Truth is in everything; yet not everything is true.
Throughout the course of our life there are plenty of people all clambering over each other trying to tell us what the truth is. I’m sure they’d be only too happy to have somebody subscribe to their truth.
What’s their motivation? Well, that varies, and it can range from the selfless to the selfish.There are people with good intentions and others who seek only their own prosperity.
How can we tell the difference between somebody who is being honest or dishonest? How can we tell if somebody is using selective truth in order to forward a hidden agenda?
Just like in mathematics it is good to start simple. The first, and most important question is of course:
What is truth? How can we say if something is true or not before we are certain what truth actually is?
To start with write down some things you believe are completely, undoubtedly true. You can even try doubting them as a test. Question the belief from all sorts of obscure angles and if you still believe strongly in them (without having an adverse reaction) then things are looking good.
Now, unless it took some time for you to resolve your doubts and realise your personal truths, this next part may be the most time-consuming. The idea is to take an in-depth look at those truths and realise patterns within them.
I started with the sky is blue.
I asked myself, ‘what is blue?’. I concluded that blue is a colour (within a certain range of the spectrum) which is generally associated with the label ‘blue’.
I asked myself, ‘does everybody see it that way?’. The answer is no. There are people who are colour-blind and others who may see it differently and yet still associate it with ‘blue’. Also, there are people with other languages who will attribute a different label to define both the sky and the colour. To them the sky would not be blue, they would use different words to describe seeing the same thing. If I were to go to another country and look at the sky at a similar time of day I would expect to generally see the same thing.
Just from this simple truth I have already struck some gold. What may be undeniably true to one person may not be true to another despite them witnessing the same scene. If both people understood the same language then they may agree to this truth. Do you see where this is going?
This opens up a number of avenues:
- Truth can be relative as well as absolute - things exist despite our beliefs, but we then shape our beliefs around them based upon what we believe.
- If one person cannot understand a truth they may choose not to believe it. This does not make it any less true.
- If somebody is unaware of a truth (i.e. colour blindness) then they may choose to believe it based upon other people’s perceptions. They may then consider that association as their personal truth.
So where do we go from here? The idea is to realise what truth is so that we may build around it. Now, truth is in everything, but what we want to do is to separate the relative truths (the wrapper used by whomever had it last) from the absolute truth. To do this we need an open mind, patience, and some good grounding.
Let’s take my example, the sky is blue. This remains true so long as I ask people with similar vision capabilities who understand the same language as me. This is a wrapper and needs to be removed. To remove the wrapper we need to look deeper and find the pattern which holds true despite who is perceiving it.
There is a large space up above our heads. Whilst the sun is lighting that space (which we refer to as the sky) sufficiently, it appears as a colour we associate with blue.
For now this is considered to be my truth. It is the closest I have gotten to the absolute truth based upon my current level of understanding. I could also go into why it appears blue. There are always a number of avenues available from an exploration and it is important to prioritize which you will take. For the moment the reason why is not important to me, if you are curious you can tap ‘Why is the sky blue?’ into a search engine.
I consider this an acceptable truth for now. I peeled away the assumptions and what I was left with still stands okay. Now, I’m not going to start using that truth in conversation, I’ll still stick with the sky is blue so long as I am communicating with somebody in English. The point was to zoom in to my perceived truth and see if any flaws came to light. I’m quite happy with that for now so I zoom back out again.
Now, let’s consider another personal truth: Water is wet. Okay, well I know what water is and it fits as a label in the same way as ’sky’ and ‘blue’ did; wet, however, is something I can experience personally. If I touch some water then I can sense the differences. I consider my finger to now be wet.
Why is my finger wet? Because wet is the state my finger became when I touched the water. Some of the water is now on my finger and to describe that we merge the two entities together. Now, as ‘my finger is water’ would not make sense, and ‘my finger is with water’ comes across a little daft to us, we have ‘my finger is wet’.
Aside from the aforementioned avenues in the previous example, we now have the ability to realise through interaction. I know touching water is safe and so I can experiment with it. I can feel it, feel how I respond to it, how things feel whilst wet, and generally get a better idea of the nature of water by experiencing it in different ways.
It is through experiencing things first-hand that we can gain a better understanding. Depending on just how much we want to know we can stop here or try more experiments. There are plenty of resources available for not only working with water but also with other combinations of elements. Just as before the infinite possibilities open up and it is important to choose which direction to take.
This is the first step towards realising the truth. It’s a small step but also a very important one. My next post will be about a bigger and remarkably important step: The discovery of self - Who am I?
Realising the truth within you is an important step towards realising the greater truths. It also carries a number of benefits including improved confidence and esteem (which in turn lead to numerous other benefits), better choices (more appropriate choices lead to less turbulence in your life), alignment (when your mind, heart, and spirit are all going in the same direction you can achieve greater results), and even better health.
For now I will leave you to consider some of your own personal truths. If you can look at those honestly and form some realisations then you will be in good stead for the next step. If you have any questions you are welcome to ask them and I will endeavor to clarify whatever comes up.
