The Truth About The Truth
Let’s say, I, was a Jehovah’s Witness at your doorstep, preaching to you about the impending universal apocalypse or probably trying to explain a spiritual concept to you, and you, on the other hand, is patient to hear me out and make nodding gestures per points I make even though deep down you might not resonate with what I say but try to patronize me out of humility or the social conditioning of not wanting to seem rude. Either way, I finish preaching and you go your way, maybe pondering over what I just told you, trying to find a rationale as to why you should believe in what I just told you, and then shortly you encounter Catholic faithful spreading flyers about an upcoming revival in a couple of days, A revival tagged “ The Heaven Promise for the Disciples”, you are handed one of these flyers and note a discrepancy in the flyer’s contents with what I, the Jehovah’s Witness told you earlier. You bring the catholic faithful’s attention to this disparity and what does he tell you? “ Do not mind those hypocrites who try to turn the contents of the bible upside down for their own personal agenda”, Mind-boggling for you isn’t it? Who are you to believe? Me, the calm looking well dressed Jehovah’s Witness or the firebrand fashionable catholic with an army of evangelists behind him while he gave you the flyer. From a rational and philosophical point of view, you shouldn’t believe either of us. Why? I would answer in this fashion, that, “if the truth can be communicated through the same propagation by which a lie can also be communicated, in this case, where the propagation is word of mouth, then there lies there-in a 50–50 chance that what I tell you is the truth or a lie, same chance. In this light, how then does the hearer of information discern that what he has heard is the truth, by what base premise or logic? Quite confusing isn’t it? Cheer up, this article is here to put your mind at ease.
Ease right? FYI that is what the truth does, it puts a person at ease, We as humans seek ease in all respects of life e.g finances, mind, relationships e.t.c. The ease we feel right now as rational, mentally balanced, and sound-minded humans that we ideally ought to be is a product of an in-indwelling subconscious resolution in our minds presently, this subconscious resolution our minds are the building blocks of our perception of reality and it shapes how we react to it, This reaction is what forms the basis of our personality and attitude. By the way, if you might not know what the subconscious mind really entails, I have an easy analogy that would help you understand, let us visualize a vehicle, like a car, for example, It’s explicit to say that the conscious mind can be similarized to the substantial attributes and behavior of the car, attributes like color, design and size and behavior like cruise control, ABS, rear visuals e.t.c. and then the subconscious mind would be the beneath-the-surface processes that occur within the car, Like battery recharge by alternation, piston compress, and release and all other complex processes that occur within the car which we are unable to see or perceive directly. So if the conscious is the external experience and the subconscious is the inward process that facilitates the external experience, we can safely assume that the external experience is usually nothing without a seamless execution of the internal processes if we still retain the “car analogy” and these internal processes makes the car what it is, an object to convey people and things from one place to the other while the outward experience only details how the car looks, appeal and allure e.t.c. So it’s quite clear to understand that conscious is outward experience and subconscious is the internal processes that manifest the essence of the outward experience.
The Subconscious can then be understood as the “ Control Panel” of the mind, the master puppeteer pulling the strings of our marionette but yet shrouds himself so skillfully behind the curtains. A configuration so hard wired and powerful whence it gets its name “ subconscious”, Implying below the ‘conscious” i.e we are not aware of it, we are not in control of it, but it is aware of us and in control of us. Modern-day psychology posits the subconscious as being hardwired and extremely difficult to program, a mental bedrock that we only get to develop in childhood, between the ages of 1–8, and this bedrock becomes the dictate of the super-imposed conscious awareness above. But as it is, no building stands without a foundation, and the integrity of the building depends on the strength of the foundation. If we apply this understanding to the concept of the subconscious and the conscious mind, then we can understand that the condition by which the conscious mind fares is a direct outcome of the health of the subconscious. Thought patterns, thought resolutions, habits, and behavioral patterns are all pronounced from the innards of the subconscious, These subconscious foundations determine the crust of our attitude and it is no lie, as it has been psychologically proven that if we were to change any aspect of our personality or perceptive reality, we’d have to alter the neural connections in our subconscious. Whence, if the subconscious controls our mind and how we see the world, that means the subconscious is in control of our perception, this implies that the subconscious is a function of our reasoning, and our reasoning is a product of the quality of our mind. If we then infer from religious and scriptural texts, that that mind controls the spirit, and the spirit controls the body, this means that the subconscious is what controls life itself albeit how we react to life. We can then imply that the subconscious rules, isn’t it? Of course Yes!!!!
