In the Head of a Truthist
on Apr 30 in Philosophy, Religion by adminA fellow thinker asked me, “What is your conceptual framework?”
This is quite the question, and one that is seldom asked of me in such a straight forward way.
Many have approached me telling me what it should be, and saying where they think it is flawed.
Many more read what I say – or hear it – and think they understand me; they don’t – they are only judging and classifying my system with the principles of their own.
To the Atheist I often sound theistic because I adopt that stance to point out what I think is wrong with their perspective, and the same goes for theists when I adopt a stance of stringent skepticism to show them what I think is wrong with theirs.
The above technique is called in Taoist jargon, “Arguing from a lodging point” and I only employ it to probe the depth of the speaker’s knowledge and to test the quality of my own. I figure if one can controvert my points then I will learn, and if they cannot then perhaps I have given them a way of looking at things which they had never considered before.
The problem with this of course is that no one ever really knows what it is I am thinking, or the principles I stand for. Indeed, as I have thought about my kindred’s question I have realized that I spend most of my time destroying points and seldom building them.
While it is admittedly easier to deconstruct an argument than it is to make one that is indestructible, “man cannot live by negations alone.” Thus, I have decided to take this time to express my type of thinking, my values, and my goals. Therefore, if you have ever wanted to know just what in the world I am – and what I think- stay tuned for following announcements!
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The Tenets of a Truthist
1. Be Nothing
When a fish is born in a pond, raised in a pond, and taught in a pond the fish inevitably thinks that the pond it is in is the best place on earth – indeed that it is the only place on earth. If however there is a sudden rain storm and the fish is washed first into the stream and from the stream into the ocean – we’ll say the pond it started in had a high salt content so as not to kill the little thing when it gets to the briny abyss – it realizes that everything it thought it knew was merely a drop in the bucket.
As with the fish so it is with people – the only difference is that we live in bigger ponds.
We are all born into a place, and in that place is a culture, and within that culture is a sub-culture, and it is in that sub-culture where we are educated about all of life. Thus, we are educated – a nice word for indoctrinated – with the world view of the people around us. Various authorites teach us – by active instruction and/or passive example – what the truths of reality are and the values we should use to guide ourselves through it.
If I am born in China I will become some sort of communist confucist, a Buddhist, or some other native religion or philosophy – hopefully Taoist haha! If I am born in the Middle east then – depending on my ethnic group – I will be a Jew, a Muslim, or perhaps a Christian. I could go on but you get the point. Most people don’t take the time to understand how they were shaped into the thing they now are by their environment, much less how the same process is making other people.
It cannot be over-estimated the depth to which our starting point influences us. For example, imagine a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, and an Atheist are all sitting on a rock starving to death in the middle of the ocean. None of them want to die and so all begin to do what their philosophy teaches needs to be done in order to master the situation. In the course of their sitting there they finally catch enough fish to feed them all. Each of them would interpret that event according to the set of meaning given to them by their culture – or which they had adopted. However, regardless of what meaning they gave to the event there would still be a set of real causes that made it happen.
Think again of it this way. There is a beautiful spring day, the sun is big and yellow and the clouds float like plush white toys on an ocean of baby blue. A Christian steps into this and thanks Jesus for giving such a beautiful day, the Muslim thanks Allah, the Buddhist revels in the glory of being and the wonders of causes and conditions which give rise to such delightful appearances – but doesn’t hope it would always be this way or fear their loss, the Hindu marvels at how the Eternal can be everywhere in so many forms, and the Atheist marvels at the effects of gravity, the properties of water, the refraction of light, and the fusion occurring on the sun.
Now, think with me again – what is the ‘obvious’ meaning of this event? Frankly there is not one. The beautiful day carries no tag which says, “Made by Jesus, 2011, all rights reserved.” Thus, in this we realize that the meaning we give to things does not arise from the things themselves; rather the meaning is taught to us.
Here we begin to get deep, and here is where most people bail out. When they realize that everything they think about reality, right down to the reason they have crooked teeth, is taught to them they panic. The consequence of this is to bury themselves into their own world view, swear that all others are lies and illusions, and never again give it a second thought; not me.
