"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"-Bible, John 8:32
Ahhh behold, the most sought after word, a word that gave rise to countless ascetics and hermits, a word that lays the foundations of existence and yet at the same time may shake the very foundations of existing structures, Truth.
In the 20 years of my living, not only have I heard about this word, but read about this word in so many texts. The only word whose echoes can be heard since time immemorial, and still I find people asking, "What is Truth?"
Well even after using this word almost everyday, people find it difficult to actually define the word. Let me make it simple, in the word itself lies its definition. What is Truth? The answer lies in the word itself. Lets make it even simpler , Truth is something that is concrete and absolute. In any system, until that system remains in the same state, Truth is something that holds true for all possibilities, just like an axiom for a hypothesis.
I was talking to my friends about the same, and told them about what I thought about truth. Then, one of them presented before me, what at first seemed to be an anomaly in the definition, that Truth is subjective. It was illustrated to me via an example. All of us know that dogs are Red-Green colour blind. So what happens when you place a Red ball infront of a Dog and A Human will say it is Red and the Dog (Let's suppose he is one of those CN dogs like Scooby or Scrappy blessed with the ability to communicate in human tongue) will say it is Green. Then who is speaking the truth now.
It took me of balance. Because from this situation it seemed that Truth can be subjective. After much thought, I did realise, that both were speaking the Truth and the definition did hold good. Because, for a Dog who is Red-Green colour blind, thinking of it as a system, under any circumstance, he will observe that ball as Green only and same will be the case with the Man.
But the more I thought, the more I pondered, how can Truth be the same and different at the same time. And then came to my mind another thought, Truth is something that is absolute, then how can it be slave to one's sensory perceptions. It is something outside any mortals perceptions. It is something that already exists, before we even perceived it. It only after perceiving it do we acknowledge the Truth. And then, did I realise, wherein the Truth did lie.
To make things a bit simpler, taking the example of the previous case, the Truth was that the ball existed and the Truth was that the ball was perceived (be it by the Dog or the Man) and the Truth lied in the fact that it produced some sensation that would remain the same for both the Dog and the Man (i.e. until the State of the System is the same). Now giving a name to that sensation or perception as "Red" or "Green" is something I would term as "Knowledge". And it is this Knowledge that we often confuse with Truth. True that Knowledge is a is a justified true belief, but it a belief more or less that has been justified to be termed as true. Hence, Truth is something that is absolute.
But why the Truth. All through our lifetime we read about people who leave their homes in search of the Truth, we might think that what were they trying to achieve. Well (and this is totally my personal opinions, I donot tend to hurt any type of sentiments of any person), that as I mentioned earlier that Truth is something that is absolute, but there can't be countless absolutes in this world. That is what I believe that did those hermits realise, that in the end, our life is governed by one simple truth. And it is for this Universal Truth, to discover it, to live it and then to teach it to other, it was for this noble cause that they did it, something me call as "Moksha" or "Nirvana".
But the sad fact remains, that even after the tries of these champions of society, men termed them as heretics. It was in their beliefs that lied the inherent flaw.The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. They refuse to come out of their shells and claim the truth. They rather live their lives revolving on Lies that make their lives simple and comfortable rather than following the path of Truth i.e the Path of God. And even if they accidentally themselves stumble upon the truth, they would get up and act as if nothing ever happened and continue with their lives.
In the end, accepting or rejecting it depends on the individual himself. The basic thing remains, that if the foundations on which you base your life is anything but the Truth, then the life you living a false life, a life that isn't worth acknowledging and a life that actually doesn't exist. It is so because it is the Truth that sets you free from the chains of this mortal world. But rather than standing on the Vantage ground of Truth, we take pleasure in wandering in the Tempest below.
Many say that why not lie if it makes things work for you. The answer lies in the fact, that like in a gold coin, even though by adding a hint of copper, we increase its workability, but by doing so, we also side by side reduce its value. That is what is the case with a Lie.
In the end it's all but a personal choice.
"If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men."- Montaigne.
