I've been attempting to tell the truth more lately.
Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it seems difficult, and so I pause for awhile sometimes to see what wants to emerge. Sooner or later, something that seems genuine seems to emerge.
I've experienced attempting to tell the truth to be costly on occasion. Occasionally I've lost relationships because of it, or changed someone's opinion of me.
Yet I've noticed, too, that it has one great advantage. It leads to more aliveness. It is a great liberator, a great awakener.
In my opinion, great truth always comes from the inner guide. Consequently, it seems to come from a place of detachment and even love. It's not interested in getting even or making accusations. In my opinion, that's not the truth; it's just conditioning working itself out.
And this kind of honesty is always gentle; it's never seeking to hurt. That doesn't mean that people can't feel hurt; the outcome can never be truly predicted. Nevertheless, it could be summed up as "gentle honesty."
When attempting to be honest, where we're coming from seems to make the most difference. It's not so much what we say or how skillful we may or may not be, but rather, where our heart is when we're telling our truth as we see it.
Yet this truth is also courageous; it could even be described as fearless sometimes. It just wants to be and express the truth, in a spirit of wanting love and compassion for all.
Finally, I've noticed that following the inner guide is a form of truth-telling. To trust enough to just follow what it "says" feels more and more like approaching authenticity. And authenticity, the willingness to accept ourselves more and more just as we are, with all our beauties and warts, seems to be intimately linked with that aliveness that lends poinancy to life.
And that willingness can entend to the world itself. The world has its own beauties and warts, and loving it more and more as it is, when we can do that, becomes its own deep and mysterious form of poinancy and authenticity.
—jim sloman, for 8/27/01
|