Whereas some people say, “I am Joe” or “I am Jane”, where they say, “I am a Christian” or “I am a Jain”, I say, “I am Nothing”. This is the first step to understanding the thing called me. I do not have in my head some static concept of selfhood, nor do I have any religious or philosophical system that I must make right or protect at all costs. I am Flow, I am change, I am Nothing at all – Indeed I am not even “Micah William Wyatt” that is just a name given to me by my parents and which people use to distinguish me from others in a room. Haha! I am not even ‘human’, for that too is just a concept that comes complete with its own unique type of baggage – of limits – of cans and can’t – of do’s and do nots.
This sound strange at first, but I promise you two things – it is right and it is wise. It is right because all names – all words even – are just creations of humans stuck on things like a child sticks stickers, and it is wise because it allows me to be like a tree.
Trees do not concern themselves with forms, they do not become caught up on what they are or what they are supposed to do. They have needs, and they bend themselves in whatever way they need to reach the elements which give them life. Thus, I am like a tree. I have disattached myself from all conceptual models, and have sought to build again my conceptual frame work from the ground up making every thought as close a copy as to what is going on as possible. To do this I have to be ‘Nothing’, for nothingness is the only thing that can move into and out of everything without betraying its nature or becoming something else.
It is not easy to be nothing. Indeed, most people are fearful of becoming nothing. However, when you realize the degree to which you have been modified and programmed by your culture your only recourse – if finding truth is your goal – is to dissolve everything and built it again. There are textual references to this in almost all spiritual traditions: Jesus said, “you must be born again”, Buddha said, “there is no-self – no permanent thing within you that is static”, Hindu’s strive to achieve Atman – which is loss of the difference between object and subject – a unity with the Omnidivine where all illusion of ego disunity is obliterated. However, I do not need these to substantiate my opinion, and I do not appeal to them as proofs of my rightness; they are not authorities.
2. Name things according to nature and not according to appearance.
This leads me to the second tenant of being a Truthist, which I call ‘Right naming.” Even though words are creations, just as a mirror shows you what is there so can words. If the mirror is dirty however, everything you see will be skewed, but if you clean it to perfection it will manifest things accurately.
As it is with mirrors so it is with words. Most people name things according to the way they appear to them, indeed most people don’t name things at all they just accept whatever name their culture has given to them – as well as what it means. For me however this is just ‘unreflective’… haha!
There are several reasons for this. First of all, meaning is what matters and not form. People get all hung up on the exact wording of their sacred text – it is really quite be fuddling. As though God himself named things and wrote it down in a book! Every text on earth was wrote by humans, in the language of humans, at a certain time, in a certain place. It is nice to imagine that one’s sacred book fell from the great beyond but such is a denial of the facts on a scale which I cannot express.
It is not just a denial of facts however, it also lies at the root of much death and suffering. It is not the form of the words that matter, it is their meaning. Thus, if one looks through the texts of all the spiritual traditions what they find is that most of them mean the same thing they just look very different; just as a rose and a lotus live in the same way but have very different forms.
It is not just scriptures though, it is all words. We say, “The rock is hard” and then stand and marvel as though we have uttered some cosmic truth! Indeed, the thing we call a rock seems solid to us, and is in fact sturdier than our bones – assuming it’s not something like sandstone – but that is just the way it appears to us as humans with our human senses.
In reality the rock is not solid, it is more empty space than it is stuff – a fact revealed by physics. Further it is only hard to us because we are ‘soft’. To say, “The rock is hard.” Is to utter a truth about the objective world, but it is only a partial truth for the thing we are looking at is not a ‘rock’ it is a collection of energy whose real essence is moving and forever impenetrable to us, it is not solid rather it is only moving so quickly as to give the illusion of solidity – much like a fast spinning fan blade, and it is only ‘hard’ compared to something else – namely us.
Therefore, I say again that I name things according to their nature and not according to the way they appear to me. Indeed, I think crap is repugnant but a dung beetle loves it, I think carrion is repulsive but to maggots it is better than mangos! There is one ultimate objective reality, but each being within that reality interacts with it according to its own nature. Therefore, we need to look at things from all perspectives and all angels – which is the power of imagination – and to admit that ours is only a partial glimpse of the picture.
When one can flip perspectives at any moment they are doing what Taoists call, “sitting on the Axis”. That is, they are at the center of the wheel – a symbol of total infinity – as well as at all points along its circumference all at once. Thus, they can see their point from any number of angles and all other points from any number of angles.
