Tell the truth

There is a strong presence when we tell the truth.  It’s hard.  You have to get rid of everything that is not the truth.  You have to lose all your anger, all your desire for revenge, all your self-protectiveness, all your bias, and just focus on the one thing you have to say at that moment.

The truth isn’t something you work out, really.  It emerges from stillness, from peace.  It can only really be spoken if we have escaped the constrictions of what pressurises us, and are able to sit in a relaxed way, and choose something to say that tells it like it is.

There is an old saying, by the Christian spiritual teacher Paul, about love: it is patient, kind, doesn’t envy, doesn’t boast, isn’t proud, doesn’t dishonour others, isn’t self-seeking, isn’t easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs.  It rejoices with the truth, protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres.

The truth really has to be loving, or at least not unloving, to be really truthful.  In poetry, the good poet seeks a way of saying things that doesn’t bash people on the head with their perspective, but rather offers something that makes people think, that relates to people with something more than selfishness, and that appeals to something universal.

Some people think of the truth as being just saying what you want, or what you feel.  This is a start, but doesn’t really get to the root of the problem, which is that we are all separated by our delusion, and need to reach across to each other by finding what we share.  There is no point in throwing to others what is inside, if what is inside is a mess of contradictory, animalistic, somewhat aggressive emotions.

Instead of just saying I want this, I want that, which is really a basic, child’s form of truth, we can see things from a bigger perspective, patient, kind, and not angry.  That way, too, we have a better chance of being listened to.  People don’t like to hear impatient, angry thoughts.  They don’t go down well.  And they’re probably not the best we can do.