{Truth....Part 2...}

I wrote a post a year ago about truth, my mindset and my understanding of truth since then, has changed. This is the result of that realisation. (Also, it's a good bit longer than the last one. ^.^) Enjoy!

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Back in 2014, when I was "vacationing" in Norway, I tried to keep up with my personal bible study time. The YouVersion bible app has a lot of different study plans and the one I was going through then was The Truth Project Devotion. Let me say, it was pretty amazing. The Day One devotion was about Pontius Pilate's questioning of Jesus (before Jesus' crucifixion) and really focused on one question that Pilate asked of Jesus, "What is truth?"

"What is truth?" Pilate doesn't seem to have grasped the importance of his ironic question. Without the plumb line of Truth, we can know neither life, goodness, righteousness, nor justice. We can't even know ourselves.

What would it be like to live in a world without truth?

In a world where anything goes, finding a basis of truth wherein everyone agrees, or at least the majority of people, in the way that people are trying to do it now, is not easy. There are so many arguments constantly about what truth actually is. "What is truth? Is there a such thing as absolute truth?" (etc. etc. etc.) There are already so many concrete conclusions instilled in people, unfortunately, they aren't ones that lead to truth and peace. (Any peace they have is fleeting and not at all lasting, at best.)

To look at the things objectively, to say that there is no absolute truth is claiming the statement to be THE absolute truth itself.


Easily understood, right?


But honestly, though, what is truth?


I would dare to wager that there is an absolute truth and that everyone is looking for it, be it consciously or subconsciously. The thing about truth is that if it is *truth* it will be an accurate statement across the board. (Which is why I've always had such a problem with vague blanket statements.)

Like, "EVERYONE loves ice cream!" is not the truth, because, if you're looking across the board, not everyone loves ice cream. "Everyone has to come to the knowledge of the truth," is a more accurate statement because, until people are taught the truth and grow up with it from a young age, they will have to find it out and accept it. Truth isn't different for everyone, but there are many paths to find it.


I once was talking to a friend in a coffee shop and we were discussing the search for truth that all of humanity inevitably struggles through. We talked about the fact that, so often, truth ends up subjective to whoever is searching. 

How is it that people think they can look for an absolute truth subjectively? Sure, you may find shadows of said truth that way, but you'll never completely find it in its entirety. (A shadow of the thing is not the thing itself.) You have to be willing to give up all preconceived notions to fully grasp all of the nuances that come before you.


So that you know where I'm coming from, I'll share with you a little of my back-story of truth searching:


I've been thinking about my story a lot lately, and I realised how much of my life has been spent questioning Christianity (the religion I was raised in) and trying (and failing) to fit in to what was expected of me. I've had a lot of battles throughout my teen years that led to a lot of mental and emotional repercussions, but the hardest hit came within those last three years.


In 2014, when I was 17, after coming home from Norway I fell into a tailspin regarding Christianity and what I believed. I didn't understand how an omnipotent God could let life in earth continue to progress the way it was and had always been. In my thinking, I couldn't accept certain aspects of Christianity with "blind faith." I just couldn't. No matter how hard I tried. And I "tried" all summer, but I gave up around mid-July. (Soon after turning 18.) I decided I didn't want to be a Christian if I couldn't accept the basic principles, the building blocks of the religion, because it went against my logic, and "became" a neo-paganistic, Greek mythology follower. I held on to my own intellect and my own rationality. I was a "strong thinker," and I was slowly killing myself. What I had, wasn't truth. I became extremely depressed and I started cutting. I was suicidal most weeks and I detached from reality, without completely realising that I had done so.


Around November/December, though, I decided to try to pull myself out of where I was and search for truth. The ever elusive truth of all existence. The meaning of life, the Absolute Truth of Humanity, everything. I wanted to find it and my soul was aching to know.


In my searching, I processed through Christianity. What was it that made Christianity so different from other religions? What were the points in it's doctrine that I'd been "forced" to reject because of my logic? Was I actually correct in this reasoning?