It requires a great deal of study to acquire all the information needed to do this, as well as a great deal of practice, and even then at the end of the day one is only imagining what it is like to see through other eyes – the true perspective from the other points have to be viewed from them.
Thus, I must hear what each person has to say about the world before I can judge them – I must know how they measure themselves and reality before I can measure them. Further, it means that the way the world really appears to them – or to any other created being – is known only unto itself and can never be fully entered into by another.
3. Tao and Logos
This leads me to the next tenant – whose name is obviously above me. Most people believe in paradox, I reject all paradox – except that which thinking things intentionally made. If there is a paradox one doesn’t understand rightly. People from the west – the scientists, philosophers, and intellects from the Greek heritage – they gain wisdom by dividing things, by analysis, by picking to parts, by proofs, by objective evidence, and by reason – By Logos. People from the east – the sages, the gurus, and intellects from the Indian and Oriental heritage – they gain wisdom by observing the whole, by reflection, by intuition, by subjective evidences – By Tao.
Most see these as being opposites, however that is just because they are novice. There is a wisdom gained by Logos that cannot be had in any other way, and there is a wisdom found by following the Tao that cannot be found in any other way. However, when one puts them together then they have the best of both worlds – they have a wisdom which can only be found in their way. Such a way is my path.
At times one learns best by logic and science, however there are truths that observation and logic cannot fully disclose nor teach – such as love, experience, and sudden intuitions; one cannot knock a home run by reading a book and neither can they wield a sword like a ninja for such things are in the ‘feel’. At times one learns best by following the flow and by looking within, however there are truths which Zen and Tao cannot teach – such as the nature of the atom, the construction of the cell, and maths – if you think they can then I suggest you try solving a calculus problem with a ‘feel’ or research how correct subjective impressions of the world had by ancient thinkers turned out to be.
Nevertheless, these two things are not opposites; they are just parts of the Wisdom – segments of the whole. Those who truly want to think must master them both. Wisdom has no bounds and truth is infinite. If one really wants to understand reality they must know as much of everything as they can.Sure this is hard but if one has the time to master the naming of rocks or the moving of projectiles of varying density and shape – footballs, baseballs, tennisballs, golfballs, bowling balls, etc –then surely understanding the nature of reality is just as important. If however frivolities are more pleasing to one then their ignorance is their own fault; this of course is assuming one is not enslaved by some tyrant.
4. God
This is where the pudding is nowadays isn’t it! It is all about the manner in which one relates to the concept of the divine. Everyone wants to go about correcting everyone else’s concept because they are certain of who and what God is; such is laughable. In almost every sacred text on the earth it speaks of God’s transcendent nature. The Judeo-Christian tradition says that God is beyond our total comprehension with ways past finding out, Islam says that if all the oceans were turned to ink and the trees to pens one could not speak of God precisely, Hindus say that God exists in a place that words cannot reach, and though Buddhist relate to God in various ways they too admit that the truth about all of reality – and by extension God too – is beyond static and limited formulations.
With this being present in all traditions however we still manage to kill each other over the way we conceive of – and relate to – God! There is not enough words in all languages humanity has ever created to express the stupidity and narrowness of this type of thinking, and quite frankly if it wouldn’t so damned fatal it would absolutely hilarious! Ultimately we do this out of fear, out of pride, out of a desire to be right, and because we don’t want someone to come along and ruin our ‘perfect’ understanding of the Divine.
So with this being said, how shall I ‘conceive’ of God for you? How shall I relate that which is beyond expression? I have read all the greatest skeptics and atheists, I have read litanies of sacred texts, and thought about it for hours. Those who believe use books to prove it and sit content with the illusion they have some real knowledge about God, and those who disbelieve use their senses as a measuring stick to say God is not real; to me both are fallacies and limited points and if it wouldn’t so important I would just walk away laughing.
However, the concept of God is probably the single most important concept in the history of humanity, and as such cannot merely be brushed aside like one’s preference for Techno or Mozart. Thus, each of us has to take a stance on the topic – although I am sure that ALL stances have to be tentative due to both the limits of our nature and the infinitude of truth and the concept itself.
So what are my tentative conclusions? To begin with I want to make it clear that I have found nothing that is an absolute and definitive proof for or against the existence of God, however I do think that God exists based on the evidence I have gathered.
