Understanding the essence of truth can be as elusive as it is straightforward. Sadhguru leads us to the realization that truth is not merely in our words; it is woven seamlessly into the way we live, the gratitude we hold, and our reverence for all life around us. Join us as we unfold the layers of truth, revealing its role not only in communication but as an integral part of living a life in genuine inclusivity.
Questioner: My mother has a dilemma in life where she is not able to handle the truth when I tell it to her. And when she tells the truth, no one is able to accept it. Still, she wants to continuously tell the truth, and she wants a solution as to how to do that.
Sadhguru: If you cannot tell the truth, do not say anything. If you find yourself in a situation where people are not mature enough to digest the truth, keep your mouth shut. But if you do not say anything, depending on how you are made, it might burst out in some other way, and people will notice that.
You are thinking there is something called truth and untruth when in reality, there is only one truth. Whatever you do – whether you speak, use your limbs, or even just look – it is all some form of action. When you perform any action, you have to check if it is all about yourself, or if it is inclusive in nature. That is the only truth there is.
If you sit here without any sensitivity to any other life around you, including human beings, you are living a big lie. When you talk about facts, you can choose which aspects of your life you want to share and with whom. If you lack this judiciousness, you will make a fool of yourself. Exercising discretion does not mean you are not telling the truth.
The truth about life is that as you sit here, what you exhale, the trees are inhaling. What the trees exhale, you are inhaling. If you exclude them, you are a lie. Your life is a consequence of trillions of lives. From microorganisms to worms and insects, all of them are contributing right now to keep you alive. Is that not the truth?
The truth about life is that we are not the root of life; we are a consequence of it. All the other life forms on this planet have contributed to our existence. If you live without any sense of inclusiveness, you are a living lie.
The nature of life is such that life cannot happen by itself – it is happening because of everything.
You are not an individual life, though in your mind, you might think you are. In reality, you are a consequence of this large mass of life. In this phenomenon of life, you are just a pop-up. The magnanimity of creation has given you an individual experience. And you are taking it so seriously that you think you landed here all by yourself. No, you just “crawled” out of this earth, and you will “crawl” back.
I want you to see the immense process every morsel of food you eat has gone through. Millions of organisms, worms, and insects contribute to growing a grain out of the earth. Someone farmed it, someone harvested it, someone cleaned it, someone sold it wholesale, and then, someone sold it in retail. Today, someone cooked it. Even if you cannot feel all this while eating, at least have a little gratitude to all life that sustains your life. Without that, you are a living lie.
So, should you tell the truth or not?
Truth and lies are in the way you hold life, live life, and experience life, not in the nonsense that you speak. What you speak is irrelevant. When you struggle with that, you will do idiotic things in the name of truth. Such situations would have happened to you right from childhood. Let us say when you were a little baby, you ate a peppermint, and you liked it. By the time you reached five or six, your mother would have said, “No,” and you would have protested. Then she would have done some trick and said they were all gone.
Had you eaten the whole bottle of peppermints, you would have gotten sick. She knew the truth in terms of life; it is not about verbal truth or verbal lies. Out of her concern for you, she would lie, do drama, whatever was needed. Similarly, out of your concern for all life around you, do whatever kind of drama is necessary.
Or consider this scenario: There are people who want to go to heaven, but they want to take you with them – you might call them terrorists. If such a person came to our door and asked, “Are there any people here?” should the one answering the door tell the truth? You would probably say no. The truth about life is in life itself, not in your words.
It is like this: The moment the sun rises, many things that you could not see in the dark or did not even know existed become visible. If you sit outside in the garden before dawn, you will not see anything. But as the sun slowly comes up, everything becomes real. What seemingly did not exist suddenly starts existing.
You might have seen how during heavy rains in India, flying ants suddenly appear. They fly around for an hour or two; then their wings fall off, and most of them fall dead. Their whole lifecycle is over in just a few hours. Because you can see it in that context, you know their life is that brief. But a mountain would be looking at you and thinking you are a flying ant. The mountain has seen thousands of generations come and go, and every one of them would have thought they were the greatest and most important one. This is the nature of life. If you do not understand this, you are a living lie.
