Truth vs Falsehood (10 page)
In the above illustrations, content is any describable object, statement, fact, idea, or supposedly self-existent ‘thing’, (i.e., form). The ‘field’ is the time, place, and circumstances that prevail. Because the components are knowable, the field can be viewed as proximate or as having a probable effect on the content. The field is thus like the weather or location and therefore may vary and also include intangible factors, such as public opinion, influential prior events, or belief systems, both conscious and unconscious.
Beyond the form of content and the proximate field or conditions, however, is the absolute, overall formless context that is unlimited by even time or dimension, but within which human consciousness operates and functions as a frame of reference from which one can select points of observation. The overall context is the infinite field of consciousness itself, which is unlimited and beyond form, yet capable of registering form as minute as a passing thought. Without the base of consciousness, the mind is incapable of awareness; as a result, no statement of any kind can be made. Therefore, any definition of truth has to include content, a knowable field, and an awareness of ultimate context.
There is a progression of comprehension and the capacity or capability to know truth as one moves from content to field to context. The capacity to know is further dependent on the observer’s brain physiology, intention, maturity, and calibrated level of consciousness (described in
Chapter 7
).
Upon examination, the discernment of truth turns out to be a relatively complex process that operationally, with familiarity, becomes relatively simple and obvious. An understanding of its nature is also intuitive and readily grasped without undue deliberation.
In everyday practice, context is unstated but content is, of course, always stated. The important and most frequent defect is to fail to state or to falsely imply the nature of the proximate field. For example, a current common error is to take a specific social behavior, project it into a different time frame, and then become judgmental about it.
If we examine the concept of causation (cal. level 450), it will be discovered that ‘cause’ is a concept that has no actual existence in reality. It is a superimposition of rationalization to explain and is a supposition. For example, to explain the whereabouts of a speck of dust in a room requires the inclusion of the effects of climate, air movement, humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, location, the house, the lot, the neighborhood, the country, the planet, and onward to include the evolution of the galaxy and the universe itself. Thus, upon examination, the number of contributory, observable ‘causal’ factors is infinite in every instance.
To explain a so-called ‘event’ is even more complex because there are no actual events as such except by arbitrary selection of the ‘when’ an event supposedly starts and the ‘when’ it supposedly ends. Thus, one finds that there are actually no such things as an ‘event’ or a ‘happening’, and that these are arbitrary selections of observation for the sake of convenience that exist in the mind of the observer and not in some external reality. A similar tautology is represented by the term ‘relationship’, which is strictly an arbitrary mentation, a concept
(res interna)
projected onto arbitrarily selected points of observation, which may or may not be stated as being included in the referenced field.
As can be seen, the meaning of content requires inclusion of both the proximate field and the context. Therefore, truth is a product of observation of all three, plus an awareness of the capacity and the qualities of the observer.
An unobserved ‘event’ is devoid of meaning, which is a superimposed mentation; therefore, the consciousness of the observer becomes a variable because it is subject to the limitations of each calibratable level of consciousness. Perception is edited observation in contrast to the terms ‘vision’, ‘realization’, and ‘awareness’, which refer to meaning and comprehension and therefore to a greater expanse of observation that includes not only the field but also the context. Context is inclusive rather than exclusive, and ‘proximate field’ places the observed presumed event or linear designation within a time frame. (An example is both the time-independent and time-dependent equations of the Schrödinger equations in quantum mechanics). Eventually, supposed ‘events’ or ‘things’ are seen as transitory, evolutionary epiphenomena of observation without any independent existence.
Often statements are made that include unstated presumptions or conditions, such as implied intentionality (i.e., teleological reasoning). Because a statement of all contributing factors is operationally impossible (there are always more that could be added), the mind transcends the linear and pragmatically abstracts essence. Thus, effective communication includes awareness of the integrity, consciousness level, and subjectivity of the observer as well as that of the listener (Aristotle’s logos, ethos, and pathos). All seeming knowledge is therefore tentative at best and operationally pragmatic or plausible rather than provable. As the level of consciousness advances, the awareness of the observer rapidly ascertains essence and intention as well as the proximate field and simultaneously places it in the overall context.
The consciousness level of our own society is progressively increasing as evidenced by the recent frequent inclusion of the term ‘perceived’, which indicates an awareness of the possible bias of the observer. Thus, the news declares that the ‘perceived attacker’ was such-and-such, or the ‘perceived event’ was seen by the witness in the following way. (In legal proceedings, witnesses misidentify suspects and misinterpret events up to 49 percent of the time. Many such errors have been revealed by DNA testing.)
Truth is not only a product of content and context, but it is also critically related to a specific level of consciousness to the degree that what is true at one level of consciousness is seen as untrue at another. This is starkly obvious in the relationship to social mores, international diplomacy, religious conflicts, and contentious political positionalities.
Content by itself is already a product of an infinite number of variables as is the proximate field, which is a product of a great number of factors. For an ‘event’ to be reported, an observer has already edited and made a selection that is the result of intentionalities and unstated positionalities in that there is the unstated intention of a specific effect on the listener. Few observers are capable of clarity or a purity of intention, much less dedication to truth. The intention can often be intuited from the tone and timing of the presentation in which the passions of the messenger completely outweigh or even overturn the message. Thus, the emotionality of the observer as well as the proximate climate require careful consideration. Purity of intention or devotion to truth is not expected of public figures, who routinely distort facts and truth in order to win and persuade. For the seeker of truth, however, the surrendering of attachments to positionalities is a necessary requirement and therefore a primary challenge.
