The Value of Truth | Simon Blackburn

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

35:29 THANK YOU for providing me with my daily laugh ("...wisdom of the crowds...). :D

[@swerremdjee2769]

I enjoyed it, another great stream

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

Great and lowly are RELATIVE. ;)

[@swerremdjee2769]

@@ReverendDr.Thomas not again...

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

@@swerremdjee2769Good Girl! 👌 Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱

[@joshuabrecka6012]

Amazing! Thank you.

[@swerremdjee2769]

Sounds nice starting now

[@jamesm8935]

What's with the jump cuts? Doesn't seem very truthful

[@BraininaVat]

Mark has turrets and kept shouting profanities at Jason. Our editor thought it best to cut them out. Either that or its um and ahs on the edit room floor. Whatever truth serves you best.

[@jamesm8935]

@@BraininaVat Thanks! I'd rather see the real guest ums ahs and anything else included, because there's not enough genuine uncut footage out there. But maybe I don't really know how painful it would be!

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

@@BraininaVat 🐟 03. CONCEPTS Vs THE TRUTH: The term “TRUTH” (“satyam”, “tathya”, “tattva”, or “siddhānta”, in Sanskrit) is one of the most greatly-misused words in the English tongue. Anything that has ever been written or spoken, by even the greatest sage or Avatar (incarnation of Divinity), including every single postulation within this Holiest of Holy Scriptures, “F.I.S.H”, is merely a CONCEPT and not “The Truth”, at least in the Absolute sense of the term. A concept is either accurate or inaccurate. Virtually all concepts are inaccurate to a degree. However, some concepts are far more accurate than others. For example, the personal conception of Ultimate Reality (God or The Goddess) is inaccurate to a large extent (see Chapter 07). The concept of Ultimate Reality being singular (“All is One”) is far more accurate. The transcendence of BOTH the above concepts (non-duality) is excruciatingly accurate. However, none of these concepts is “The Truth” as such, since all ideas are relative, whilst The Truth is Absolute. A BELIEF is an unhealthy and somewhat problematic relationship one has with a certain concept, due to misapprehension of life as it is, objectively-speaking. Attachment to beliefs, particularly in the presumption of individual free-will, is the cause of psychological suffering. It is VITALLY important to distinguish between relative truth and Absolute Truth. Relative truth is temporal, mutable, subjective, dependent, immanent, differentiated, conditioned, finite, complex, reducible, imperfect, and contingent, whilst Absolute Truth is eternal, immutable, objective, independent, transcendent, undifferentiated, unconditional, infinite, non-dual (i.e. simple), irreducible, perfect, and necessary. Absolute Truth is the ground of all being (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit), and is prior to any mind, matter, name, form, intent, thought, word, or deed. Good and bad are RELATIVE - what may be good or bad can vary according to temporal circumstances and according to personal preferences. For example, there is absolutely no doubt that citrus fruits are a good source of nutrients for human beings. However, it may be bad to consume such beneficial foods when one is experiencing certain illnesses, such as chronic dysentery. ‘One man's food is another man's poison.' Because of the relative nature of goodness, anything that is considered to be good must also be bad to a certain degree, since the extent of goodness is determined by the purpose of the object in question. As demonstrated, citrus fruits can be either good or bad, depending on its use. Is drinking arsenic good or bad? Well, if one wishes to remain alive, it is obviously bad, but for one who wants to die, it is obviously good. However, beyond the dichotomy of good and bad, is the Eternal Truth, which transcends mundane relativism. Therefore, the accomplishment of life is to rise above the subjective “good” and “bad”, and abide in the transcendental sphere. A qualified spiritual preceptor is able to guide one in the intricacies of such transcendence. Such a person, who has transcended mundane relative truth, is said to be an ENLIGHTENED soul. When making moral judgements, it is more appropriate to use the terms “moral”, “amoral”, and/or “immoral”, rather than “good/bad” or “right/wrong”. As the Bard of Avon so rightly declared in the script for one of his plays, there is nothing that is INTRINSICALLY either good or bad but “thinking makes it so”. At the time of writing (early twenty-first century), especially in the Anglosphere, most persons seem to use the dichotomy of “good/evil” (instead of “good/bad” and “holy/evil”) most probably because they consider that “holiness” is exclusively a religious term. However, the terms “holy” and “righteous” are fundamentally synonymous, for they refer to a person or an act that is fully in accordance with pure, holy, and righteous principles (“dharma”, in Sanskrit). So a holy person is one who obeys the law of “non-harm” (“ahiṃsā”, in Sanskrit), and as the ancient Sanskrit axiom states: “ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ” (non-violence is the highest moral virtue or law), and “ahiṃsā param satyam” (non-violence is the highest truth). See the Anuśāsana Parva of “Mahābhārata”, 13.117.37-38. The ONLY Real Truth in the phenomenal manifestation is the impersonal sense of being, that is, the sense of “I am” (“aham”, in Sanskrit). Everything else is merely transient and unreal (“unreal” for that very reason - because it is ever-mutating, lacking permanence and stability). This sense of quiddity is otherwise called “Infinite Awareness”, “Spirit”, “God”, “The Ground of Being”, “Necessary Existence“, “The Higher Self”, as well as various other epithets, for it is the very essence of one’s being. Chapters 06 and 10 deal more fully with this subject matter. Of course, for one who is fully self-realized and enlightened, the subject-object duality has collapsed. Therefore, a fully-awakened individual does not perceive any REAL difference between himself and the external world, and so, sees everything in himself, and himself in everything. If it is true that there are none so blind as those who don’t WANT to see, and none so deaf as those who don’t WANT to hear, then surely, there are none so ignorant as those who don’t WANT to learn the truth. Obviously, in the previous sentence, and in most other references to the word “truth” within this book, it is meant “the most accurate concept possible”, or at least “an extremely accurate fact”. For example, as clearly demonstrated in Chapters 21 and 22, it is undoubtedly “true” (accurate) that a divinely-instituted monarchy is the most beneficial form of national governance, but that is not the Absolute Truth, which is the impersonal, never-changing foundation of all being. So, to put it succinctly, all “truths” are relative concepts (even if they are very accurate) but the Universal Self alone is REAL (Absolute) Truth. “In the absence of both the belief ‘I am the body’ and in the absence of the belief that ‘I am not the body’, what is left is what we really are. We don’t need to define what we really are. We don’t need to create a thought to tell us what we are. What we are is what TRUTH is." ************* “God is not something ‘out-there, looking-in’, but God (or Source) has BECOME all of This. So, God is the Underlying Principle of all of this - the Energy or the Consciousness. The (psycho-physical) manifestation has arisen within Consciousness as an imagination in the mind of Source.” Roger Castillo, Australian Spiritual Teacher, 15/07/2015. “I am the TRUTH...” “...and the TRUTH shall set you free”. Lord Jesus Christ, John 14:16 & 8:32.

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

@@BraininaVat, kindly inform Dr. Blackburn that the link on his website to his CV is "broken".