As I told you in the previous post, I was totally confused about truth in my younger days. People seemed to be advising one thing and practicing something else.
My mind was in turmoil. I was assailed by hundreds of doubts. But the greatest problem was I could not express them in any manner.
Well like every child I was able to articulate about the things I saw and was emotionally involved in. But when it came to thinking in the abstract and putting such things into words I was dumb.
I was not familiar with the grey area in between truth and falsehood. I never knew that such a thing existed even, in those days.
This confusion persisted all through my young life. My greatest disadvantage then was an inability or disinterest rather in falsifying my feelings. I was never sophisticated in that way. I could never pretend I was happy when I was not and morose when I was feeling otherwise for whatever reasons.
Culture is like art, it projects beautiful lies. With sophistication numerous internal and external influences begins to play on the mind. Even activities like picking up a cup to drink and sitting in a chair becomes a regulated and complex activity. For those who are taught to do them ‘correctly’ from child hood these become second nature.
But to children like me who were allowed to go wild such complex activities have always been difficult to learn. Not that I drink from the tap directly every time or sit on the arms of the chair whenever I get the chance. I might be doing all the proper things. But the hitch is I do not see the point in them.
When you don’t see the point of anything, why should you follow it? Shouldn’t you be truthful to your feelings rather than follow what people call propriety.
This question of truth and culture and art and sophistication used to trouble me a lot in those days.
Then one day I chanced on a book named ‘Devi Bhagavata’. It relates the tale of Shakhty the sole goddess of the universe. The book has some intuitive insights too.
Here is one.
“Touch (sparsha) is the highest source of pleasure among all species, so there is no sin in pursuing its delights”
Well ….. No sane person would deny it would they?
Anyway, there was a story in the book which caught my particular interest. It was the story of Satya vratha (the truthful).
The guy was totally stupid and was thrown out of the house to fend for himself by his parents. He did not have any talents and had never had learned anything. His parents were fed up with him.
He banged on the door of his house to let him again in. But his parents were unmoved. He was a disgrace to them. He was not even able to learn the basics of their trade. Every one was laughing at them.
They shut their doors and mind to their stupid offspring. Well some times people can be so heartless.
The poor guy cried his eyes out, but no one was ready to take him in.
In his extreme distress he decided to leave the world of people and go into the forest to pray till he became wise. He set out for the nearest forest and was soon established in it. His life was simple. He would sit somewhere till he got tired and would sleep the rest of the time.
As I said he was illiterate and had never received initiation from anyone. So he did not know how to pray even.
Yet he continued in the forest for years on end, subsisting on whatever he could get from nature and reflecting sadly about his life.
Soon he became known all over the territory for his great truthfulness. Because of his complete simplicity he never could say anything other than the truth at all times.
Then the most trying day of his life arrived.
A huntsman, after wounding a boar, was chasing it. In its frantic run to escape from the hunter the boar burst on to the place where our hero was sitting. It was tired and had lost much blood. In its fright and weakness it saw the bush behind our hero and hid in it.
The plight of the boar had shaken our hero and he was hoping that the hunter would never come that way. He was a kindly soul and had always felt the same for all beings in nature.
But the hunter who was in hot pursuit, appeared immediately. He knew about Sathya vratha’s truthfulness and asked him.
Where did the boar go sir?
Now, our man could never utter an untruth in his life. The poor guy was biologically incapable of doing so.
Yet his heart had gone out to the poor quaking boar; but he also knew that however he tried he could never articulate anything other than the truth.
In deep anguish he cried out in his mind to whatever forces there were in the world, to help him in the dilemma.
The hunter again asked.
Tell me which way it went.
Then the great goddess of the whole world was pleased with our hero and made him into a poet. He now said:
“Even nature remains silent on this, what do you want me to say then?”
The hunter was non-plussed. He had never heard such words before. He departed ruing his bad luck.
Our hero became the most celebrated poet of the times.
A simpler story on the subject of truth could not be found. I thought it answered my question perfectly. Saving a life seems much greater than telling a truth.
Here was a man (who was truthful all his life) suddenly being made into a poet so that he could circumvent a direct question to save a life.
Such circumvention or camouflage or lie is what art, culture and sophistication may be all about. The story says that saving a life is the highest creative activity of all.
You might not believe in god, but you still do believe in beauty, in whatever form it appeals to you. Well beauty emerges only on realizing the worth of other living things.
May be there is only one truth in the world, that life is important in all its forms. Everything may revolve around this primary advice
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