Truth, contrary to societal belief, is not some entity outside of yourself. Because every person has 100% God's spirit within them, they have the truth already in them. There's just a bunch of human-y crud that's gunking things up and getting in the way of people just finding that absolute truth.


The Greek and the Jewish have to different understandings of what truth is. (The difference between the Greeks and the Jews is also why we have such a grossly mistranslated canon bible, but that's for another post.) The Greek, the philosophical mind of the ages, believe truth to be a static, empirical, unmoving entity outside of ourselves. Something you behold. Something you shape yourself around. Something we have to strive towards. Whereas the Hebrews, a religious pillar of history, see truth as something that we internalise. Something that reshapes us from the inside out. It shows itself in our actions, our decisions, etc. It's something fluid that grows and metamorphosises and changes as we develop in it. The reality is, truth is both unmoving *and* fluid. It is an established reality and it affects everything around it like nature's changing of seasons. It's something we behold and something that grows. As we shape ourselves around the truth it reveals itself in our thoughts, our actions, our decisions, our reactions.


In my searching for The Truth, I had to come to grips with the fact that if I didn't agree with truth, it wasn't the truth that was wrong, necessarily. If someone says that 2+2=4 and you don't agree with it, that doesn't change the factual truth of basic addition. It's the reasoning that needs to change, not the truth.


There needs to be a plumb line to check "truth" or there is no way to look at it all objectively. There IS no absolute truth if there's nothing to cement it to. Absolute truth, and really truth in and of itself, is be unmoving. If it were at all subjective, the world would be *SEVERELY* chaotic. ("God is bigger and more amazing than mortal understanding can comprehend," is an example. An unmoving, absolute truth.)

It should be something static, something that we have to approach and strive towards. (Like the knowledge of God; learning to understand him and all of his nuances.) As long as we have our human-y, negative beliefs (the part of us that clouds God's spirit in us) the truth we find will be forEVER subjective. We have too many preconceived negative beliefs for The Truth to be able to just come forth. It would end up being forever changing and different for every person if we tried to do it that way.


There are shades to said truth that will be discovered just by human cognisance, but a shadow of a thing isn't the thing itself. In all of the different religions of the world, there are shadows of Truth, but no matter how close it gets, it's not the entire truth itself. If they did have the whole truth, their people would have no fear. The having and understanding of perfect truth gives itself to a life without fear. 

Humans have a habit of adding things to what they have to try to "make it better." (You can look at any aspect of humanity and come to this conclusion; man constantly wants to be the best, and will work so that he can be so. No matter what the "thing" he's "improving" is.) 

Somewhere, in the way-back pages of humanity, we were all one people (Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden, right?) and with that establishing of humanity, we (the royal "we" meaning "humanity") had a greater understanding of 1) the spirit/energy world, 2) God, and 3) what it felt like to have peace (until Adam's free will got in the way). Since God's curse on Adam, God has put us on a journey towards maturity so that we could fully understand truth.

Mankind, as a whole, has come to the place in their maturity now wherein they understand that life is more a cerebral existence than a physical, violent existence. When we think "sacrifice," we're not think "blood, guts, and gore!" like our ancient forefathers did, with their various types of animal sacrifices. Those remote tribes and their human sacrifices. The idea of conquering nations by killing all of their men...or whatever the case may have been. Nowadays, when we think "sacrifice" we understand that it means a giving up of something. (Time, energy, dedication, the giving of our lives for a cause.)

"I think, therefore I am." (I mean, he wasn't wrong.) What we believe, makes up how we think. How we think, generates the building blocks in how we act. How we act makes up our character. Our character becomes who we are. If what we believe is off, "who we are" is not really us. Society has become too complacent about what it means to have a "good life." What they're not telling you (whoever "they" are) is that where you are is not the best it gets.


I've said this before in other posts, but God wanted our lives to be way more than what we've come to accept as "the best." God says all through scripture that we're supposed to have abundance, hearing this and understanding that he means spiritual abundance, not necessarily physical stuff abundance. 


