Can You Handle The Truth?

What do we do when we hear/see/read/think the truth? This is a very important and profound question to ponder upon.

Truth has different layers - the truth about our actions and events, the truth about our thinking, and the truth about who we are. In order to reach the last one, we have to become more and more transparent with the truth about our actions and events.

This meditation is designed to provoke us by zooming in on our relationship with Truth. Do we embrace it and own it? Or do we justify, defend, and fight it?

If we cannot handle the truth about our actions and events, how can we reach the subtler states of truth viz. truth about our thinking and ourselves?

Transcript

Let's close our eyes.

When I heard my teacher a few years ago,

When I started following him,

Started attending his retreats online,

In person,

I heard him say that we are truth seekers here.

And the retreat was people like me,

Who were seeking something,

But I never knew what I was seeking.

I was seeking happiness,

Peace,

More importantly,

That's how I knew happiness.

But I met people who would call themselves truth seekers.

And once I heard the phrase,

I started reflecting,

What does it even mean?

What does seeking truth mean?

Or what does truth mean?

What is truth?

I don't want to speak in the abstract,

I don't want to speak in the absolute either,

In terms of absolute truth.

But even if we stayed true to the spirit of these sessions,

The spirit of the spirit of these sessions is very simple,

Peace and happiness in daily lives.

You may call yourself spiritual,

You may not,

Doesn't matter,

But we all want to be happy and peaceful in our daily lives.

So sticking to this spirit,

Truth has different flavors,

But in all sense,

It is still quote unquote truth.

Not the truth of morality,

Right and wrong,

I'm not talking about right and wrong.

People have argued about what's right and what's wrong for thousands of years,

And they've probably gotten killed in the process.

When I say truth,

I'm speaking about what resonates with our hearts,

Not with our minds,

Not what we have learnt,

What we have read,

What we have been taught,

Conditioned,

But something that resonates with us.

We don't fight it because it's undeniable in our body,

We can feel it in our body.

We can obviously feel it in our minds as well.

So what is your relationship with truth?

Many of us seek answers.

When we read books,

When we go for seminars,

Workshops,

Teachers,

We have questions,

We're seeking answers.

I definitely came on this quote unquote spiritual path,

Seeking the answer to the question why?

Why is it happening to me?

Why?

That is obviously coming from a very painful place,

A place of suffering.

But it doesn't matter how we come here.

Some of us might come out of curiosity,

Out of compassion,

To understand how.

But soon enough,

We come to a place like today,

Where we deal with the question what?

What is suffering?

What is unhappiness?

But no matter what question are we in,

The prerequisite for seeking answers is being open to the answer.

Imagine a situation where you have made something,

You've prepared something,

Maybe you've prepared a meal,

Maybe you have created a piece of art.

Maybe you've given an exam.

Can you ask someone else,

How do you think this is?

Do you like it?

Do you think I did well?

Do you think it's good?

Deep down,

We are not ready to listen to no,

Are we?

We want them to say yes.

We want them to say it's good.

We are asking a question without being open to all possible answers.

And the thing is,

We don't even have,

The answer doesn't even have to be correct.

It could just be their opinion.

Yet,

We don't want to hear it.

Can we ask for feedback?

And someone really gives us feedback,

Which is not positive.

How do we receive it?

And again,

In this place,

I'm not talking about answers that we receive for questions we haven't asked.

Or in other words,

Unsolicited advice,

Unsolicited feedback or unsolicited answers.

I'm talking about genuinely asking questions,

Asking feedback.

And see what happens when someone says something we don't want to hear as feedback.

Don't you feel a ball in your stomach?

Some fire in your heart?

This imagery that I'm describing is not fully accurate.

And it doesn't apply all the time.

But at least it gives us an idea of what being open or not open looks like and feels like.

So the prerequisite is to be open to the answer for whatever we are seeking.

Knowing that the answer that comes to us may require us to jettison whatever we thought was the answer earlier or previously.

If we ask a question,

If we seek something with a confirmation bias,

That is,

We already kind of know what the answer should be.

And if the answer that is received is in line with what we think it should be,

Then great.

If not,

Then it gets dismissed at the level of our minds.

So think of your mind as the gatekeeper,

A thick wall that prevents things from reaching your heart.

And when we are open,

We are open in our minds so that whatever comes through us can reach our hearts.

That is what I mean by listening in first person.

There is no distance between us and what we are listening to.

Even at a relative level,

In our everyday life,

There are instances,

Many instances with our spouses,

With our parents,

With our kids,

With our friends,

Where something true comes our way.

And we feel it in our chest.

We feel it in our bellies.

And it's almost always,

It's almost always the feeling of being found out.

That I am,

I made a mistake and they know about it.

Maybe imposter syndrome.

Let's say you say something about your friend to someone and that friend sneakily alludes to that and you know in your heart that she knows or he knows.

So truth came our way.

Now what do we do with that truth?

What is our relationship with truth?

Do we justify?

Do we defend?

Do we fight?

Do we embrace?

