Truth: the language of the heart
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
Tonight on coming out of sleep I encountered an emptiness, with just one dreamlike entity in it. A clear analytical voice spoke to me and said, “of all the things I have found here, there has been nothing that was true”. The dreamlike entity clung to me and spread its cool, soothing presence over my forehead as I woke up.
It is easy to think of truth as an absolute, as language encourages you to do so. Yet truth is more often relative, as for example Akira Kurosawa’s excellent 1950 film Rashomon shows. The single, real truth can be elusive. So truth in an analytical sense may be the province of judges and fools, and not really the common man.
Instead it occurs to me that truth is something of the heart… it too is mysterious, but even as you know who you love, your heart knows the truth when it hears it. It is like a little silver bell that rings, telling you to pay attention. You feel this resonance of truth in films as well, sometimes a scene speaks to your heart and tells you there is something true in it.
The ideal of the truth of the mind, through science and analysis, leads to a place where logic replaces the heart, where being vanishes and one becomes a machine. To maintain one’s humanity, one’s warmth, one’s love and romance one needs to start understanding the language of the heart. Eventually one leaves the lands of love and romance behind for places of clarity and compassion, but this is a question of becoming pure at heart like a mountain stream.
Comments
So if the little bell telling me to pay attention tells me this doesn't sound true, what does that mean? My intuition says level of conviction isn't correlated with level of validity. But if my intuition is true about that statement then how can it tell me its wrong? Its like what would happen to Pinnochio's nose after he said, "after this sentence my nose will grow."
I think this is mostly semantics about the definition of truth. As Christopher Hitchens claimed, is truth what remains even when you don't believe in it? Or is truth solely in the mind of the beholder? If you see Jesus in a piece of toast its true for you?
Seeing Jesus in a piece of toast can motivate someone to great deeds, if they believe it in their heart. It could change their lives, if their faith was true.
There's an old Buddhist story of a faithful woman who thought a dog's tooth was a relic of the Buddha. Her faith in it produced miraculous events. I think that has some validity to it, not the miracle just that belief can be powerful.
That's what I mean about semantics of the word truth. Is truth personal belief, or is it something more intersubjective like money or nations, or objective like atoms or the speed of light?
That's true, but also funny....
I wants to put marmite on Jesus...
Truly!
There are 4 Noble Truths. Just about everything else, is subjective opinion.
Listened to an interview with Amanda Knox today. She talked about how the investigator, in his book, said when he arrived at the scene he knew it wasn't something simple, but that there had to be some sort of plan or conspiracy to commit the crime. Even now he can't admit his knowledge hunch wasn't right.
There's an idea in psychology that has shown to be really profound. That the human mind has two modes of processing information, generally called system 1 and system 2. I can't remember which is which off the top of my head, but one is our deliberate conscious mind or slow system and the other is our fast intuitive processing. They both have positive and negative aspects. An example I've brought up before is the real world case of the firefighter up on the roof of a burning building. While there he had a bad feeling and ordered his men off the roof, shortly after it collapsed. Reflecting later he realized his feet were too warm. It wasn't some miraculous knowledge granted him by the universe, it was his own subconscious processing all of his years of experience. Another example in a talk I watched recently was of chess master Magnus Carlson, he says the majority of the time he doesn't have to think about the moves, he just knows what the right move is. Again, this isn't magic, its a result of his brain and all his years of study and play.
A downside of our intuitive system is that it can't filter out valid and invalid ideas. It takes all our biases and throws them in the mix. If you have any negative bias towards a group of people, even if consciously you understand and agree with all the reasons to be impartial your intuitive response will factor in those biases.
When I was in my early 20s I started noticing I would have feelings or impressions arise at times that later turned out to be true. I've since realized that there are a lot of feelings and impressions that aren't true, or packed with biases and wishful thinking. Now I think of it like I should listen to this voice as information rather than instruction, check its work and train it through knowledge and experience.
I forget who, but someone said that, for us there are only two absolutes.
We are born
We will die
It is the variables we create and expeience we have between that give us value in living.
I, for one feel that our purpose, or, if you prefer, a major purpose in life is to find joy in living, to share joy in living and help others to find joy (and their own individual purpose) in living. I do not mean joy in the carnival ride sense. Joy here is to appreciate life, warts and all, to live confidently, see the treasure in self and others as we are.
I will be in the joyful corner with @Lionduck if anyone wants to join us...