The subconscious is a blank cheque from the Ages 1–8, these years are the formative years for which the individual comes to grasp their environment and rationalize their immediate interaction with the world, During these years the subconscious is a blank cheque because it takes the form of concepts and notions it is fed and hardwires these into its rigid base and foundation for which the individual’s mind is meant to receive premises and rules of dialogue to rationalize their external reality and deduce resolutions in the host’s adult years, This is just how the human brain is built, pure verified biology in all scholastic centers. During the formative years the subconscious is malleable and easily programmed (ages 1–8), After these formative years, programming the subconscious becomes more of a repetitive conscious effort, becomes difficult compared to the formative years, Only through habitual thinking and action can the subconscious be re-programmed. This is why clinical psychologists and psychiatrists can conveniently analyze belligerent adulthood to a victimized and abusive childhood plus other diagnostic analysis that point to the programming of the subconscious during the formative years of the mind of an individual.
Why do we go through this long analogy? Easy, to simply point out that the programming of the subconscious which in turn determines how the psyche of an individual pans out is subject to the whims of unpredictability, uncertainty, and the incomprehensible facets of life itself in simple words meaning that a person’s psyche and life outcome can be considerably predicted by the odds of their family upbringing, environment, and education. And the psyche of an individual perfectly defines their perception which is directly a function of the random odds as previously mentioned in this paragraph. The chronological progression of this article conveniently portrays the undeniable fact that we all were born into this world with a “subconscious wildcard” i.e we were not in control of information that was fed us in our formative years and also that the mold by which an individual’s psyche was formed was by no means a universal standard but instead by what we could comprehend from our immediate reality when we arrived here, and in this light, we can agree that our thought patterns and ideological resolutions of the world are largely a function of the “spectrum of reality” which we were availed due to the “subconscious wildcard” by which we arrived here. If we all then arrived by a “subconscious wildcard”, should we then be morally categorized and stratified according to the “truth’ we have known our whole lives which was a product of our “subconscious wildcard” which we arrived here with, It’s ideally a long conversation for sure.
What then is the truth? Or better asked, How do we discern the truth? Is it by heeding to the most convincing protagonist between the Jehovah’s Witness and the Catholic preacher? Is it by deducing from our psyche? not forgetting that our psyche is a product of the “subconscious wildcard” with which we came and from which we became? Or, by the reverence of the ambiance that comes from the heavily reverberated and acoustically treated voice of the preacher atop the altar in our local church or for the authoritative charge of the Imam convincing a faithful to abide by what is written for the sake of sacred of scripture? Taking a good look at what the truth is in modern-day reality, it is only in religious circles that truth is not usually verified experientially and it is this discrepancy that this article seeks to address. The same cannot be said about the truth in scientific and socio-cultural circles, In the scientific world, Truth is evidenced by factual verification of the evidence within the context of personal experimentation and interaction with phenomena, Even though science itself has evolved over the years in knowledge and verified truth at some point had to undergo revision and be modified, its validity still lies in the practicality of the verified information(truth) per its use during its time before it got remodified. At least, the truth gets modified in science as regards progress in discovery and invention and this modification of truth is usually an addition to the pre-existing layer of knowledge. This is not how it is in religious circles, what is known as the truth is rigid and written in stone, all for the sake of divinity ascribed to what the truth is, And on the heels of this divinity comes a type of fear and reverence which is said that if a human does not have he is well on his way to “damnation”. We’d choose not to delve into who is meant for damnation or who is not, the bone of contention here-in is that how does one conveniently discern that which is true if the same p[ropagation of the so-called “divinity” was by the same convention by which “un-divinity” is also propagated, an illustration