Can You Accept That The Truth Is Not Black And White?

In this session we contemplate the ambiguity of truth, noting how in almost all areas of life our opinions, feelings, and experiences often contradict one another, leading to different, yet often equally valid, expressions of what we consider true.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session.

I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable.

You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

In a moment I'm going to share with you a question to contemplate and then we'll just sit in silence for a minute and let it percolate.

Then we'll talk about that question and see where the discussion leads us.

This question and indeed all of the questions in this course are designed to be a catalyst for change,

A prompt that will help you to reframe your thinking,

Help you to consider new possibilities and approaches and to usher in a state of being that is more attuned with your highest calling.

I invite you to approach the question with an attitude of extreme openness.

One where for the duration of the session you welcome in and accept any and all responses that arise.

There are no right or wrong answers,

No good or bad thoughts,

Nothing for you to run from or move towards.

Just be open to whatever arises as it is for what it is in this moment.

Without judgment or filter.

By doing so you'll be opening yourself up to the deepest and truest expression of wisdom and intuition available to you.

So let's take a moment and just sit with today's question.

Can you accept that truth is not black and white?

Can you accept that truth is not black and white?

Can you accept that truth is not black and white?

So this idea that truth is not black and white is I think one of the starting points towards deep wisdom.

Particularly when you can apply it to your own thoughts,

Your own mental state,

Your own knowledge,

The truths that you hold dear.

But to get there I want to start with a story or an anecdote that brings me back to my teaching days.

I'll suggest to students that perhaps the opinions,

The thoughts,

The ideas that they hold closest may or may not be true in an objective sense.

They might be subjectively true,

As in true to them,

True to their world,

True to their experience.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true to global experience,

That it's a human truth,

That it's objectively fact.

And the way that you can prove this to someone is by asking them the simple idea,

The simple sort of mental game of remembering the last time that they saw two people arguing.

Both people had beliefs,

Had opinions,

Had examples,

Maybe even they had supporters.

And from the outside perspective,

From the detached perspective where you don't have a vested interest in an outcome,

It's very easy to see that both parties are probably correct.

If you were to embody and live in person A's shoes,

You'll see it from their perspective.

And you could agree with their reasoning,

Their logic,

And their evidence would support their claim fully.

But then you sit in person B's shoes and you equally see that,

Well,

Their beliefs and their evidence and their proofs do indeed prove that their evidence is true.

But you're external to it all.

So simultaneously,

You're seeing how both people's arguments,

Both people's beliefs are true for them.

But you're also seeing that there's deeper truths,

Truth beyond those two arguments.

You see that the truth isn't necessarily so black and white.

One person in this argument isn't correct and the other person is wrong.

Maybe they're just looking at it from a different perspective.

Maybe they are just seeing it from their own point of moral relativism.

This idea that based on your unique blend of genetics crossing with your environment,

That is the time and place of birth,

Your parents,

Your education,

Your religion,

Your gender,

Your race,

Your sexuality,

All of the unique things that make up you will help you to form an opinion of the world.

How I view the world will be significantly different to how you view the world and how everyone else views the world because we've all experienced the world with slightly different hardware,

Our brains and bodies and significantly different conditioning on top of that.

If you grew up with a challenging childhood like I did,

You were left with residual impacts from that childhood,

Beliefs and hang-ups and blocks that other people simply don't have.

You look at the world in a certain way.

If people have always been mean and scary,

Then you'll approach the world in a way that assumes that people are mean and scary.

If you've always had opportunities and potential and possibility open to you,

Then that's how you'll approach the rest of the world because that's just normal for you.

Those two people approaching the same problem or the same situation will inevitably see different things.

If an OH&S officer,

A police person,

A barista and a child walk into a shop,

They're all going to be looking at different aspects.

They will notice different things.

The child might notice a crack in the floor that looks like a face and start playing on it.

The OH&S officer might go,

Oof,

That's a bit dangerous.

The police person might be looking at the street frontage access and other safety features.

The point is the upbringing,

The job,

The role will all cause these people to look at the situation in slightly different ways and see things differently.

If we apply this to different religions,

Different cultures,

Different languages,

Different times,

Different worldviews,

We start to see that truth really is not an objective thing.