Spiritual abundance = spiritual perfection. The church says that it is impossible to be perfect here on earth. That the goodness promised us can only be attained...in heaven...after we die...but we have to suffer through life and struggle to make it until the end. But Jesus himself and so many other of his disciples said that we can be perfect here on earth. (This is the part of the program with a lot of verses...)

"...so be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48

"So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Philippians 2:12

"...but now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the scriptures say, 'You must be holy because I am holy.'" 1 Peter 1:15-16

"Therefore be imitators of GOd as dearly loved children..." Ephesians 5:1

I mean, over and over again. And it is also said, time and time again that we should get to the point where we're not sinning:

"No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen [God] or [have] known him." 1 John 3:6

"What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!" Romans 6:15

"You will konw them by their fruit. Grapeas aren't gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles, are they? In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a rotten tree cannot produce good fruit." Matthew 7:16-18

So why is it that we accept from the church that we're bound and doomed to our sin? That we just have to be content with how we are and try really hard to be good because that's how we please God but we don't have to work at it because it's all done for us through Jesus' death and resurrection...Guys...This doesn't even make sense. 


If a tree is sick, it can't look to another tree and say, "You are so amazingly healthy, save me!" No! The health increase of health in the tree itself will determine if it is saved or not. Same with our salvation. If you take anything away from this post, I hope it is this: Your spiritual health can be increased. It's not an impossible process of try really hard all of your life to get there. And it's definitely not maybe in the end you'll be rewarded by the entrance into some magical happy place. (More on that later.)


Truth is: There's more to life than what you've been shown and what you're seeing. There's more to existence than the mediocre endurance we've labelled as "good." Guys, there's so much more! And it's so beautiful. It's amazing how much life opens up when you're eyes are opened to see it all. (Novel idea, right?)


The reason why I'm taking the time to share this all with you is because I just want you to be free. I want you to be able to go to bed with a quiet mind and to be at peace. To be able to go through life and be okay with everything happening. Not just "be okay," but actually thriving.


Don't just take my word for it. Seek wisdom (it's the wisest thing you can do, right?) and find out for yourself. The knowledge taught to me is unlike anything else out there...and it is *so* worth discovering for yourself.

{Freedom}

With everything that's going on in society (the racial, sociopolitical, and societal issues in America; the cultural, political, and basic human rights issues around the world) it is very easy to become discouraged and to lose hope that anything will ever get better.

With all the various people crying for peace and love in different aspects of life (without really offering solutions...I'm not the only one noticing this, right?), it is easy to just figure that nothing's ever going to change and that a handfull of "wishful thinkers" can't really do much good in the grand scheme of things.

I am here to tell you that ever great uprising of change started with a handfull of people. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't start out on the steps of the Lincoln memorial with his "I have a dream..." speech. It was the collective mindset of many, and the culmination of some ideas he'd gathered from a few other speakers, that sparked his flame and his now, widely-known speech.

He had to start talking with family and friends, around a dinner/lunch/whatever table, sharing ideas and spreading hope.

Let me tell you a (not so) secret though: Dr. King's rallys and speeches cultivated a change (the effects of that hightened energy), but in the across-the-board kind of way it only lasted for a short while, and change only had just started to come about (like semi-successfully pushing a car a short ways).

We are not going to see widespread change (the way everyone wants; that universal peace and love) until people take responsibility for the fact that they themselves are responsible for the negativity in the world.

Everyone, I don't care how zen/righteous/balanced/whatever you say you are, everyone has negative beliefs that drive them and their actions, responses, thought processes; everything. Everyone has negative beliefs because (and this is scientifically proven) everyone, before the age of five, is making conclusions about *everything* in their world. Decisions about cats, couches, dogs, what they think about different foods and different people, sidewalks, hairbrushes, days, nights, books...everything). Their kid-brain was making 700 neurological connections a second. In all of these decisions that shape what they like and dislike, they're also making conclusions like: "I am not capable," "I'm worthless," "I'm unloved," "It's not me," "Relationships suck," "I'm alone," and SO many more like those.

These are the negative beliefs that drive you, your life and is what causes you to shape your life in the way that you do.