can be understood by this scenario “ A parent tells their child that he/she should not put their hands in fire because the burn creates an unpleasant and destructive sensation, the child can choose to blindly believe what their parent says or choose to verify for themselves If the child chooses to verify for themselves what do they get? the burning sensation, of course, Now the truth is verifiably established in the heart of the child, for he has become an experiential participant and not just someone bound by the dictates of what he was told. If he was to recount the fire story to his friends, the context would no longer be of “ My mother/father told me that fire burns” but that of “ I dipped my hand in the fire against the warning of my parents and I was badly scarred, if you don’t believe, you can go dip your hand in fire yourselves”.in this paragraph we have seen that the Truth can be “Personal” and “Absolute”, We’d classify the “personal” as that truth that is inherited by conditioning, conditioning by parental influence, social requirements and conventional sanity. The other truth which we classified as “Absolute” is the truth that we can verify and have verified and is a function of our perception, feeling, and flux/movement of our consciousness. Let’s dive in
For sake of effective comparison and analysis, we would first objectively look at “Absolute Truth” since its concept is factually grounded and a matter of what we experience day today. Absolute truth has no basis for which it can be debated, it’s a contraption we are continuously and actively involved in. A vivid example is the rising of the sun, No scholastic or academic resolution came up with that, The sun would always rise in the east and would set in the west, there is no need for whatsoever sacred to be ascribed to such phenomena since its verifiable by everyone, Nobody needs to have “Faith” for it to happen, it just happens to be one of the components of our programmed existence and reality, We see the rays of the sun and its bright radiation and source in the sky, we feel its heat on our skin. We do not have to be preached to understand what the sun is and what it does.
Conventional truth finds it grounding in religious circles based on reverence for written scripture and obeisance to a higher power. Usually, this type of truth is told to the individual, and the individual is encouraged to not ponder or reason it out. This type of truth engages the individual to believe it based on “Faith”, this scenario can be properly observed from the monotheistic religions of the day. Though some eastern religions, on the other hand, involve the individual in realizing the truth by self-realization, contemporary religion preaches “Faith” as opposed to self-realization. This type of truth does not sit well with progressives, intellectuals, and self-aware individuals, because by what metric can such belief be quantified or measured, also this “Faith” that one is meant to have and ignore whatever rationalization behind it, is attained by one believing and hoping which in turn creates an imagery of the expectation in one’s mind, this imagery brought about by the “Faith” usually remains imagery, it doesn’t usually transcend that, and it is on this “imagery” that religious routine is cemented, imagery and routine that usually has no visible and feasible effect on the part of the faithful. Another flaw of “Conventional Truth” is its reverence all for the sake of its emanation from the ordinance of a higher power, This scenario doesn’t look quite applicable since human consciousness is by default “existing by experience” and according to “what is written” this consciousness was created by that higher power, but then this higher power wants us to live and function by “Imagination and fantasy” which are of course “unverified experience”. NO!!!, something is obviously wrong somewhere. The final reason that debunks conventional truth is the medium of propagation that this “Faith” was conveyed on, which is WORD OF MOUTH, as cited earlier in this write-up, that if a “lie” could be propagated by the same medium through which “The Truth” is propagated, then without substantial experiential evidence there lies a 50–50 chance that what we are being told is a lie or the truth. In this light, we can not really regard the sacred of “what was written,” and told to believe if there is no “experience of divinity” that accompanies our hearing of the “Truth” or a type of realization to higher knowledge and balance of soul which we feel within. This resolution sits quite well in the mind of the intellectual and progressive on the premise that consciousness is experience and sensation, and then divinity encourages one to ignore such experience and sensation and dwell in the imagination, whereas, this so-called divinity is what birthed the consciousness we experience in the first place, Nahhh, it don’t feel right.