You could almost argue,

And some people do,

That there is no such thing as good and evil,

That those concepts are mental constructs applied to events based on your own internal judgments of those events.

Your own internal judgments are based on the conditioning that you've had for your life.

A look back through history will see that we have a very varied and quite contradictory view of what is right and wrong.

But what is most often and most assuredly true,

If we can say that in this talk,

Is that were you brought up in that upbringing,

In that environment,

You would probably have similar views to other people that are brought up in that environment.

If you mapped out a correlational statistical graph of your views on particular topics,

You will be quite similar to other people in your similar position,

In your similar time,

In your similar location.

We are products of our environment and it would be very easy to think that you would act or do or be the same person that you are.

But if you were to change those things,

Who you would be and what you'd be doing would be different.

How you are thinking would be different.

Some languages,

Some societies,

Some cultures have many words for one concept.

For example,

If you live in a snowy environment,

A cold environment,

You're going to have far more words for snow to describe the different aspects and features of it than someone living in a desert who maybe even doesn't have a word for that.

If you're from a nomadic,

Constantly moving society,

You're going to have completely different worldviews and opinions of what makes a home than someone that is in a stationary farming based society.

That is once again different to someone that is operating primarily online.

The point is,

Is that every human lives in a different world and this question,

Can you accept that truth is not black and white,

Is pivotal to starting to realize that the truths we hold dear also aren't necessarily true for other people.

Something I've taken to doing is listening to podcasts,

Watching videos,

Engaging with content from people with wildly different lived experiences,

Different cultures,

Different genders,

Different ethnicities,

Different religions,

Different ages,

Different lived experiences and just listening to hear their truth and imagining myself as them and attempting to see the world through their eyes.

Because they speak with such conviction,

They know that their truth is their truth and they apply it to the world.

It's interesting to live in their world,

In their space and just embody that for a little bit.

Because what they're saying is,

And particularly when you find someone that's quite articulate and well-reasoned and researched,

They're speaking truth.

But then you do the interesting thing of finding their counterpoint,

Left to right,

For example,

And you start listening to their version of those same events,

Those same talking points,

And they start being right.

They start being correct.

They start twisting those same statistics and same talking points to,

Quote unquote,

Prove their worldview.

Then you speak to someone that isn't right or left-leaning,

But maybe sort of libertarian or approaching things from a different perspective completely.

A spiritualist,

Some other place,

A child,

And they see the world through their own lens.

And you start to quickly realize that everyone's speaking truth,

But the truth isn't the same between one another.

And you start to ask yourself,

Is there any truth beyond maybe the natural rules of the universe,

Like gravity,

Those sort of things?

This is a question that's going into philosophy.

Is there an objective right and wrong?

Is there a place of morality that transcends society,

Culture,

Time,

All of these things?

I don't know.

And that's an aspect of deep contemplation.

These questions aren't designed to give you answers,

But rather to get you questioning.

And what I hope to leave you with with today's session is the idea that perhaps the next time you find yourself dug in on an argument,

Could you consider that you may be wrong?

You may not know the full truth,

Or maybe you haven't considered the truth of the person you're talking with.

Have you considered their world,

Their universe,

What they see as truth?

And beyond that,

What is the point of the discussion in the first place?

Is it to convince them that you're right?

For them to try and convince you that they're right?

Or is it to come to some neutral understanding?

Maybe the whole point of the discussion isn't to quote-unquote win,

But to understand,

To see the world from their perspective.

Just something to consider.

So I ask you to sit for one more minute and ask yourself,

Can you accept the truth is not black and white?

Can you accept the truth is not black and white?

So,

Well done.

This brings us to the end of the session.

At the bottom of your screen,

You'll see the option to view the classroom or to ask a question.

And before moving on,

I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,

To read the answers from other students,

And to hear my replies.

Remember to start your responses by restating the question,

Or perhaps in this case,

Truth,

So we know which one you're referring to.

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection,

And insight,

So please don't miss out.

Look forward to seeing you in the next session.

Thank you.

This session was taken from the course Awaken to Your Highest Calling.

It's out now and available on Insight Timer via my profile.

Check it out.