Nevertheless, I am certain that God is not a cosmic parent who manipulates the elements like we do clay. Indeed, God is not a human or anything like a human. People want to believe that God ‘sets up kings and brings them down’ or that ‘God sends plagues and sunshine”. If you make God into a human, then you will create a being so corrupt that only fearful fools would ever worship it.
If God sets up kings, then did God put Hitler in power or the Papacy in the Dark Ages? How about Stalin or Kim Jung Il? If God intentionally put these beasts in the driver’s seat – with complete knowledge of all the death and pain they’d cause – then in no way could God be cleared of the horrors they committed! Further, if God manipulates all the weather then the earthquakes, famines, tornados, volcanoes and all the rest which slaughter women and children – innocent and guilty – without any discrimination are God’s doing and I could never worship such a fiend!
In times past people have said, “Oh, God was punishing the wicked and those beside them got in the way!” I reject this. In Rome when a hundred men failed they would pick ten at random and kill them – the group paying the price for the one fool. Am I to believe that God is as brutal as Rome? A being who is supposed to epitomize all that is just and good wasting people indiscriminately? If you want to serve such a being then by all means you have my permission, but I would as soon go to any Hell a hundred times over for defying a deity like this.
Then there is the other famous card, “Satan kills these people, Satan manipulates the elements!” Well, that is a fine hypothesis but how does it stack up to the data? Hurricanes form every year in almost exactly the same spot under almost exactly the same conditions. Does Satan work on a time frame? Does he say to himself, “Oh! It’s time to lay waste to the gulf again – henchmen put up your sandwiches and let us be off.”
It is not just hurricanes either, earthquakes always occur along fault lines, tornados form due to the heating of the air, and famines arise from predictable and measureable patterns in the atmosphere and geography of the earth! No dear friends, Satan is not at the root of natural disasters, it is just the mechanisms of the universe doing what they do and we get caught in the gears.
So, what then do I think of God? Well, I do not think there is a Satan – and if there is then such a creature is being constrained at the moment. Just as I cannot serve a Being who slaughters people indiscriminately, neither can I serve one who lets loose an army of fallen angels upon a planet of people for thousands of years merely because two fools chose to disobey. I do not think that we need any help in deceiving ourselves or in committing evil, and I think that we have blamed God and evil spirits for years because we did not want to face the fact that the cosmos moves with indifference to us, and that we create death and suffering on a scale that is unfathomable.
Since I do not believe that spirits are running around enticing us to sin or saving us from it, for I have a hard time thinking that a room full of holy angels is just taking notes while children are being raped by priests, what then is there? I think that there is just God, the Universe, and us – or rather just God.
In numerous histories there are accounts of giants dying and the earth being fashioned from their bones. Further, in many accounts God speaks or express energy in some way that reality is formed from it. Thus, I think that before the creation of this universe there was the Divine, and that the Divine ‘moved’ and from the energy of Itself Divinity shaped all things.
Thus, as I am at all points within my body but all of my body is not me, so is God present in all things yet nothing is God. Therefore, all of this reality is like the body of God, and we are all like cells within the energetic infinity. In this respect then the universe is like a giant energetic machine, and like all machines it breaks down thus inadvertently killing and wounding some of those in it; just as planes crash into the sea. Also, just as I am aware of all that occurs in my body – though I am not my body, so is Divinity connected to all which transpires here because all of it is a part of the Whole.
Further, just as there are millions of microscopic battles that I cannot fight going on within myself – the white blood cells gobbling up those which do harm, so within the Body of Heaven there is a battle going on except we are the cells. Thus, just as it is up to the cells to right the flaws of the parts they create, so it is up to us to right the flaws of this world. The Jains say there are three causes of evil: that which we do, that which we influence others to do, and that which we allow. I think this is true, and that it is the underlying lesson of the story of the Garden of Eden.
Thus, God – or Satan for that matter -is not the reason of evil we – are, and just like cancerous cells are rooted out and destroyed so must those who do evil be rooted out and destroyed. I am not talking those who violate some dogma of some religious system, or some obscure tenant of some faith. I am talking about those who murder for the joy of watching others bleed, who rape children to fulfill their base needs – those who wound life and the living unjustly. If we were to kill those who rape and murder – and punish those who destroy rather than slapping their wrists – the crime rate would go down.
