Saturday, April 28, 2012

Truth vs. Belief




I always had a questioning mind and since a young age I visited the theosophical colony and at its far end stared at the emblem and inscribed words "there is no religion higher than truth". While it sounded very profound and the sort of thing i would want to say to someone in an intellectual conversation when i was older, it took me 26 years to begin to understand what "truth" really is.

What is truth and how many truths can there be?

I felt that there could be many truths and it could be an idea or notion that you held in your opinion to be real. This meant that 6 billion people could have their own truths. The visionary his, the crusader his, the teacher his, the soldier his, the pauper his, the victorious his, the dying his, the rapist his, the repenter his. Is what they hold the truth or is it a belief?

What we perceive becomes our belief. Truth is independent of belief like the sun independent of earth, moon or venus. The sun shines unknowing and irrespective. Thus truth prevails, undaunted. 

A belief is the summary of our doubts and assertions. It is sometimes wavering and sometimes frigid. Belief changes with time and changes with perception. Belief is infact the antipode of truth. The truth cannot change with time or perception. The truth cannot be moulded or created. The truth cannot be planted in the subconscious or taught to the learner. Truth is only ever realized. But a belief can be planted or indoctrinated. Like the belief is santa claus when one is young. The belief in equality when one is older. And the world knows that these are lies. But they are beliefs to many. However, they are not the truth. To have a belief itself means, to have faith. Faith is only had in the unknown or the unseen. Faith is something we create to sooth our anxieties and fears. Faith is not real. The truth is real, because it exists. At one end of faith, on the very tip of faith lies the seed of doubt. Faith can be easily grown into doubt and we all have known this. Having the faith that an exam went well, having the faith that a business deal will be monetized, having the faith that god will answer your prayers; and then something turns this faith to doubt. It is because we chase beliefs and never inquire about the truth. Truth that is a certain as - itself. Nothing is higher than truth.

Love, compassion, humility are all synonyms of truth. When we truly love free from fear or ownership, free of pain or doubt, free of need or hurt we realize that we do not believe we love. We do not have faith in love. We come to realize love. And that is knowing the truth. When we really feel compassion not out of pity, not out of the need to become better people, not to redeem our sins, not to feel better about ourselves; but when we have compassion because that it the essence, the plasma of any intelligent being, because that it automatic and not planted like a belief or cause to be compassionate, we are truly compassionate. When we are humble, not to our elders or to the weak, when we are humble not in our mistakes or our success, but humble to the force of nature, humble towards the powerless fledgling or a delicate sapling, when we are humble to the the gush or a stream or the whisper of a breeze, not humble so that we do not seem rude or non appreciative, then we in our humility towards life have unknowingly realized truth.

Truth therefore is quite singular and steadfast. It is everything to those who know it and its idea non-existent to those who rely on beliefs. It is timeless and faceless, as liquid as the air yet as grounded as a rock. It is stoic and exists without the need for discovery. It exists just because. If there is one thing that is holy in our realms of understanding and realization, it is not our beliefs in Jesus or Allah or Krishna or Mahavir. It is the truth that is most holy. 
And no amount of chasing it or dreaming of it can bring you closer to it. But if we can love without wanting or have compassion without fear or self-soothing or be humble because we realize that the thread that ties lives is the same and no different for man or woman, the rich or poor, the hungry or the satiated we can live truly. 

I am not a theosophist because i do not follow a system or religion. I do not love other human beings or creatures because the religion tells me. I do not know somethings as a result of this religion asking me to believe. I know what i have realized and the rest is cast in belief. I am not so realized yet and I cannot say I have really accepted truth. But i do see it and I approach it shedding the years of beliefs and faith. And in every drop of truth is the sweet nectar of life. Life is truth. Love is truth. Compassion is truth. I do not see this because i am a theosophist, I am a theosophist because I see this. And somehow i have this profound realization, I recognize it because it is the sort of thing you recognize when you see it. I see that the truth is absolute and so is everything that stands for truth. Love, compassion, humility. The nucleus of truth is the matter from which explodes the infinite boundary of life. 

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The busyness of Life

The most rewarding aspect of living and working in a world biosphere reserve and world heritage site is being able to get lost in it when the chance presents itself.

Contrary to what most people would say about areas such as the Serengeti and Ngorongoro and being able to get lost in such a visited place, there are areas where few tourists ever go and roads that few people ever traverse.

And also, can we ever get lost unless we allow the mind to live outside of the known?

The Masais don't have roads. They go where the pastures are green and the landscape allows them. There is no restriction on a path they choose, in their minds or hearts. They remember their roads by rocks and stones, a twisted tree, the horizon and the dust of the ground. Roads are the creation of a "civilized" race that has learned to live so curbed. Our fearful minds need support to steer us in the right direction. Not a wrong turn here, not a divergence there. Fearing getting lost and perhaps thereby, being found?


I haven't unfortunately embarked on any such great travels or travails. But I have seen some beautiful panoramas that made me feel like I was a part of them, their existence, their moment in evolution. A part of that blue sky and the grey, cotton fluffed clouds. That my breath mingled with the air pregnant with moisture. I was a part of the dust so red and a soil so black and heavy. I was a part of the hills and their solitude. A part of the wildebeest and their smells and the cheetah's resting so beautifully, unexpectant of any passer by in the shade of the acacia. I was a part of the wisdom and the naiveté. A part of life.


There are stories buried in the sands of this land. There are footsteps one can follow. Hidden in the sounds of silence are the whispers of evolution. There is an aloneness but no loneliness, a feeling that in being lost, there is a discovery. There is love. A love for not a person or a thing or a place. A love for the force so humbling. You are love. There is beauty in being away from the known and seeing something that only you will see. The stare of the Elands at the water, the notice of the Wildebeest a-grazing. The purple flowers that have bloomed in the recent rain and the remains of death on the soil. No one else will see the flowers in that moment, in that second. No one else will see the same Eland with the same stare. No one will hear the gnus the same way and no one will see the column of rain on the horizon from my spot. No one will see the keyhole of light in the clouds or the way the mountains and hills looked in that moment. Because tomorrow it will be different. There will be death and thus renewal. The land is alive. And it makes me alive.


There is great pleasure in not knowing and in the not knowing is the discovery of everything; in the alone path is the company of realization.

It is in the uninhabited land where there is the busyness of life.