What if everything you believe turns out to be untrue? As part of the human family, most people have come in contact at one time or another with ideas that are hard to believe. One thing that could benefit us all would be having the ability to tell truth from fiction. This is particularly true in an age when false information is circulating at phenomenal rates.
Wise men and women have left sacred writings providing guideposts for us to use in navigating our lives on Earth. In essence, our experience on this planet is filled with a lot of things which are unknown. In this sense, we welcome additional help in understanding life by minimizing the elements of deception that exist around us.
Why is it important to seek the truth of all that we encounter? The answer is that understanding truth can enhance our quality of life. Truth helps us make the right decisions when confronted with important choices.
Actually, there have been many reliable tools that can help us make sound decisions, and most people are familiar with them. These tools are usually referred to as “myths and legends.” And the granddaddy (or grand mommy of the purveyors of this truth) are found in what we call “religion.”
There are myriads of religions connected with myriads of “truths.” This generates a problematic state of affairs wherein a lot of people who have accepted belief in a particular religion often tend to be short-sighted or selfish when it comes to allowing others to have their own beliefs. Usually, because of this, “never the twain shall meet.” But if and when it does, chaos usually reigns.
What needs to be done is that each and every one of us should examine the roots of our beliefs. If we are reluctant to broaden our scope, we will probably end up uninformed or misinformed, thereby missing out on a lot of valuable experiences outside of our comfort zones.
Today, many Americans are now in the throes of being hoodwinked by one of our political parties. This has resulted in a breakdown in understanding how to discern truth.
A large swatch of dwellers in the U.S. are unable to tell the difference between an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, and enthusiastic “tourists.” It is unreal that almost half of voting Republicans believe that the last presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. Ultimately, the state of the collective American belief system is so jaundiced that it would take almost a miracle to get people to see truth, and most importantly, develop enough trust to ensure the survival of our democracy.
The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making things even more convoluted. It is the ultimate of deceptive tools…it can visually mimic you, copy your voice, write scholarly articles, create artistic masterpieces, and much more. A mathematician, the late Alan Turing, developed a test when administered would see if a computer could imitate a human to the point that a person couldn’t tell the difference. AI has now passed the Turing Test, so it’s only a matter of time before the capacity for widespread deception will increase exponentially.
With the foregoing said, the most important barometer to use to reveal truth is YOU! To discover your own truth, do the following: 1. Examine the source of your beliefs; 2. When the source of your beliefs is identified, question whether or not the conclusion has the capacity to help or hurt others; and 3. Ask yourself if you’re being objective and then act accordingly.
Of course, there will always be those who tend to act out of selfishness. As we mature spiritually; however, it becomes apparent that the idea of Karma, i.e., “what goes around comes around,” does carry weight. This idea alone can help a positive, conscious person understand that our lives are, indeed, shaped by our beliefs and actions. This reason alone should motivate us to seek truth as much as possible of every situation that presents itself to us.
What if we then discover that we meet ourselves wherever we go and the world that we experience is crafted by our beliefs? What if we find that the world is a direct reflection of our behavior? The answer is that we will always know the truth, because it is what we embrace after sincere self-examination, and our opposition, therefore, must represent an opposite truth. Consider this as serious food for thought! A Luta Continua.
