Curriculum Raasti
RAASTI comes from the Persian rāstī — truthfulness, honesty and integrity. Its linguistic roots reach back to an ancient idea of what is straight, right and true.
Coming back into alignment with what is true.
The Story
1. An ancient idea: what is straight, right and true
The roots behind the word reach back more than two thousand years.
At the heart of the word is an ancient Indo-Iranian idea connected with what is straight, right, correct and aligned.
Long before the word came to mean “truthfulness,” its deeper linguistic background carried the sense of being on the right line or moving in the right direction.
Rāstī (راستی) is a Persian word associated with truth, truthfulness, honesty, integrity and uprightness. Its linguistic roots reach back more than two thousand years, carrying an ancient connection to what is straight, right, correct and true.
From straight to true
The story of the word can be followed through different periods of the Persian language.
In Old Persian, during the Achaemenid period around the 6th–4th centuries BCE, we find the form rāsta, connected with what is right or correct.
In Middle Persian, roughly between the 3rd and 7th centuries CE, this developed into rāst — carrying meanings such as straight, right, correct and true.
From rāst came the Persian noun rāstī — راستی.
The ending -ī turns the quality of being right or true into an abstract idea:
rāst → rāstī
true/right → truthfulness/integrity
The journey of the word therefore carries a beautiful progression:
Straight → Right → True → Truthfulness
What am I actually feeling?
What is happening in my body?
What do I need?
What am I holding onto?
What no longer belongs in my life?
What truly matters to me?
And am I living in a way that reflects what I already know to be important?
This is where the ancient meaning of the word becomes relevant to contemporary life.
We accumulate enormous amounts of information about health, relationships, psychology, spirituality and personal development. But knowing something and living it are not the same thing.
The work is in bringing what we know into the body, into our choices, our relationships, our habits and our everyday lives.
A return to alignment
My background includes yoga and meditation, breathwork, Compassionate Inquiry, somatic work, trauma-informed approaches and other forms of personal exploration.
Different pathways, pointing toward a similar question:
Can we become more present with what is actually here?
It is a practice of returning
Returning to the body.
Returning to presence.
Returning to relationship.
Returning to what matters.
Returning to what is true.
Coming back to what is true.