I believe that Truth is a very important component of Spirituality.
As I’ve studied various spiritual tomes, religious tracts, bibles, Near Death Experience books I’ve come across a theme that recurs over and over again. In the hereafter nothing is SECRET. Everything is known. Everything is understood or can be understood.
Now that is a thought that both scares me and highly intrigues me.
It scares me because I don’t really want the things of my life to be public knowledge. I don’t want my indiscretions of selfishness to fly as a flag from the tallest mast on the biggest ship in the widest ocean. YES, I”M AFRAID THAT PEOPLE WILL SEE ME AS I REALLY AM. Some of that is very, very good because sometimes I am very, very good. But I am all to aware of the multitude of times that I have let down my brothers and sisters.
The good part of a hereafter with no secrets is all man-made political and spiritual systems will be laid bare as provincial, ego-building systems. The Universal truths will be self-evident and undeniable. Spirituality will be plain and forthright. TRUTH will be as evident as the clouds in the sky, the streams through the wilds, and the trees in the forest. In short, incontestable, undebatable. I believe that I will finally have real answers to real questions of the Universe and God’s world. I WILL UNDERSTAND THINGS. Reality won’t be open to interpretation. All the different positional sides of people will enable us to see ourselves as ONE.
I believe that there are two kinds of Truth: Provincial Truths and Universal Truths. The provincial truths are those that are primarily geographic, local and temporal. The Universal truths are true despite geogaphy or time. They are true everywhere, all the time, for all people.
Provincial Truths can further be broken down into true or passing for true(talk about doublespeak). A real provincial truth is usually small personal, geographic and timely. The love of my family is a provincial truth. It’s real to me but but does not carry over to other people, other places, or other times.
The false provincial truths are provincial truths trying to pass for Universal Truths. These are truths that the religious, the political, and particular try to pass off as “We Are The One”. In short, it is various groups trying to “co-op” and “incorporate” the truth to their personal use.
The discovery of a false provincial truth can be seen by trying to take it to another part of the world and imparting that truth there. If it appears at all self-serving or self-directed then it could be met with jeers and disdain. “You believe what?” they would say. It becomes a propositional truth that has to be sold.
The Universal truths can be recognized everywhere, all the time. Truths that are Universal can be recognized as, “whatever you do unto others will be done to you”, “As you give you gain in understanding”, “you must first save yourself if you would save another.” These are truths that can usually be recognized by all people, anywhere, anytime.
It will behoove us to learn NOW to be as honest as possible. If upon entrance to the hereafter we try to carry on as we did on earth our foolish lies will pervade our whole existence. We will be embarrassed that we can’t face the truth.
Imagine a world in which every mistruth exposes us as a long-nosed Pinocchio, or the naked Emperor upstaged by a child(“The Emperor’s New Clothes“). Could we live with our lies emblazoned like NEON signs on our forehead? Don’t you think that we would grow mute if we couldn’t tell the truth. If every word we uttered was an attempt to amend and modify our world to our selfishness wouldn’t we see the need to change? If our normal shortcut answers failed to help us wouldn’t we try to align ourselves to Universal Truth?
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.