“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― The Brothers Karamazov
I am currently reading the Brothers Karamazov. The above quote is by Father Zosima, an elder monk and the spiritual mentor to Alyosha Karamazov, the book's hero. Elsewhere in the book, Dmitri Karamazov (Alyosha's sensualist, scoundrel brother) speaks about the difficulty of truth telling, and how even if small errors are made in execution, it goes wrong. His answer to this conundrum is to always be deceitful, but to be honest about it. He's an appealing, but dangerous, character.
I've been striving to speak my truth of late and can attest to its difficulty. On the surface, it's about speaking words or ideas that you think/feel are true, but truth is many layered. For example, if you speak true words with contempt, I've learned from experience that this negates the truthfulness of the words. So, truthful speech contains within it right action, and it's turtles all the way down.
In the above quote, Father Zosima intimates that we each have a truth sensor within us, but if we lie to ourselves over and over again, we will damage it. I heard a quote from Carl Jung, that the goal of life should be to unite your reason with your inner truth sensor. This is hard work. As Dmitri says, when we fall short, things go wrong. Well, I fall short all of the time, but I believe that if I keep trying, the process will make me sharper, and over time I will be more and more able to speak my truth.
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| Father John Misty on Saturday. Great show!! |
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