The progress of consciousness is facilitated by an awareness of the evolutionary nature of the ego and its structure. The most common error that deters the development of both individuals and society is to create a positionality that demonizes the ego, and then compound the error by trying to dissolve the ego by attacking it with guilt, shame, and negative self-judgments. The ego is already tenacious, and moralistically attacking it merely gives it more energy. More importantly, one can see that by understanding the evolution of the ego over a great expanse of time, it is relatively intrinsically innocent and merely programmed to be what it is, based on the necessities of animal survival.
It is also well to remember that the human psyche is like the hardware of a computer, which innocently accepts any software with which it has been programmed. This was stated by Socrates as “all wrong-doing is involuntary for man always chooses what he believes to be for his good.” He is merely mistaken in what is really the source of goodness and happiness and thus mistakenly chooses externals (illusions) instead of Truth. Instead of vilifying the ego and indulging in guilt, shame, and self-hatred, it is far more productive to accept it for what it is, appreciate its historic value, and adopt it as one would a naïve pet.
We can accept that the ego is, ‘of course’, desirous of gain, advantage, greed, etc. By simply expecting it to be as it is, its nature can be accepted and then transcended. The ego just does what it has been trained to do over the millennia, and it still thinks that its survival depends on adherence to and the practice of its programs that, because of evolution, have now become the antithesis of the intentions of the ethical person of today or of the serious spiritual seeker.
In approaching the ego, it is well to remember that it feeds off of and is seduced by the energy of the negativity of pain, suffering, hate, and guilt to which it gets attached (addicted). It secretly nurtures the ‘juice’ it gets from being the martyr or the victim, and it loves hatred, being ‘right’, and revenge. The consciousness level of the ego is based on the utilization of the qualities of force, whether they are emotional, intellectual, or physical. The undoing of the ego, consequently, is not by the utilization of moralistic or emotional counterforce but by use of the power of truth itself.
Force, by its nature, triggers counterforce, and every ego position has its opposite. Thus, the use of even a single spiritual concept, such as the willingness to be forgiving, can undo even long-standing egoistic positions. We see this in the example of the veterans on both sides of World War II having long ago forgiven their former enemies, despite the widespread death and destruction they witnessed. This demonstrates that even the most severe circumstances and experiences can be healed. The mechanism that allows this healing to operate is the willingness to surrender judgmentalism for peace, and hatred for love.
While the mind secretly believes that its survival is due to the ego, on the contrary, the person’s survival is due to the spirit that energizes the ego to accomplish important tasks. It is because of the intention of the spirit that the lower self or ego even remembers to take its vitamins. In truth, we exist and survive, not because of the ego, but in spite of it.
Consciousness research reveals some other decisive factors that can contribute to peace of mind. There is already a calibratable level of consciousness at the time of one’s birth, and at the same time of birth, the exact time of bodily death is already preset. Although the time of bodily death is already set at birth, the means is not predetermined. (The above has repeatedly calibrated as true during lecture demonstrations.) The other good news is that due to the relationship of content to context, it is impossible to experience one’s own physical death because the very means of experiencing instantly leaves the body, which is no longer viewed as ‘me’ but as an ‘it’ (calibrates as true). This actuality is confirmed by the experience of those who have had out-of-body or near-death experiences in which the spirit, the sense of ‘I’ or one’s identity, departs the physicality. The sense of self-identity, of ‘me’, or of ‘I’ transcends physicality, temporality, and all conditions. This is because the real ‘I’ is context and not content. People who have investigated past lifetimes through hypnotic regression report that no matter what story they find themselves in, it is always the same identical sense of ‘I’ that prevails under all conditions.
Persons who transcend consciousness level 600 in their spiritual evolution, where there is no longer identification with either the mind or the body as one’s identity, recall past lifetimes with clarity. Again, no matter what kind of body or circumstance prevailed at the time, the identical sense of ‘me’ or ‘I’ was present as it is now. In each past-life recall, there seems to be the purpose of a significant spiritual lesson, and the different conditions merely specify a role most suitable for that learning objective. This discovery would be in line with the premise that consciousness evolves over great expanses of time, and that evolution is an innate quality of consciousness itself.
Manifestation Versus Causality:
Creation Versus Evolution
The consciousness level of humans relatively rarely reaches calibrated level 500 (only 4 percent of the population), much less the level of Unconditional Love at level 540 (0.4 percent of the population). Many of history’s greatest scientific geniuses (Newton, Freud, and Einstein), rather peculiarly, calibrated at exactly 499. Thus, the 400s (America currently calibrates at 421) represent the great productivity and benefits of science, technology, engineering, and medicine. To the spiritual seeker, the 400s represent the level of spiritual education, but subsequently, the mind, reason, and intellect become the roadblocks to transcending the ego in order to reach the important paradigm shift that occurs at calibrated level 500. The difficulty with the consciousness levels of the 400s is that they are the levels at which the mind is dualistic, and its innate structure thus prevents it from moving from perception and mentation to their replacement by the vision and critical recontextualizing subjectivity of the 500s.
The core of the dualistic mind and its intellect is the essential notion of the Newtonian paradigm of causality (cal. 450). While that notion is serviceable within that paradigm and its traditional Newtonian science, it obscures the comprehension of reality that is only possible from a nondualistic viewpoint. The understanding of the relationship of content to context provides the basis for a more advanced, nondualistic comprehension by which to explain observations, human behaviors, and perceived occurrences. The dualistic proclivity of the mind prevents the realization of the Oneness of Reality or the occurrence of Self-realization because the dualistic belief system as represented in language presumes a ‘this’ causing a ‘that’. It therefore simultaneously and automatically also views the self as being a separate (and moralistically judged) ‘doer of deeds’. This dualistic system of mentation reinforces the ego’s positionalities that, in turn, produce the perceptual ‘illusion of the opposites’ that stands at the gateway to enlightenment.