It’s obvious from the context of the previous paragraph that conventional truth should not be acknowledged just for the sake of sacred, it should take more than fear or reverence before one should acknowledge whatever one is told as “Truth”. A deep look into the base foundation upon which the concept of conventional truth rests, we can see that scripture or “that is written” was written by prophets or scribes or faithful that were documenting their personal experience, let us note the word there-in “EXPERIENCE”, these prophets, scribes and faithful were not led to say or write what they experienced based on “imagination”: which is the faith and rational ignorance that conventional truth encourages the individual to have, They wrote only about what they personally “EXPERIENCED”. Cosmically, an individual’s experience is subject to the events and intricacies surrounding their life, and one individual’s experience cannot count for the experience of another, obviously, since they are both different individuals having different experiences, and if these different individuals are cosmically acknowledged since they are both existing, then their predicaments should vary since their perspective of experience also vary. Speaking on, if the prophets that wrote and the so-called “sacred’” texts only wrote by “EXPERIENCE”, why is the individual not also encouraged to seek their own “EXPERIENCE”? but this, is not encouraged by the custodians of conventional truths. But the truth would always be the truth, And we can spot this very big gully in the discrepancy between the purity and authenticity of “ABSOLUTE TRUTH” in comparison to “ CONVENTIONAL TRUTH”. In as much as we cannot authoritatively debunk any school of thought or religious movement’s beliefs, this article seeks to create a balance point on behalf of the individual seeking for that which he can diligently hold on to as the Truth or better still “His Truth”. This need is what births the idealization of the next paragraph, and puts the mind of the seeker at rest with an assurance of what the truth does, sets one free from doubts and fears of all sorts. Let us delve into the middle ground between absolute truth and conventional truth which I will term, for the sake of the individual’s participation in the context, as “Personal Absolute Truth”. Let us peek
Remember when we talked about absolute truth factually and experimentally grounded and needs not faith for it to be established, an example being the rising and setting of the sun and its warmth that we feel on our skins, Well, Personal Absolute Truth is more of like a subset of Absolute truth even though for the sake of finding a balance point between absolute and conventional is why we arrived here, “Personal Absolute Truth”, which in essence is a concept aimed at explaining how truth can be rationalized entails the scenario where the individual gets to verify the truth by self resolution is. Here-in the truth is still absolute because the truth is still factually established and experimentally verifiable but this time would take rationalization on the part of the individual to discover it. An explanation can be seen in the study of proportionality as in Mathematics, A teacher tries to explain algebra to a student, within the equation 3 + x = 12, The value of the unknown value (x) is fixed in this equation, but we don’t know it right, and that is why it’s a mathematical problem, we would have to find x for ourselves, of course the value of x is a fixed constant, only thing off about the scenario is that we do not know the exact value of x, this buttresses what i pinpointed earlier about “Personal Absolute Truth”, this type of absolute truth is factually gounded and experimentally verifiable only that it would take some effort of logic and rationalisation on the part of the individual to uncover it, Whence going back to the algebra problem we used as an analogy, the value of x in this equation can be deduced by the individual through quantifying the amount of value that would be added to “3” to equal the number “12”, that number would sure be “9”, there is no debating or arguing it,It just “is” globally verifiable by quantity and counting. This resolution of the value of “x” engaged the analytical faculties of the individual, this engagement was not by pointless debate or whatsoever sacred, this engagement was an invitation to employ the universal rule of measure and proportion and the individual was able to attain a rationalization. by employing these conventions. This is Personal Absolute Truth, where the individual is welcome to discover an “Absolute Truth” but only when trodden the path of practical rationality which required some effort on his path and also abiding by the rules of universal standardization. So far, we have come to grip with “Absolute truth”, that truth which we cannot all run from or consciously deny unless we choose to dwell in deliberate folly. Personal absolute truth gives the individual a balanced perception of their environment and the continuity of their consciousness because the essence of seeking the truth in the first place is to acquire knowledge, Knowledge of absolutes that govern our existence, we seek this knowledge for proper soul grounding, rest for our minds in the cognizance of the assurance of