Truth vs Falsehood (14 page)
Like social evolution, internal growth and development may be disquieting and tumultuous. The differentiation between fact and fallacy is challenging and requires both integrity and courage. The most important quality necessary for true growth and evolution is the practice and principle of humility. It is far less painful to voluntarily adopt a fundamental attitude of humility than to have it thrust upon oneself as the painful consequence of ineptitude. Humility, despite its negative public and social image in some quarters of society, is indicative of expertise, wisdom, and maturity. Because truth is the very bedrock and ultimate reality upon which humility is based, it is not a vulnerability in and of itself. Humility reveals that the mind can only ‘know about’, and that it cannot differentiate between appearance and essence.
It will be discovered that the only final and completely fulfilling resolution of doubt is the illumination of its very source. Underlying all fear, doubt, and uncertainty is the seeming uncertainty of existence itself. Only the realization of Self as the Reality out of which even existence arises has the power to extinguish all doubt forever.
Faith is a roadway but not a destination, for the term implies an as yet unresolved premise that exists only in the future. In contrast, only the present is truly knowable, and so what is sought by faith in the future exists only in the current moment and in every instant. Without faith and belief, life would not be livable or tolerable; however, on the absolute level, they eventually have to be replaced by the certainty of their final resolution as realization itself. The ultimate resolution is not in time but in the timeless. Truth and Reality are identical and eternally present, merely awaiting discovery.
Spiritual endeavor is the process by which the source of uncertainty is progressively relinquished. In the process of spiritual evolution, safety is provided for periods of time by the guidelines of verifiably reliable pathways. Providing these is the responsibility of the teacher of a body of verifiable truths. Just as the successful mountain climber relies on basic tools plus a map, a guide, and the experience of others, the seeker of Truth relies on the accumulated wisdom and verifiable reality, which is knowable by the actual process of Realization itself. It is this specific condition of Realization that is the true teacher and the Source of the teachings of the sage.
There is only one identical question underlying all human problems, conflicts, and anxiety, and that is the resolution of what truth is and by what means it is knowable. All roads, however, eventually lead to the same path in which trust, truth, faith, and humility recur as the central themes. Of these qualities, humility is the ‘open sesame’ that, in parallel with fearlessness, accomplishes the seemingly impossible.
Humility is a critical quality because it is based on the recognition and incorporation of the basic truth that, unaided, the human mind is intrinsically incapable of discovering truth. Upon examination, it is readily seen that the mind lacks that capability, primarily because of its own structure and engineering. This discovery may be disappointing at first, but its recognition, along with humility and courage, is a requisite for successful progress. Paradoxically, humility is empowering in that it is relieved of the guilt that accompanies doubt and denial. The pretext of the ego/mind that it is capable of knowing Reality results in an innate pride and defensiveness as well as unconscious guilt. One can witness that the ego tends to go into storms of outrage about being ‘right’ and therefore vilifies disagreement. The ramparts of ignorance are guarded by egocentricity in which the ego reinforces its claim to sovereignty by often vociferous extremes, such as literally slaughtering, killing, or executing 100 million people (in just recent times). The ego sees Truth as its ultimate enemy. It is the epitome of threat, and therefore, the ego disguisedly hates and despises truth and does all it can to undermine it and discredit its true expressions. This is exemplified in current society by the contentious sociopolitical positions that represent expressions of consciousness levels 180-190.
In contrast to the innate arrogance of the ego, true intelligence is a quality of consciousness/awareness and is not subject to attack because its essence is nonlinear. It is, however, utilized by the ego in its expression as mind, which then becomes and subserves the ego’s drive for survival. Thus, the ego really uses the mind as camouflage and becomes hidden in its clever constructions. This recognition clarifies why its masquerade as religion and the undermining of spiritual truths has been central to its domination of large cultures for extended periods of time (see
Chapter 17
).
If humility is the admission of limitation, how can it be the very instrument by which truth can be reached? Also, what would replace its sense of self-confidence, as fallacious as it may be, that ensues from the illusion of supposedly ‘knowing’ itself? Humility relies on no externals but is secure within itself by virtue of its own innate truth. It has no content but instead is an attitude and a position of inquiry. It results in one’s becoming a scholar and a student of truth who has no pedestals from which to fall, except for the paradox of pride in one’s humility, which can in itself become an ego-reinforcing pose (like pretentious piety or pseudo humility).
Experientially, truth reveals itself progressively as the veils fall away. This process may at times result in a temporary feeling or fear of being lost, but then one remembers that being lost does not preclude the possibility of being found (e.g., the promise of the Sermon on the Mount).
Uncertainty is tolerable when accompanied by faith and humility. Each step along the way becomes the subject or a state to be surrendered. The search for Truth is not for the faint-hearted, and it presents recurring challenges along the way.
Although the Heisenberg uncertainty principle presents an open door to the discovery of subjectivity as the royal road to truth, the academic world resists the principle because it adheres to the respectability of ‘provability’, which is limited to the academic Newtonian paradigm. Only facts can be proven. Truth is not subject to proof, as it exists in another paradigm.
