perceptions of the same situation differ as well.

The other side of this same truth, what really happened, is the version based in clarity, not clouded by our individual perceptions.

Yoga speaks of Satya (truthfulness) as one of the Yamas (outward practices). Our Authentic Truth is our Divine Self speaking to us. The trouble is it speaks softly and a lot of times it is inaudible among all the chaos going on in our minds and hearts. To hear the voice of our Authentic Truth, we need to clean house a bit. We do this through Svadhyaya (self-study).

The practice of Svadhyaya enables us to look inside ourselves and begin to understand what creates the chaos, what drives our patterns. Through this work we begin to realize what no longer fits. We begin to recognize patterns and behaviors which create stress and drama in our lives. We can then let them go, allowing the light of our Divine Self to emerge. We can then shine this light on all three sides of the truth and see all three versions simultaneously. All of the drama and hurt feelings will be bypassed, creating harmony and balance instead.
Edited by Alexandra Marks