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| Warrior Work Week 20 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 TRUTHFULNESS Truthfulness n: 1. corresponding with what is genuine or real; telling the facts. The word truth comes from the Old English word "trewoth", which means, "to be firm, solid, or steadfast." Similar words that come from "treowe" are the words true, trust, truce, and troth (as in betroth). There are many types of "truth" including trans-historical truth (events that happened at particular points in time), scientific truth (truth based on current knowledge and used to build operational systems), emotional truth (how one feels at any given time), informational truth (truth based on current known facts), and body/mind truth (truth that exists in one's being). Philosopher's known as "relativists" would say most truth is relative to where you sit or stand. For instance, the statement "pro-choice is good", may be true for one person and not true for another. Each depends on what premise, foundation or primary philosophy a person follows/believes and what they are "firm, solid or steadfast" in. The old poem, "the Desiderata" says, "speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others (their truth), even the dull and the ignorant for they too have their story". In listening to others, what they say, what they don't say along with what their body language tells us can help us get a larger view of the truth in them and what they "believe" or the philosophy they live in. Also in looking at ourselves we can see by our thoughts, words and actions what we truly believe in because it's effects can be seen in our work, our play, our relationships and even in our own body. Being genuine and truthful promotes harmony within us whereas deception and confusion (without fusion or clarity of intent) promote disharmony and conflict within us. Intent stretches all aspects of our being in toward a common goal or target (remember attentiveness came from ad and tendo - to stretch towards as opposed to in tendo or to stretch in) Truth fuses our thoughts, words and actions together, deception pulls them apart. The pictogram for truth is simple: your energy goes through your spine and out into your actions and words on your path. The truth is not "out there". The truth is here looking back at us from the mirror and reflecting back to us in every moment through our interactions in and with others and the world. To give you an insight into this, Carlos Casteneda tells a story about a man who had dedicated his life to saving the rain forest and went around speaking about it. When he listened to him speak he was very impressed but his mentor Juan Matus told him that he didn't believe the man. Carlos was shocked! "How can you not believe him?", he asked. "He has dedicated his life to this." Juan replied, "I can't believe he has so much love for the rain forest when he has no love for his own body, he is obviously well overweight and he smokes incessantly. He will be dead and gone long before the rain forest." What he was saying is that our ability to love and serve is directly related to our knowledge, power and inner harmony and cultivating that within us it can then ripple out to others. If we focus on "matters of consequence" as the little prince says, while ignoring our body/foundation then when it collapses so does our ability to serve and navigate through this world. (exercise: draw the pictogram for truth) 3 fingers story for discussion and contemplation There was a monastery where travelling monks had to defeat the gatekeeper in a discussion on Christianity to spend the night. The gatekeeper was tired one evening and decided to have his younger brother who was uneducated and had only one eye do the discourse. A monk arrived and the gatekeeper directed them to the garden to do the discourse with the rule that it had to be in silence (since he knew his younger brother didn't stand a chance otherwise) and afterwards they were to report to him with the results. Some time went by and the monk came out saying he had been defeated and was going on his way. "What happened?" asked the gatekeeper. The monk replied he had started the discourse by raising one finger symbolizing Christ, his brother then raised two fingers symbolizing Christ and his teachings. He then raised three fingers standing for Christ, his teachings and his followers. His brother shook his fist meaning that they all came from the same realization. He could not outdo that so he left. Shortly after the younger brother came in and asked, "where did that monk go?" "What happened?" replied the gatekeeper. "I'm going to beat him up." came the answer. "That monk started off by holding up one finger insulting my one eye. But I was polite and held up two fingers to show that he had been blessed with two eyes but then he further insulted me by holding up three fingers to mean that between the two of us we had three eyes. I then shook my fist at him to let him know I was unhappy with his attitude and he got up and left. I waited awhile but he was so rude to make me wait so long that I came looking for him." In the story, what truth did each character "see" and what truth did each character reveal about themselves? What advantage did the gatekeeper have and how can we apply that concept in our daily interactions? The three arts of the warrior are: intent, perception, behavior. Intent sets our perception which in turn sets our behavior. Contemplate this in regards to the intents of power, pleasure, avoidance of responsibility and love. By Peter Hill, Copyright 2004 www.getittogether.net Week 21>> |