The Truth About Truth

I have briefly introduced readers to the 8 fold path in my earlier blog. Today I will briefly touch on the first of those and specifically focus on one of the key requirements underlying the first step.

The first limb, yama, deals with one's ethical standards and sense of integrity, focusing on our behavior and how we conduct ourselves in life. Yamas are universal practices that relate best to what we know as the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

The five yamas are:

1. Ahimsa : nonviolence
2. Satya: truthfulness
3. Asteya: nonstealing
4. Brahmacharya: continence
5. Aparigraha: noncovetousness

In this blog I want to focus on the aspect of Satya or Truthfulness. Every religion talks of being truthful. The questions related to truth are whether one should tell the truth all the time or is it acceptable to lie at some times? Is there something called a transactional  truth and an absolute truth? To analyze the first question I would like to try and build a model to help in analyzing. As covered in detail in earlier blogs, we as a living entity are composed of  (i) Gross body consisting of the 5 action and 5 sense organs; (ii) Subtle body consisting of the Mind, which houses emotions, gets signals from the sense organs and directs the action of the action organs and the Intellect which is able to conceptualize and decide; (iii) Causal body consisting of our innate desires which causes us to take a particular body to fulfill our desires.

Let me use the structure above to build the model to analyze Truth. Let's say I am a lone bystander waiting to cross a road. In front of me i notice a car pulling back and as it does, it knocks down a 2 wheeler and speeds off. Soon a man comes and asks me me if I saw what happened. Since I had seen what happened I tell him the details. Let us see the above using the model. My eyes saw something and conveyed the signals to my mind. My eyes, by themselves do not know what happened. The mind gets the signal and the mind also does not know what has happened or who is wrong. It checks with the Intellect. The intellect, through past experience and/or training knows it is an accident and who is responsible and tells the Mind accordingly. The mind then tells the mouth to tell what happened. All these happen so fast, we do not realize the interaction of sense organs (eyes), the mind, the intellect and the action organs (mouth) in the whole process. 

Now let me change the situation slightly. Instead of the car driver being an unknown person, assume it is my best friend who knocks down the two wheeler and speeds off. Now, if i am asked what happened, would I as easily blurt out the truth or say, I do not know, which is a lie? Let us use the same model as above. In this case, though the intellect has told the Mind what has happened, the mind because of its emotion of love towards my best friend, instructed the mouth to tell a lie. So, an act of the mouth where the mind has overpowered the intellect has resulted in a lie.

Let me take another situation. I am walking on a lonely street and suddenly I notice a lady running towards me and in the distance, i notice couple of men running towards me. The lady tells me that they are trying to snatch her jewelry and goes and hides behind a wall. The men come up to me and ask if I have seen a woman and describe her. Should I be truthful and tell them where she is hiding or should i tell a lie and say, I dont know. Now it depends on whether I believe the woman told me the truth. If the woman had told me a lie and had really stolen the jewels from a shop, truthfully I will have to reveal where she is. Else, if she was telling the truth, i will have to tell a lie and protect her. Now, the sense organs cannot determine the truth/false of the situation and neither can the mind. It is up to the Intellect to make its best guess and based on that it will tell the mind and the mind will instruct the mouth accordingly. So, even if I do not reveal the woman, but later on it turns out she was really a thief, I have not told a lie because my mind was fully under the control of the Intellect  and Intellect is the final arbiter.

Now comes a question, is the Intellect always right? This is like asking if the mirror always reflects? The mirror reflects perfectly when it is clean. If there is a bit of dust on it, a mere wiping with a wet cloth will clean it and it will reflect perfectly. If it has got stained,  a more rigorous cleaning is needed to make it reflect properly. But none of this takes away from the fact that the very nature of a mirror is to reflect and it is only extraneous things that may have caused it to cease to reflect and with right effort at removing the dirt, will cause it to reflect properly again. In exactly, the same way, the very nature of the Intellect is purity, truthfulness, ability to discriminate, make proper judgement etc. Similar to a mirror, the Intellect may appear to be failing in its function due to accumulated dirt of emotions, greed, anger, attachments etc. In the same way as the mirror could be cleaned, the intellect can be sharpened and cleaned through study of scriptures, being in company of saintly people etc. When the mind is under the control of such an intellect, it will always ensures that the action organ tells the Truth.

The above discussion pertains to transaction based truth where the concept of a relative truth comes into discussion. But then what is absolute truth? That which was true yesterday, is true today and will be true tomorrow is absolute truth. That which is true in waking state, dream state and in deep sleep taste is absolute truth. The absolute truth is something that is subtler than the Intellect too and hence Intellect cannot sit in judgement of this truth. This absolute truth is nothing but the fact that we in reality are nothing but the Brahman or Consciousness or Truth or Divine Light. Due to a massive ignorance, we believe that we are measly human beings and that is the biggest "lie " we are telling ourselves.

In conclusion as part of being Truthful in the context of Yama, the first step of Astanga principle,  is to ensure that any action of the action organs be done as directed by the mind which is under the control of a well developed Intellect. Secondly it is critical to remain focused on the Absolute Truth and work towards achieving it, which is finally the aim of the Astanga process.


Please buy and read any of these books:


My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide

The Spirit of Spirituality