And again,

Only our hearts,

Our body,

Are the metrics,

The tools to verify whether something true,

Something is true or not.

I'm not being judgmental.

I'm not asking you to judge either.

But to see it clearly,

Objectively,

As to what do I do when I hear the truth,

Even at a relative level,

Even if it shows my flaws or shows my mistakes or exposes something about me.

And don't get me wrong,

The reason we defend,

We justify,

We fight is because there is almost always pain,

Suffering,

Shame associated with the truth that we have tried to bury it for a long time.

So it makes sense that we have learned to keep that at a distance from us because it triggers feelings of discomfort to extreme pain,

Shame within us.

But what if we use truth to let go of shame,

Let go of pain,

Let go of suffering that is buried inside of us than to keep protecting that painful spot day in,

Day out,

Decade in,

Decade out,

And to ruin this relationship with truth?

What if instead of defending and justifying,

We ask the question,

Is it true?

Doesn't matter who is saying it,

Doesn't matter how it is being said.

So who the messenger is and what the message is,

Is it true?

If it is,

Then does it require me to fight it?

Or should I just say,

Yes,

You're right and I'm really sorry.

I made this mistake,

I will correct it.

What if we accepted our mistake without justifying,

Without blaming someone else?

As long as we thought we are responsible,

Even if it is to 1% of the entire fault.

We don't take others' blame,

That's not what I'm saying,

But neither do we deflect our blame on someone else.

Just accepting the truth,

Whatever is true for us,

To us.

I know what I'm telling you is really difficult to fathom because there's a lot of discomfort.

It's like the old Tom and Jerry show,

Where the spotlight is right on the mouse and he gets found out.

That's what it feels like.

But this being found out is not really fully investigated.

Found out by who?

We think we live a life like Jim Carrey in Truman Show movie.

It's like the entire world is looking at us,

Seeing every action of us.

But nobody is looking.

The acceptance of truth is only for ourselves,

Such that the mind and the heart,

The wall between them doesn't exist and there's just complete transparency.

Things that are not true flow through,

Things that are true also flow through.

Once we become comfortable with being transparent,

It feels naked.

But then I tell you from my own experience that it takes a lot of courage to accept something that is true,

Then to fight it.

And if things are not true,

They don't even bother us that much.

Only most of the times true things bother us.

And bother is a light word I use.

Many times we spend sleepless nights because someone said something.

We raise our voice.

We bring up irrelevant things to connect here,

To justify,

To defend,

To fight.

We find ways to break down this argument,

To shred them into pieces.

It drains us,

Exhausts us,

Makes us feel dirty inside.

Whereas the transparency,

The purity,

The clean feeling of just saying,

Yes,

I made a mistake,

I'm sorry.

I won't repeat this again.

It lets us feel lighter,

Makes us sleep better.

So once we accept the mundane truths,

Truths about our actions,

Truths about what we do,

What we have done,

We are ready for the next level of truth.

The subtler level of truth.

Truth about what we think.

And then we are open to truth about who we are.

The last is the spiritual path.

That's what all the sages and all the gurus have sought in our teaching.

The truth about who we are.

To make our lives easier when we walk that path of seeking the truth about who we are.

Having this transparency about truth of what we have done,

What we think,

Is so immensely helpful because everything that we discover about who we are can be easily investigated to be true or false.

And if it is true,

Accepted as well.

We don't have to fight truths.

Once we stop fighting,

We become more sensitive in our bodies,

In our feelings.

That helps with intuition.

We become a lot more intuitive about people around us,

Sensitive to their needs,

To their neurosis without judging them,

But understanding because we understand and we have accepted our mechanisms of suffering.

Suddenly starts bringing empathy in our relationships.

And one thing I would like to add to accepting the truth is the acceptance is without judgment,

Without punishment,

Without scolding.

Otherwise,

We are perpetuating the cycle of unkindness.

Acceptance of truth is a forward-looking exercise.

That is,

We can't go back in time and do anything about it.

Neither should we scold ourselves or punish ourselves now.

Instead,

We learn from the truth and if it requires a change in attitude,

Change in behavior,

Change in action,

We do that with intelligence,

With willingness.

So this truth-seeking exercise need not become a baseball bat that we take to hit ourselves.

Instead,

It becomes a tool that we sculpt ourselves,

We sculpt our life,

We sculpt our actions,

Our relationships.

We fine-tune it,

Smoothen it out as if our whole life is on the foundation of truth,

Foundation of transparency,

Lightness.

No fighting,

Peace,

No violence towards others,

Towards ourselves especially.

You know,

In many cultures there is a vow that people take to speak only truth because they want to base their lives on truth.

That's the grossest way of starting with speaking so that we reach all the way to the truth about ourselves.

What it also mandates is we don't break hearts when we tell other people something that is true because we know how painful it is for us to accept truth.

We are a little kinder.

Why?

Because we know the other person will also feel it.

So we have to become more skillful in our words so that we say the truth but without hurting the other person.

So our life becomes a dance around truth and skill,

Kindness and peace,

Empathy.

So what is your relationship with truth?

Thank you.