Best Of

Definitions are important here, the word truth can mean different things, two people can both be after truth while being in pursuit of distinct goals. Generally I use the meaning of truth as what continues to exist even when you stop believing in it.

There's a usage that I think conflicts with that definition when talking about personal truths, or lived experience as they say today. We all have perspectives that are important to us and can give us meaning. Someone's experience of the world has a large impact on their level of happiness and suffering. Very beautiful people generally get treated well by others and their experience of the world is often a kinder one than average. A devout theist will see evidence of God's work all around them. These things are true for them, the world is kind or cruel, beautiful or ugly, that's the way people move through life.

I always want to ask, what is it really? Theoretically it makes sense that there is an actual answer to that question. Though I think practically truth is really more of a pursuit and a mindset than an attainable goal. Do you reflect and ask the question? Also, as I've learned more about people's cognitive biases and put effort into negating my own, I've come to realize that while it helps, its really kind of an impossible task. We really rely on others to show us our blind spots. Truth kind of is a collective effort.

Regarding spiritual practice, I am skeptical about its truth claims about the world. When I say that I don't mean I believe they aren't real, I mean I don't know if they're real or not. I do know that people, including myself, are able to develop or uncover greater and greater levels of a balanced and expansive state of mind.

Its a complex and deep topic that I have a lot of interest in. I think I barely scratched the surface and no doubt didn't express things as articulately as the subject deserves.

For me it was always a case of “I will know it when I hear it or when I read it” rather than “I know what I am looking for”. It is like an internal bell that tinkles. It didn’t really start ringing bells for me until I had my breakdown in 2012, and I started listening to Osho regularly again, and after that got involved in Buddhism. During my introductory course in Buddhism I saw this a lot, that people who had had an illness or accident or had lost a job or career would come do the course, in search of… something.

A lot of psychologists term this the search for meaning, but I don’t think it really is that. For me it starts with an understanding of the self, and that begins with the body-mind and an understanding of childhood. How we enter into the world, what we are from the very beginning, determines how we see ourselves in adulthood. Mental growth is a process of accreting things onto ourselves, and only later, in the process of understanding ourselves as mature beings, do we start to shed those layers.

Truth plays a special role in this. By seeking and learning to recognise truth we see the things that were hidden from our view. Clarity begins to dawn on us. And in the first instance we seek these truths outside ourselves — we seek to consult the wisdom of the world, as we have gotten used to doing in learning and education.

For me the clearest source of truth has been not religion or philosophy, but the words of the recent awakened ones, gurus and people who share their truth with us. Just in the last century, I would name Jiddu Krishnamurti, Osho, Ramana Maharshi, Papaji, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Eckhart Tolle and U.G. Krishnamurti. I name U.G. last because he is an end-point of the search. On their words you can hone your sense for the true… eventually our truth starts to erupt from within.

At that point you have found the things in yourself which correspond to the truths imparted by the wise, and you have found the things which are uniquely yours. All of which contributes to your truth. Which is my 0.02.

Maybe you have sought different truths?