our futuristic wellbeing. Personal absolute truth as we have understood gives our life more order and synchronicity than Conventional truth, because if placed under the lens of objective scrutiny, Conventional truth should not be even be regarded as truth for the reason of non-participatory experience for the individual, and the pragmatic rigidity by which conventional truth is solidified in “sacred and reverence” makes it look suspicious of a deep-etched control agenda, why this radical resolution on my part? Because if the truth is what it is, the truth, why is it then shrouded in so much controversy and purported reverence, Why do the custodians of this conventional truth (Religious leaders, Priests e.t.c) in the name of divinity educate faithful to be ignorant of the authenticity of this conventional truth and not bother to seek the spiritual grounding for which this truth should be acknowledged and accepted. If the truth is what it is, the truth, then there should be some “Absolute Resolution” in its scrutiny, let’s remember Absolute truth, there is no debating or arguing, everybody testifies to it, “The sun still will rise in the east and set in the west” we don’t need no veneration or reverence to come to grasp with this. With this comparison, we see that conventional truth does not deserve a stay in the mind of the individual as all it does is confuse and stray the thought pattern of the individual from its ultimate goal, a “resolved fulfillment” that comes from understanding our consciousness about how we fit into our physical environment. Absolute Truth and Personal Absolute Truth are only what works.
In final words, even though the truth itself can be quite complicated in its consensual resolution sometimes, this does not mean that inquiry into what constitutes something as truth should not be welcome, The truth is what it is, the truth, there should be no worry or concern about its inquiry, because if we as humans are existing within our consciousness at the moment, and that obviously is true, then why should the so-called “truth” not be welcome to scrutiny and discovery by the individual, Does the truth have anything to hide? Why then is it the truth if its verification and validation are not encouraged? A quite funny right? this is what brought me to the resolution in the previous paragraph that when the “truth” is shrouded in “mystery, veneration, and reverence” there is a strong tendency that this “truth” is not really the Truth and is used as a brainwash and control mechanism to capture minds in limbo, conspiracy theory? I don't know, that is a story for another day. But remember, the truth has nothing to hide if its the truth, and what qualifies it as truth to you is if you were actively involved in its experience, other than this, it shouldn’t qualify as truth to you, Remember you weren’t told that the sun’s rays feel warm, you only just realized.
Our current perception of the reality around us is a function of the height of realization we have attained as regards our external environment, this realization rests on the verified truths that occupies our minds, these truths serve as blocks of ‘answered questions” in our mind and this is the base on which our psyche is grounded, upon blocks of “realized truths”. This grounding of our psyche is the feeling of the current balance we feel in our soul, that rest and synchronization we experience, we are products of this experience because of the synchronization with our environment from the perspective of our psyche. Now, here is the catch, if we are all different individuals with different psyches: factoring in that our psyche is a function of the truths we have realized as regards our existence and our interactive environment, then the truth is essentially individual, meaning that my truth is different from yours, yes, the balance of soul I feel usually is different from yours as we are different individuals with different psyches remember. One vivid indicator of the authentic truth is the realization it brings, let us take, for example, I tell you that time waits for no one and you said no, all I do is wait till the next day to see you again, I’ll then ask you, were you able to get back your yesterday? if you are being true to yourself you’d realize it's true or at least within you would have realized that it is true, you are not able to get back your yesterday. You come to this realization of this truth because you personally are involved in the essence of the experience, you did not need to be taught or told this truth, you only realized because you participated, and this participation makes it your truth. Brethren, do not fear, whatever you are told and convinced to accept as truth can only become your truth if you had a participatory experience. The truth can only be “Absolute” that which you know and witness every day and cannot deny or “Personal Absolute” that which existed beneath your immediate perception and required you to engage your mental faculties of rationality and verification to confirm. The truth cannot be taught or told since its medium of propagation of teaching and telling is usually “word of mouth” which is the same medium by which lies can be propagated. The Truth Can only Be realized. To a Peace of Mine, To a Peace of Yours, Love And Light.
