The Living Truth - O R Rao

Goodness, Truth and Beauty—these are the eternal verities according to the philosophical tradition of ancient Greece. Other traditional societies expressed the ultimate value or values they lived by, differently. For medieval Christendom, the aim and purpose of life was to live by Jesus Christ’s ‘truth that shall set you free’. For the tradition now named Hinduism (though it never gave itself that name till recently) truth was moksha, the freedom from illusion. For the Buddhist tradition in its many forms, it was nirvana, the freedom from greed, hatred and delusion and the suffering that they bring. For Taoist China truth was living by the Tao and for traditional Islamic civilization, it was submission to the will of God.

Obviously not every one living in these societies lived up to these truths—and in fact the majority of them were not even aware of them as conscious formulations, but these truths were what the conscious elite professed to live by, even if very few succeeded in living by them. For traditional societies, these were the living truths as understood at different levels of consciousness which gave meaning and direction to life. They were the Pole Star by which they tried to steer their lives.

Is there any living truth, a ‘truth that can set us free’ by which we can claim to live in our modern global society? For some of the most sophisticated modern minds, even to ask such a question is to commit a solecism or betray embarrassing naivety. For us, truth, if there is any such thing at all, is not that by which we live, that which can set us free, or can give our lives meaning. The only meaning that truth can have is that of control and power over the processes of Nature including our bodies and even our minds. Truth, according to the modern view, is efficacious in scientific theories which can predict the course of Nature. ‘Knowledge in Power’ said the seventeenth century philosopher Bacon and he thought that truth could be known by putting ‘Nature on the rack to make her yield her secrets’. Descartes, another pioneer, spoke of knowledge making us the ‘Masters and Possessors of Nature’.

© "Wake Up India" (Jan.-March, 2002) published by The Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai 600 020. Website: www.ts-adyar.org. Reprinted with permission.

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