That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality is truth. It is more than showing something is false or wrong, because life is more complicated than that. *
“A door opens in the center of our being, and we seem to fall through it into immense depths, which although they are infinite – are still accessible to us. All eternity seems to have become ours in this one placid and breathless contact”
Thomas Merton
Truth is based on whose facts or reality? Your own or someone else’s? If it is your own, then truth is very subjective, open to interpretation. Think when you have been told something you found it to be interested from some one you now know actually believed it too be true.
An example:
Is the world made up of atoms? It could be claimed to be true. But quantum physics has shown that each atom is made up of particles that are not essentially matter, so a quantum physicist could argue that the answer is false. The fact something can be observed in one way, does not mean that another observation is not the truth. There are parameters about every experience.
The common modern ideal of truth refers to “truth to self,” or authenticity. In other words, you have truth if your view of self does not lie to your inner spirit, which is also the conduit to the divine. Integrity is the ability to maintain such authenticity, rather than it being a fleeting self-evaluation.
Why is it that mystics and prophets and gurus all have the same story about love and oneness?
Some believe that truth is equivalent to “beauty” or “the concept of goodness” in the universal consciousness.
This is consistent with the belief in a divine higher power/Consciousness/Source/God that is Love.
There are many differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth:
- what things are truthbearers capable of being true or false;
- how to define, identify, and distinguish truth;
- the roles that faith-based and empirically based knowledge play; and
- whether truth is subjective or objective, relative or absolute.
“If it is truth, it has to be true everywhere or it is not true at all.”
St Vincent of Lerin (434CE)
“If something is spiritually true, it will also be true in the physical world too, and all religions will somehow be looking at that ‘one truth’ from different angles, goals, assumptions and vocabulary, as will all of the disciplines of any great university. (Seeking Divine will) is seeking the truth of each situation in that situation as best we can figure it out. This ‘law written in your heart’ is ‘natural law’, or ‘natural theology’ ; the Word (of truth) is in your mouth and in your heart.
Jews call this Word ‘the Law’; Christians call it the Logos or the blueprint; Taoists call it the Eternal Tao; Budhists call it Emptiness or the Great Compassion; Hindus call it Brahman; Sufi Muslims call it the dance; and science speaks of universal theories. But we are all pointing to one underlying truth that we all strive toward in ten thousand ways. We all somehow believe it is a coherent and even a benevolent universe.”
Richard Rohr from “Immortal Diamond”
“Truth lives forevermore at the center of my being. I know that the Truth within me is always triumphant. This Truth in a consciousness of connection to some force higher than me.”
Ernest Holmes
Here is John Godfrey Saxe’s (1816-1887) version of
Blind Men and the Elephant:
It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approach’d the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl (yell):
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -“Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approach’d the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” -says he- “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” -said he,-
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said- “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” -says he,- “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween, (observe)
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And talk about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!