However, the solution is not exacting laws with terrible consequences – these are just for those who will not heed reason or comply with wisdom. The real solution lies in doing what is needed to mend of our societies. If we would use our resources for education, for healing, and for the pursuit of truth, then we would hardly need to kill or police any one. It is the greed and corruption of our hearts – the undisciplined indulgence of our passions – that perpetuate the conditions which give rise to evil, and it is these things which must be eradicated. Not by guns and swords – though there is a time for these – but by wisdom, patience, compassion, justice, mercy, knowledge, truth, honor, and discipline. Ignorance and evil can only be eradicated in the individual by the individual, and only when the individual life has become destructive to its self and those around it – much like a rabid dog – should any external forces be brought to bear in order to stifle or squelch its destructive tendencies.
5. Freedom.
To put it into a way that most can understand, I believe that all of us should allow others the freedom they need to relate to reality and the possibility of God in the way they understand – even if it is non-belief. At no time should any ever kill another over tenets of faiths.
At the same time however, though I am certain all have – and should have – freedom to do anything they want with their life, if at any point they presume to force their will on another – to rob, steal, murder, or destroy in some other way – then we need to act to teach them, to love them, to reason with them, and to punish them only when all else fails. However, above all we need to understand the causes and conditions that give rise to corruption – those things which make evil means a good – if not the only way – to survive – and then eradicate these; an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure. Besides, coercion, force, shame, guilt, fear, and emotional appeals are all methods that Heaven has nothing at all to do with, and to employ them is to give rise to ills we are wishing to dissolve.
6. The Return
Finally, I do believe that either we will return to the Ultimate or that someday the Ultimate will come to us. Just as all rain returns again to the ocean from which it came, so do I think that all of us will return to the energy that gave rise to us. Further, when the accounts in the book of Daniel of God’s return are compared to those in Hinduism about the Yugas and the return of Shiva, I think they make a strong case that at some point Divinity will return to rid the world of the poisons cells who refuse to be cured– just as a man severs the limb that risks the life of the Body.
Believing this I strive with all my might to be playful and pure, fun and disciplined. Pleasure is a gift of God, death is a mercy, and pain an indicator that something needs to be fixed. I constantly seek to understand and deepen my concepts of God, just as I always submit them to the harshest scrutiny ready to dismiss them totally if they do not conform to truth. I spend my days collecting wisdom and knowledge, and trying to help others think about God in their own way, and to move from the level of truth they are currently at into a deeper one.
I do this because if I know anything I know this; truth is the most important thing in the entire universe for human things. If we know truth then we are free and can be filled with bliss, but to whatever degree we are illusioned to that degree we will suffer and cause others to suffer. It is for this reason that I am a ‘Truthist’, and why I will remain such until I die.
Yet, I am no prophet, and all I offer is that wisdom which is accessible by human things. Thus, I could be fatally flawed or brilliantly enlightened for my kind is prone to both. Therefore, take all I say to heart but do not believe it – beliefs and doubts are of no consequence or worth. Rather, I say to you pursue truth and wisdom as you pursue your next breath, and if you must give up one bid this life farewell. Nevertheless, never take the breath of another for failing to relate to God and reality in the manner you do – a human’s thoughts are their own and the fate they procure thereby they will have earned themselves; but do not take this to mean I am a pacifist for there is a time for war just as there is a time for peace – there should just never be wars founded on religious dogma.
7. The End
A moment brimming with infinite power,
a participator riding it like a dragon;
one does not dictate a dragon’s way – they learn
to flow as the flames play.
A book of apples swelling with endless precepts,
a reader reaches beyond them to grow and taste the fruit.
Being is not earned.
Who among us has chosen to live?
Death is free.
Who among us cannot choose to die?
When you have chosen wisdom over doctrine and truth over consequences, you will attend the law with every step and reap inestimable rewards.
Words are just scents to bring us to the savor,
and concepts are just echoes to teach us the sound.
Buddhas, prophets, priests, and sages,
philosophers, poets, all observations:
only vehicles to bring us to the path,
all partialities of the inestimable whole.
All truth is one – all points mere fractions.
Eternity and Infinity are not on their way,
But neither do they leave – neither do they stay.
Every step a ripple, every ripple a building of fate,
and the end we’ll meet is merely the returning of our wake.
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