Truth (Meaning of Truth)
By M. K. Gandhi

I deal with truth first of all, as the Satyagraha Ashram owes its very existence to the pursuit and the attempted practice of truth.

The word satya (Truth) is derived from Sat which means 'being'. Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God, In fact it is more correct to say that Truth is God than to say God is truth. But as we cannot do without a ruler or a general, such names of God as 'King' or 'Kings' or ' The Almighty' are and will remain generally current. On deeper thinking, however it will be realized that Sat or Satya is
the only correct and fully sign fact name for God.

And where there is Truth, there is also is knowledge which is true. Where there is no Truth, there also is knowledge which is true. Where there is no Truth, there can be no true knowledge. That is why the word Chit or knowledge is associated with the name of God. And where there is true knowledge, there is always bliss. (Ananda). There sorrow has no place. And even as Truth is eternal, so is the
bliss derived from it. Hence we know God as Sat-Chit-ananda, one who combines in Himself Truth, Knowledge and Bliss.

Devotion to this Truth is the sole justification for our existence. All our activities should be centered in Truth. Truth should be the very breath of our life.

When once this stage in the pilgrim's progress is reached, all other rules of correct living will come without effort, and obedience to them will be instinctive. But without Truth it is impossible to observe any principles or rules in life.

Generally speaking observation of the law of Truth is understood merely to mean that we must speak the Truth. But we in the Ashram should understand the word Satya or Truth in a much wider sense. There should be truth in thought, truth in speech, and truth in action. To the man who has realized this truth in its fullness, nothing else remains to be known , because all knowledge is necessary included in it. What is not included in it is not truth, and so not true knowledge; and there can be no inward peace without true knowledge. If we once learn how to apply this never failing test of Truth, we will at once able to find out what is worth doing, what is worth seeing, what is worth reading.

But how is one to to realize this Truth, which may be likened to the philosophers stone or the cow of plenty? By single minded devotion (abhyasa  ) and indifference to all other interests in life (vairagya) replies the Bhagavadgita. In spite, however of such devotion, what may appear as Truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker. where there is honest effort, it will be realized that what appear to be different truths are like the countless and apparently
different leaves of the same tree. Does not God himself appear to different individuals in different aspects? Yet we know that He is one. But Truth is the right designation of God. Hence there is nothing wrong in every man following Truth according to his lights. Indeed it is his duty to do so. Then if there is a mistake on the part of any one so following Truth it will be automatically set right. For the quest of Truth involves tapas self suffering, sometimes even unto death. There can be no place in it even a trace of self interest. In such selfless search for Truth nobody can lose
his bearings for long. Directly he takes to the wrong path he stumbles, and is thus redirected to the right path. Therefore the pursuit of Truth is true bhakti (devotion). It is the path that leads to God. There is no place in it for cowardice, no place for defeat. It is the talisman by which death itself becomes the portal to life eternal.

In this connection it will be well to ponder over the lives and
examples of Harishchandra, Prahlad, Ramchandra, Imam Hussain, the Christians saints, etc. How beautiful it would be if all of us, young and old, men and women devoted ourselves wholly to Truth in all that we might do in our walking hours, whether working, eating, drinking, or playing till dissolution of the body makes us one with Truth? God as Truth has been for me a treasure beyond price; may He
be so to every one of us.

Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi


TRUTH: THE HIGHEST PRINCIPLE
by Paul Hourihan

Truth …?

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!

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.

TRUTH: THE HIGHEST PRINCIPLE
by Paul Hourihan
http://www.vedanticshorespress.com/


“Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, and beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.”

Krishnamurthi


“And here it will be fitting to introduce the sages’ defination of the term truth. It has been earlier demonstrated that without such a defination men wander in a dry wilderness of hollow fancies, unfounded opinions, worthless theories and hypostatized words. This defination may sound quite simple, but it implications are most profound. It should be graven deeply on the heart. Here it is: TRUTH is that which is beyond all contradiction and free from all doubt; which is indeed beyond the very possibility of both contradiction and doubt; beyond the changes and alternations of time and vicissitude; forever one and the same, unalterable and unaltering; universal and therefore independent of all human ideation.”

Paul Brunton, Ph.D., The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga