Reading a couple of threads in relation to the work I’m doing got me to ask the question. What is truth? I had a lawyer this weekend in one of my workshops that could not accept the concept of relative truth. His quality of life and paradoxes he lives is directly related to his black or white mentality. So having said that what is truth? Truth is a very subjective phenomenon relative to several factors. I will list some but this by no means are the only ones.
Past religious experience
Many carry vestiges of their programmed theology. This acts as a filter mechanism that does not allow them to consider any opposing beliefs. They defend their inherited costume jewelry dogma tooth and nail. They got out of the box they lived only to now be in a larger box. They only see what they believe therefore they only believe what they see. This was one factor affecting the lawyer. His mother is a very black and white thinker.
Paranormal mystical experiences
I worked yesterday on a 27 year old Lakota shaman whose health is seriously deteriorating at a very accelerated pace. An anomaly to figure out, he wanted spiritual healing and wanted me to do a past life regression. The session went very well by my criteria. When we finished he asked me if it was all in his mind. I said yes. I was simply a guide and a cybernetic communication loop for him and his spirit guides. His higher self even had a message for me. Do I believe it to be true? Yes, given where I’m at in my life. The message is only a confirmation of what I know to be true for me. So in this respect I am no different than the lawyer except this personal truth propels me to do more and go forward.
Competency as a rational thinker
Many people were never trained in “how to think”, some merely rearrange their mental furniture. One study concluded we have about 60,000 thoughts a day and 90% are the same from day to day.
Value system
Our values are so deeply ingrained and so close to heart and soul that we live or die for them. These depending on their hierarchy can spell freedom to do, and be you completely following your dreams leading to a high quality of life or disaster. If you believe you can or can’t do something you are right. This kind of subjective truth or lie has squashed or destroyed so many dreams people had as children.
According to Scott Peck people fall into 4 classes of people in relation to spirituality. My take on truth is that it's a composite body of spiritual knowledge. Things that are true are subject to change but not eteral spiritual truths.
Level 1 people don’t live by principles and are driven by impulse. They don’t think about who is the thinker. To this kind of person a quest for truth is a waste of time.
Level 2 people are the fanatical religious people we once were. They need a lot of structure and order to live by. In my own experience when I realized that I could do better on my own defining what principles I would live by, it was the start of the end of my JW tour of duty.
Level 3 people are the skeptics that are agnostics and atheists. These are so rational that they need complete and absolute facts to believe in truth. They want the empirical research on God to believe. One problem with these people is that they don’t question the questioning process and this creates an anomaly. As Einstein said not all things that can be counted count and not all things that count can be counted.
Level 4 people are the spiritual mystics who see the whole. They are evolved to be all things and nothing at the same time. They can embrace any belief that they can resonate to. Their litmus test for truth is an internal process based on their past experience, intuition (deep trained thinking processes) and love. The truth is out there and in here. The only absolute truth is that it's absolutely relative.
Where the world ceases to be the scene of our hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings observing, asking, admiring. There we enter into the real of art and science. A Einstein