Seems a reasonably clear and concise definition until one includes parts 8, 9, 10, 11
8 Faith, trust, confidence. Also,
belief; a formula of belief, a creed. 9 a Religious belief or doctrine held to be true or orthodox; orthodoxy. b Conduct in
accordance with the divine standard; spirituality of life and behaviour. 10 What is true or real; reality; spec. spiritual reality as
the subject of revelation or object of faith. 11 A true statement; something held or accepted as true; a fixed or established principle.
Oxford Dictionary
Peter: The inclusion of religious/ spiritual belief and
faith in the definition gives rise to the common spiritual use of the word truth as Truth – the capitalization denoting an untouchable and
unquestionable Divinity. Thus it is that all religions have their own particular truth, either written in words in their holy texts, emanating
as an ethereal energy from Holy persons, or as something which cannot be spoken – only experienced as sublime and righteous feelings.
The truth (as in definitions 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11) about the Truth
(as in definition 3, 7, 8, 9) is that the Truth represents a belief in a God (or all-encompassing Energy, Intelligence, Source or whatever
other name) and a life after death (Immortality, Heaven, Nirvana, Moksha, ‘Home’, Further Shore, or whatever other name). In all religions
there are also those who have Realized the Truth while still alive (Saints, Enlightened Ones, Seers, Masters, God-men, Mothers, Gurus, or
whatever other name) and as such spread the message of their particular version to the Truth to others who hanker for a similar experience of
Realizing the Truth or for an assurance of the truth of life after death.
The truth about the Truth is that there are currently some 6,000
active religions of consequence on the planet, each espousing their own version of the Truth and horrendous wars and carnage has resulted from
‘disputes’ as to whose Truth is the only Truth. And anyone who doesn’t believe in your own version of the Truth is deemed to be ignorant
and Evil – in need of conversion to your belief, or regarded as a threat to your belief. This eternal division into competing and warring
camps is epitomized by words such as the Chosen Ones, God’s People, Disciples, Followers, Sannyasins, Those of Higher Consciousness, etc. for
the Good Guys and Heathens, Non-believers, Barbarians, Un-Enlightened, Uncivilized, Infidels, Heretics, etc. for the Bad Guys.
Thus it is that the insistence of both the Pundits and their
followers in calling their own particular metaphysical belief ‘The Truth’ directly results in an earthly carnage, the likes of which
beggars description. A spiritual or religious truth is a metaphysical truth, and as such cannot be verified as factually accurate or as
existing in fact. The only verification of a religious truth is that one ‘feels’ it to be true or one imagines it to be true. After
thousands of years of religious belief and faith no Saviour has returned, no one has risen from the dead, no one truth has brought anything
even remotely resembling peace to earth, no higher consciousness has dawned, no redemption or salvation for a suffering Humanity has been
realized. The Human Condition is still one of malice and sorrow and is still epitomized by a continuous state of warfare within the species.
This situation will continue until sufficient people are willing
to acknowledge that ‘the Truth’ is nothing more than a passionately held belief in an afterlife. This Truth/belief is passionately upheld
and defended for it offers the alien entity within the body its only imaginary chance to cheat death, to survive beyond the death of the
physical body.
Thus the only way to know the truth about the Truth is to
personally experience the death of the entity within the physical body, to experience both a psychological and psychic death, the death of both
ego and soul. It is only by investigating, discriminating, and distinguishing what is fact and what is fantasy that one can directly experience
that which is actual and this requires a ‘self’-immolation, in its entirety. Not a partial ‘death’ whereby the soul moves on to some
imagined metaphysical realm, but a total extinction of the lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity within the flesh and blood body.
Nothing less than this will expose The Truth for the Grand Deception that it is …
and bring peace to this fair planet.
