Sunday, September 1, 2013

Truth is Truth


What is it to ‘think’. We have thoughts, we think, what does that mean? To think means to have an opinion about something. When I say, I think I am going to win, it implies a certain level of not being sure. Not knowing, but thinking. Opinion is different from truth. What I ‘think’ and what I ‘know’ are different.

Yet what do I know?

I might say I ‘know’ certain things about the world, such as “I know the sun will rise in the morning.” But technically this is not something you know, but something you are assuming. You can expect the sun to rise, because it has risen all past mornings, but you don’t know with 100% certainty that it indeed will rise.

I might say I ‘know’ who I am. But who are you? Most of the time we describe ourselves as a collection of our relationships with other people. Sometimes we describe our job or our family roles. And we often negotiate what we are, with ourselves and with others. Our judgment of what we are changes with times and events. Often our experience of ourselves is determined by what others think about us. But are we what others think about us? Are we what we think about ourselves?

I might say I am a consciousness, located somewhere between my head and heart, but my consciousness is built upon thoughts. Not knowings, thoughts. In fact, the only way I know myself is through thinking. Thinking about myself in relation to everything else. I cannot recognize myself without thought as a medium.

When you close your eyes, forget the body, what are you? Are you merely a thought.

Do I know or do I think?

What is the truth? The truth does not change because one person thinks it’s the truth or another doesn’t. The truth does not depend upon our justifications and our negotiations of it. The truth is the truth regardless.

Maybe its time we step back and let the truth have its day. Let the truth be the truth, and stop our attempts to establish what the truth is through our judgments of the world.

And what are our conflicts with each other all day? I am right, no I am right. All attempts to prove ‘I know the truth!’ We have judged the world and how it ought to be, and we think we are correct. All petty, however passionate. All mad at each other for thinking and judging differently.

All we do is try to establish the truth as we see it, and convincing others of our version of the truth helps to reinforce it in ourselves.

But to be honest, no one really knows. No one knows what is the complete and utter truth.

Yet we trust ourselves, and each other, with judgments everyday, every minute.

Sometimes we judge our decisions as good, other times bad. Some things and situations in the world are good, others bad. Even good and bad people.

But do we really know?

What is the truth?

If you put full dedication, practice, and heart into any task, you will undoubtedly achieve your goal. Of all the tasks to undertake in the world, what should we choose? What other goal is better than a quest to know the truth.

Do not limit your asking. Seek the truth and you will find it. All other goals are at the cost of truth.

We no longer have to carrying the weight of judging the world and how it should be.

Truth is truth regardless of your perception of it. 

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