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Feature Article (Archived) |
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TRUTH: THE HIGHEST PRINCIPLE We hear much of this from Christ, Buddha, the Hindu texts … from all philosophers. Christ’s words to Pilate: “I have come to bear witness to the Truth.” Buddha: “Truth is Life.” Upanishads (main Vedantic scriptures): Constant emphasis on the Truth.
As though there really is one saving, eternal, universal Truth of being that will enlighten and free us forever!
Is there?
You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free …
Buddha believed it. Vedanta believes it.
Let’s analyze this saying: Knowledge of the truth will make us free. Obviously we are not free now. That means we do not have knowledge of the Truth. What do we have? Knowledge of untruth. It is untruth that is the foundation of our lives. And in that untruth is our bondage, our lack of freedom. For surely we are not free, we are in bondage to so many things. This is assumed by Christ, by St. Paul, by Buddha, by all the scriptures of India.
Therefore it behooves us to find our way out of this bondage of untruth by knowing the truth. Realization of the truth, says Christ, will make us free.
Which means that the state we are in now is an illusion, a false state. We conclude that because if we can move from one state producing bondage to another which produces freedom, then obviously it is ignorance of the truth that constitutes our bondage. Ignorance of what we are, of what the truth is, constitutes our lack of freedom.
Hence our lack of freedom, is not only false, but also illusory, like a dream. Truly like a dream! In a dream we are in bondage, feel we are, feel the fears, the terrors, the compulsions. . . . It is upon waking that we know the truth and it is the knowledge alone that frees us. We do not have to go anywhere. We merely turn from ignorance, which is the dream-consciousness, to knowledge of our condition, which is the consciousness of truth, to come into the true state, our true state.
So our present bondage is dream-like. Is merely false. Our sins, weaknesses, bondage, fears, limitations, and all the rest are merely false, based on ignorance … say the Upanishads, the Vedantic scriptures.
Ignorance is the original sin, they say. Remove the ignorance and the sun of knowledge shines forth on a condition that was always there—as our true freedom from dream-fears was always there during our dream-bondage. We have merely to wake up to know the truth. So here, we have merely to awaken to know the truth, to wake from our ignorance. Our sins, then, are merely the result of ignorance. When we are no longer ignorant, when we know the truth, we shall no longer sin … no longer hate, lust, rage, grasp, fight, and all the rest. Those things being the result merely of not knowing what and who we are!
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You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free! I come to bear witness to the Truth, Christ told Pilate.
It is the truth that saves … not a man. Christ doesn’t say: I will make you free. That, if it were possible, would enthrone him above the Truth, which is above all men. You shall know the truth—that will make you free. Truth being God in another mode. He came to bear witness to the highest principle … namely, the Truth.
TRUTH IS LIFE, says Buddha. That is, spiritual life, divine life, immortal life.
What is death, then? Self, he said—self is death. That means, then, that self is ignorance, or is sprung from ignorance—ignorance of who I am and what I am. When I have passed beyond ignorance I will not manifest the self, which is the false ego-self that presently dominates my life and personality.
Truth is Life … Self is death.
Vedanta says this false self that is death according to Buddha, is merely the result of our ignorance of what that self really is. Namely, the Great, the Divine, the Universal Self individualized in me, in you, in one and all!
For further information on Vedanta: What is Vedanta? See also under Words of Wisdom: Truth
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