Subject #25: Truth and lie

What is a truth? Is it something that you are certain of? Or is it something that IS regardless whether you are certain of it or not? Latter one sounds like a better description to me. What about lie then? Is it a lie when you intentionally say something while knowing that what you just said is not what you really know about the subject? Is it a lie if you say something fully believing that it’s true but you’re mistaken? I would say that they’re both lies but first type of lying has roots in desire & fear while second type of lying is based on ignorance. In that sense honesty is not related to truth - it is the opposite of first type of lying.

"A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently."
~St. Augustine

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
~Abraham Lincoln

People recognize and condemn the first type of lying. Second type of lying is more difficult to recognize but it’s all around us. We hear those lies without recognizing them as lies and keep spreading them to others. That includes all ideas about how to live, what is important/right/wrong/good/bad, groups which people think unites them but in fact separates them (countries, races, religions, etc) and everything that feeds our desires and fears (and even creates new ones).

Truth is something that cannot be given from one to another. So many have tried that and result has always been a structure, which is far from truth. One may point out to the truth, give some hints about facing it but one must see the truth on its own. Human mind does not like that at all as it’s always seeking for some means to reach the goal, some answers instead of observing the questions and questioner.

One of J. Krishnamurti’s favorites was the following story:

You and a friend are walking along the path. And as you go along up the path you happen to pick up something ravishingly beautiful, sparkling, a jewel of extraordinary antiquity and beauty. You are so astonished to find it. You look at it with great astonishment. You hold it for some time, amazed and silent. Then you put it very carefully in your inside pocket, button it, and are almost frightened that you might lose it or that it might lose its sparkling, shining beauty. And you put your hand outside the pocket that holds it. The other sees you doing this and sees that your face and your eyes have undergone a remarkable change. There is a kind of ecstasy, a speechless wonder, a breathless excitement. When the man asks: ‘What is it that you have found and are so extraordinarily elated by?’ you reply in a very soft, gentle voice (it seems so strange to you to hear your own voice) that you picked up truth. You don’t want to talk about it, your are rather shy; the very talking might destroy it. And the man who is walking beside you is slightly annoyed that you are not communicating with him freely, and he says that if you have found the truth, then let’s go down into the valley and organize it so that others will understand it, so that others will grasp it and perhaps it will help them. You don’t reply, you are sorry that you ever told him about it.