B+ve to be Truthful

What is Truth?

A small kid of 5 years old asks his mother, how does that train run? Mother shows her hand at her mouth making gesture of train like we do saying “coooo chuk chuk chuk” animating enthusiastically and the kid is satisfied and learns something. Then again when same kid is in 5^th standard teacher tells him that the train engine runs on electricity and pulls the rest of it. When he gets to 10^th standard teacher explains in detail about working of steam engine, diesel and electrical engines and different ways a train works. Same one when he get his PhD. Is locomotive engineering, he will design and get u a new train design manufacture if u are able to fund the project. Let us ask our self which is the real truth? All the answers are valid and true, yet based on the situation relevant answers vary. Though absolute truth remains, what is relevant to the situation changes.

What about lies?

Anyone who lies does so because they are afraid of truth and don’t know how to use it. We don’t have to say, all we know in every situation but only what is called for in a give situation based on what we need to achieve by saying what we do. One needs to learn to be diplomatic, positive and appreciative of the person, giving the truth as required. Being straight forward when unnecessary is harmful and immature.

If you are at friends place and her mother gives you a cup of tea and which you are not able to appreciate the taste, you can instead compliment on the efforts she put in to make that tea for you. That would be truth too. There is always so much positive in the world around, when we make it our practice to appreciate all the good, we will never need to complain about the not so good things and speak about unpleasant truth when not required anyways.

What we need to understand is making a habit of lying is very harmful. Once a lie is told, then there will be need to lie many more times to cover it up and can lead to unnecessary embarrassment which could be avoided if we didn’t do it for some silly reason the first time. Speaking truth can be very unburdening sort of work.

What abt situations when we are required to speak about harmful truth? Isnt it better to lie?

One can refrain from speaking at all and refuse to answer. But our judgement that it is harmful may not be absolute; it may be for a greater good to speak truth.  We misunderstand and misjudge the situation and hide truth when truth can in fact can clear a lot of misunderstanding and save unnecessary pain. 99% of people lie not because it is really harmful but because they are insecure and confused. The agenda behind lying is not an honourable one usually. The intent is to harm or revenge, anger, jealousy most of the time.

Once we lie, we feel guilty and get trapped in stress, the tension of being discovered. Creating more harm than good to self and others. Once a person is known to lie they become untrustworthy and unreliable. This is the risk in lying. But more than that we are trapped in negativity and harm our life in this path much more than paltry gains we can expect.

Why do we feel compelled to lie?

When we see lot of people around us lying it becomes acceptable to lie. This is very harmful trend for the society. Being dishonest person starts with simple lies. Then the social conventions that expect you to lie openly are the worst instruments one can make to destroy the society. You are expected to behave in a certain way even if you don’t feel it at all, and so on create this training and situation like its a compulsion to lie these days because we are trained to do that from childhood.

Is lying necessary?

Not at all. One needs to learn positive thinking and learn to appreciate the good in people instead lying about their bad performance. People expect appreciation but not truth so why not appreciate them truthfully and gain their respect rather than lie and gain their ego boost? Most of the time they themselves know you are lying so it really doesn’t help gain respect if they hear what they expect. We can be more tactful and diplomatic to gain real respect and show ourself to be trustworthy and valuable to people around us when we speak positive and appreciate people truthfully.

What is Life Changing Absolute Truth? How do we stop lying?

At Brahma Kumaris the spiritual truth behind our existence and God are thought. We learn how to meditate on the positive powers of God and empower our soul. We learn to see positive in every person and aspect of life. We realise that there is no need to lie at all. We focus on good and improve, that is all to it. This positivity brings happiness, focus, harmony and contentment in life.

The absolute truth is that we are spiritual beings called Soul or Atma. Life consciousness controlling this body whose natural nature is to express peace, love, happiness. When we look into our own consciousness we find there is lot of love and peace inside us to be unlocked and spread all around us. This peace, love and happiness, they increase when you give. So we tend to give more and more to gain even more. This is the real truth that matters.