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

In Search Of a Permanent Cure For Pain

The Webster dictionary defines pain as follows:

• the physical feeling caused by disease, injury, or something that hurts the body
• mental or emotional suffering : sadness caused by some emotional or mental problem
• someone or something that causes trouble or makes you feel annoyed or angry

An unfortunate aspect of pain is that it is always there in our lives except in one phase. In our waking state, there are a variety of pains, which I will explain. Our dreams, though we hope will be of the best, many a times turn out to be nightmares. So if we reflect on the time when we do not experience any pain for sure, it is only during deep sleep. Is it possible somehow to be fully awake and still have a painless existence, the way we are in deep sleep? Please join me as we explore the concept of pain.

If we analyze pain it comes from three sources:

1. Adhidaivika or coming from nature. This refers to pain caused by extreme heat, heavy rain, floods, drought etc.

2. Adhibhoutika or coming from our surroundings - This refers to pain from our surroundings - a noisy neighbor, a nagging spouse, an uncontrollable child etc.

3. Adhyatmika or coming from one self. could be physical, emotional or intellectual

If we look at the three sources of pain, what we notice is that pain is not in the source, but in our mind. Even a physical pain though it appears as though coming from the affected part is really a pain in the mind. I have read of medical cases where people have lost a limb and still can feel as though that limb is itching or paining. So, if the limb itself was not there, how is it paining? That means pain is in the mind, not in the limb.

So how can we eliminate pain? We somehow have to eliminate the ability of the mind to feel the pain. There is no point eliminating source of pain, because the sources of pain are so many. One way to eliminate pain is to distract the mind. Let us say, I am in severe physical pain. I take a pain killer, which temporarily numbs the pain so that I feel better. But after the pain killer's effects are gone, I am back to same point. So the painkiller has not eliminated pain permanently. Let's say, I am depressed because my co-worker got a promotion, which I deserved. Will a painkiller eliminate this pain? Not a chance. So I go to the bar and down a couple of drinks to distract my mind. As I down several pegs, I forget about promotion and seem to have forgotten pain. But in the morning when I get up with a heavy hangover, has the pain of not being promoted gone? Not at all.  Let us take another example. A loved person is no more and I am in deep grief. As i pour my heart out to a dear friend, my pain seems to be reducing. But once the friend leaves, what happens to my grief? Comes back with much more intensity. So the methods of pain killers, drinks or even emotional support of a friend will not eliminate pain permanently. So, what is the way out to not experience pain at all?

As we mull over above, let us look at some of the great masters. Jesus was hanged on a cross and continued to wish good to his tormentors. Socrates without any hesitation drank poison when his tormentors asked him to. In ancient India, when Alexander invaded the country, he was told of a famous saint and Alexander asked that he come to his court. The saint refused whereupon Alexander went to him and said he would cut off his head. The saint joyfully said, go ahead. How could these people in the midst of intense situations of pain almost leading to death, still remain calm? Did they not feel pain? They surely would have had their skin burn, their limbs tear etc. But the thing is that their mind did not register these pains. How is it that their mind did not register the pain whereas for the smallest pain, we start shouting?

To understand above, take the situation where I am in a dream. I am being mercilessly thrashed by some enemies. Obviously my dream character  will experience the pain. But somehow, suppose my dream character knew this was a dream and the reality was that I was really fast asleep in my bed. Now, when the tormentors in my dream thrash me, what will i feel? Everyone of the tormentors in my dream are nothing but me projecting images in my mind. So, they are nothing but me. In that situation, why will i as a dream character feel the pain when I know the reality is that i am really the guy sleeping in my bed? 

In exactly the same way, the great masters knew the reality. They knew this world is nothing but an illusion. The reality is that all of us are nothing but the Supreme Brahman or Truth or God. Only because of ignorance of true self, we think we are a combination of body/mind/intellect and experience physical pain of body/emotional pain of mind and intellectual pain of the intellect. The Pure Brahman being infinite has no pain. So the moment we realize we are Brahman, there is no more pain.

Great, one may say. I now understand I am Brahman. So why do I still feel pain? Anyone with a reasonable intelligence can understand the concept of Brahman. But that does not free one from pain. Understanding Brahman is not like understanding physics, history or whatever, taking an exam and passing it. Understanding Brahman means becoming Brahman. This can only happen through sustained practice using the power of the intellect to discriminate between the real and the unreal. The great masters had become Brahman and hence did not experience any pain. Let us take our first step in that direction to become painfree.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.


1. My Humble Understanding  Of Spirituality


My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

2. Attain Infinite Bliss

Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide

3. The Spirit Of Spirituality

The Spirit Of Spirituality