Should We Tell The Truth?

A lot of people will automatically say yes to this question, but I am not so quick to jump on that horse. It may sound like a good ride, but it can often be a pretty rough experience. Here are a few things to think about:

• Imagine you are in Nazi Germany, and your next door neighbor is hiding a Jewish person. The gestapo stops by, and asks if you have seen or heard anything unusual next door, or if you suspect your neighbor of harboring a Jew. Will you be honest?
• You father has glaucoma. He has tried every one of the prescription glaucoma drugs, and all have left him with chronic migraines, and an inability to stomach food. He has literally been unable to get out of bed for weeks. A friend tells you that marijuana can help your father. You purchase it, and give it to him. A conservative family member wants to know what drug is helping your father now. Do you tell the truth?
• Your Great Aunt Ida, is as ugly as…well you get my drift. She asks you if she looks good before heading out to dinner. Do you tell her the truth?
• You are desiring a job with a very reputable company, and you have the skills to meet the criteria. However, 15 years prior, you committed a crime. For good behavior, this crime was expunged from your record. When you go to fill out the application, it asks if you have ever committed a crime. You know that a security check will pull up nothing, do you tell the truth?

These are only a few examples of the possible downfalls of truth, I am sure you can think of a few yourself. Truth can be a raw, powerful experience, that transforms the world even as it is spoken. I once remember as a young person, an experience I had one day at the mall. A small group of teens had gathered together, and were just shootin’ the breeze. One of the guys began to seriously berate one of the others, with a plethora of insults.

I said to the guy something along these lines: “You know the reason you are tearing him down like that is because you have a low self esteem. You tear someone else down, to make yourself feel bigger and better.”

He was very taken a back. Before everyone present, he admitted it was true, and walked away.In this situation, truth was needed, and it halted a situation that was unnecessary. Did it hurt the guy’s feelings? Sure, but he was hurting another person who didn’t deserve his rage. Of course if we were to be completely animal about it, the person being attacked, should have defended himself. I have a soft heart though often times, and it seemed the right thing at the time to do.

There is the key…the right thing to do. Truth is one of those things that really is a case by case situation, and it should be handled as such. Ideas that dictate we only have one way of using truth, can cause real harm and damage in our lives. That isn’t right. Truth should not be at the expense of truly harming another unnecessarily. The idea that truth it’s self is superior to a living being, is just redundant. Beings first, truth second.

Truth can have a very powerful effect. In essence, truth is a power unto itself. What we do with it will aid in deciding the outcomes in our lives.

How do we know truth? What is true, should lead back to itself. The picture should all fit neatly, and cleanly, and appear to be what it is. If there are a lot of illogical things going on in the picture, then something is seriously wrong.

Some people believe that truth is a thing of faith, not logic. This basically says that what you are told is true, not that which appears to be true.

There are people out there who will tell you that truth is only subjective, but this is not so. The core essence of all realities dictates they arose from something; some core energy pattern. In our world this can be seen from the tiniest molecule, to the largest object. Everything arose from it’s basic pattern, therefore this pattern can reveal to us nothing but truth.

Some people say that the truth of reality lay only in our perceptions. If this was true, then you, and everyone you know, have no real personality or existence. Why? If I am in a room with twenty people, who each have an opinion of me, I would in this situation, be only the sum result of their perceptions of me. Oh sure, my perceptions would be mixed in there too, but I would be greatly shaped by these people’s views of me. Now it is true, that people can allow this to happen to them, but it is not a requirement.

Though all of these twenty people all think differently about me, I, still remain the same person. That is the truth of me. Everything in existence is a *me* so to speak, it has it’s own truth. If it didn’t, this would be a really strange reality to live in.

By acknowledging things, situations, people, etc., for what they are, rather than how we perceive them to be, we create a very different world for ourselves. This however require that we step out of our preconceived notions of what is, and isn’t true.

Truth does exist, and it is a powerful thing. Use it with wisdom, and it will be your friend.

[tags]truth, ideas, philosophy, lies, Nazi Germany, glaucoma, marijuana, crime, employment, lockergnome, shadowmyth[/tags]