In academic science, even after many years, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is still either ignored or the core of seemingly endless discussions that tend to circle around in the territory of tautologies and disregard the innate structure of mental mechanisms and their innate limitations of paradigm. This results in what science considers the ‘hard problem’ of physics, which is only resolvable by comprehending the nature of consciousness itself.
In the 1990s, this awareness led to international conferences, such as the Conferences on Science and Consciousness in Albuquerque, New Mexico (cal. 410), and at the University of Arizona (cal. 440). There is also a Journal of Consciousness Studies (cal. 440), as well as publications addressing science and theology, e.g., Zygon, (cal. 415), and Science and Theology (cal. 420).
These intellectual approaches calibrate in the mid-400s, thus indicating the restriction of the range of usefulness in that they represent the limitation of the very paradigm that requires transcendence for resolution. These endeavors push the intellect to its limits. One can almost hear it groan under the pressure. The focus of the effort is like looking for lost keys under the lamppost because the light is better there. The resolution lies in the seeming paradox that the problem can only be resolved by going outside itself to a larger, more inclusive paradigm, which starts at calibration level 500.
Upon examination, it becomes obvious that the secrets of life are revealed not within the linear domain of content but only in the subjective, nonlinear experiential domain. It is one thing to write about the chemical constituents of chocolate, but it is something else altogether to eat chocolate. They are different paradigms. Theology calibrates in the 400s, and although it leads to the study of epistemology and gnosis, they also lead to the same closed door. It takes courage to leave the intellect and its illusory security of certainty. Experiential is describable but not provable or explicable. Einstein, whose work calibrates at 499, represents the very peak of the capacity of the intellect. He turned his back on the Heisenberg principle and reportedly stated that he preferred to believe that there is an objective, self-existent universe (reality) ‘out there’ that is independent of (human) observation. He was, however, seriously religious, as have been the majority of the great geniuses of scientific history.
In contrast to the erudition of academic science and research, the arm of an innocent child has the capability to reveal the truths underneath mankind’s greatest enigmas (cal. level 600+). The arm of the child goes strong in the presence of truth and weak in its absence, i.e., falsehood (Hawkins, et al., demonstration video, 1995). That the arm of a naïve child can reveal truths that have defied the greatest thinkers of history is a confrontation to the ego inherent in mind and is a test of humility. It seems, upon superficial observation, to be a challenge to rationality, which itself has become a faith-based religion of science and modern man. Until some better means are discovered, consciousness research techniques have revealed the first concordant, verifiable science of truth that represents and is a product of the evolution of human consciousness.
Social Structure and Functional Truth
Due to the comprehensive diversity of this chapter, an index of topics is provided:
Introduction
Distribution of Levels of Consciousness of Mankind
Overall World Population 2004
Distribution of World Levels of Consciousness (charts)
Distribution of Levels of Consciousness – Regional Samples
Calibrations of Places of Interest
Daily Life
Energy of Music – Modern
Music – Classical
Music – Spiritual
Classical Music – Performers
Classical Music Eras
Artists – Creative Works
Authentication Process
Sports and Hobbies
Movies
Television
The Social Impact of Famous Persons
Entertainers/Humorists
News Broadcast Media
Politics and the Election 2004
Diagnostic Scale—Politics and The Election 2004
News Commentators and the Political Spectrum
News Print Media
Others
“100 Most Influential People in the World”
Literary Works of Authors
Industries (United States)
Television Commercials
Energy Fields of Famous Industrialists
Philanthropic Foundations
Corporations
Unions
Law Enforcement
Science – Theory
Clinical
Scientists
Major Universities and Schools
In the evolution of human consciousness, limitation presents challenge and the desire for light. The intrinsic creativity of consciousness is expressed in endless, ever-amazing discoveries by which mankind compensates for the restrictions inherent to the design of the human body, the mind, and the environment.
Human society, in its multitudinous expressions, represents the interaction of the physicality of the world and the human body as interpreted by mind and emotion, which in turn reflects the collective expression of the evolution of consciousness.
The capacity to discern truth constitutes the very base and core of the quality of life. The capacity for the awareness and recognition of truth as reality is the irreducible fundamental upon which any society is built, yet society is, experientially and conceptually, a baffling house of mirrors.
In evaluating the progress made by various cultures, we could use several different yardsticks:
1. Calibrate the overall levels of consciousness of various cultures, past and present.
2. Assess visible qualities and products of various cultures (i.e., “by their fruits ye shall know them”).
3. Correlate the consciousness level with identifiable core principles of each culture or society and thereby discern which are constructive and which are not.
4. Identify sources of beneficial information versus the sources of fallacy and failure.
5. Differentiate appearance from essence in social expression.
The state of a society is discernible primarily via the operational success of the collective information, which is the product of its collective interpretation of experience. In our present culture, the sheer volume of data is overwhelming. Without very sophisticated processing, its significance, essential meaning, and importance are easily obscured by the absence of or the failure to appreciate even one very simple piece of evidence. Because of the consequences of seemingly minor error (i.e., the “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” of the science of nonlinear dynamics), the search for verifiable truth often becomes quite intense, as reflected by the focus of the media.
