Some reflections on Truth

[Nikolai1]

We cannot help but see that our dearest convictions can be completely ignored by our neighbour.  What we see as inviolable truth, he sees as obvious nonsense.

 

Which of us is right? The third person we ask to arbitrate, must simply agree with one of us or the other. But why must truth be the majority opinion? 

 

We might say that our truths are simply our beliefs.  But even this is disputed:

 

'What you call my "mere belief" is an accurate conception of objective truth,' says one man.  'It is your version that is the belief - an erroneous one at that.'

 

'How do you know?

 

'Believe me, I know!'

 

If we do not think there is an objective truth, we might say that our convictions are just events in the flow.  Provisional, because not universally shared, but universal because they carry all the power of the Gods and have enchanted us entirely.

 

But if we think our truths are for us and us alone, we are hardly enchanted.  Who could live and act by such a truth? Who could reach that level of faith which the ordinary man has in the outside world? For it is that faith that inspires him to action.

 

Revelation is the way out.

 

When we feel called upon to act with the greatest possible urgency, and yet simultaneously know with our fullest consciousness that it is meaningless folly.  This is true action, and action in Truth.

 

It is being driven towards something with no possibility of intellectual assent.

 

This is wu-wei, spontaneous action.  It is the action which becomes possible only when our intellect is left in tattered ruins behind us.

 

Our own behaviour becomes a source of numinous awe.  We cannot help but prostrate ourselves before...ourselves.  We become the puppet of an Overlord who is none other than ourself.  We are left stricken and vulnerable before the force of our own inscrutable will.  We are plunged hedlong into situations that make no sense, and yet are irresistable.

 

These are the trials that mark the Hero's Quest.  And yet they are trials only because we are divided against ourselves.  We have not learnt to become our own taskmaster.  A part of is is still in rebellion...against ourselves.

 

Your capacity to rebel comes from ignorance.  The dilemma only besieges the person who does not know their own true will.

 

But after several of these trials you will learn to discern the true from the false.  Heeding your own will becomes obvious and easy...but it will never again make sense to anyone and least of all yourself.

[Jetsun]

Gurdjieff used to say that because of the way the ego distorts our perception of reality if the majority of people think of something as being the truth then the reality is that it is usually the precise opposite of that which is really true.

 

Its a good perception experiment to try, even with the majority held views of spiritual websites such as this one.

[3bob]

Solomon spoke of the "Vanity of vanities" yet in the end he reached a much deeper summation than just that of, "dust to dust".

 

In one line of the Bible it was written, "there is nothing new under the sun", yet that evolves to, "behold I make all things new" ! 

 

"Truth" as the indestructible element has no equal or worry about Its own truth, and in that sense It makes perfect sense from the sub-atomic to the cosmic and beyond.

Edited August 28, 2015 by 3bob