And everyone has them. If you've ever thought anything negative about yourself, your life, people, etc. then you have a negative belief within you. You can't give it, unless you have it. (So basically, humans are pretty screwed up.)

BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO STAY THERE! God never meant for life to suck, he never meant for us to have to work so hard to be good and to push *so hard* to do everything we're supposed to do.

There is so much that is available to people that they're unable to see because of their blindness. And I don't mean physical blindness, but their lack of self-awareness. Those whose eyesignt doesn't go past the end of their nose. Those who take in so much that they don't realise that they believe fairytales and aren't aware that so much of what they take in is...mythology.

It is possible to be awaken from those misguided ideas, though. You're not stuck.

As someone with a strong religious background (and someone whose time in the midst of that religiosity is pretty heavily punctuated by all the times I rebelled and questioned what I was being taught), I can say that the freedom on the other side of letting go of mythology and pride is...beyond words.

I will say, though: With everything I've been able to experience since being on my journey to get rid of my negative beliefs, I've currently been stuck in this limbo of confusion and understanding about those who can say statements, one after another, that completely contradict the dogma they teach. The ones unaware of how insensitive they are to...basically everyone, despite how much they'll go on about doing the right thing and people a good person. The ones who...and this isn't me casting a stone, 'cause I've been there. Just being real...the ones who go to church every Sunday and yet can still look at someone who is genuinely in need and tell them that they (homeless person) have to fend for themselves. (WWJD? Right?) I've personally seen this happen so many times.


*sigh* At the same time I'm writing this, and I know that those people who don't understand after being presented truth are not among those whose eyes have been opened. God will open some people's eyes and ears, and will leave others closed. I dont' get to decide that (as much as I want everyone to be free). They can't even decide that. (Nothing ever happens except for what God has ordained.)

God knows, it can be kinda frustrating when you're trying to offer someone the ability to connect deeper with themselves and others; for them to be able to see a bigger picture on life...and then they dismiss you because they didn't find the truth themselves (which is a response resulting from pride), or because they don't want to give up what they've known (a result of the fear of the unknown and also pride) and then choose to be oblivious to the BIGNESS OF LIFE that is available to them.

I get it. I get that people, because of their negative beliefs, are afraid of biggness...the possibility of a future beyond the furthest reaches of their imagination and a reality that plays out differently than their 1- or 5- or 10-year plan projects. I also know that there are more people, like me, who are tired of the same old thing over and over.

Those are the people I most desperately want to give that red pill to. (Matrix reference.) In order to take the pill, they've got to choose to do it. They've got to want to make a change. They've got to realise that doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a varying result is the definition of insanity. They've got to come to the awareness that they're living in insanity...and they've got be willing to realise that it sucks.

I know..."It's not just that easy to wake up and realise that you're life isn't as good as you may have thought and that you need a new basis of belief." I agree...I know that for me it took some guiding. I mean, I knew that, with the things going on in my life, my level of existence was pretty low, but I didn't realise how deeply I'd been digging my hole. I'd be willing to wager that most of you aren't entirely aware of how deep the hole you're digging for yourself is.

The beautiful thing is that the message doesn't end with, "You're awful. Try harder to do good!" Lord, no! (Where's the hope in that?) There is a way to fill back in the ground and stand on a solid platform again.

"OK, then. What is it??" It's not my message to spread, but I can point you to the messenger. She is amazing and God has gifted her with the ability to explain anything and everything clearly and simply.

Many of you are willing to sit under the teaching clergy for hours and months and years, putting energy into someone who isn't giving you the results you're looking for...The message that God has given Sandra Kay *is* because, and I am a personal witness to this, everyone who has listened to this message and has internalised and fully embraced it, have had radically positive changes in their lives. It's not at all about following her, or her wanting you to follow her (at all), she just wants to share the message that God has given her. 

OH! One last thing: all of life, everything we experience in our physical life, is about energy and the exchange of it. Actually, ALL areas of existence is about energy. It just is. What energy are you putting into your universe? What energy are you putting into people? Do you have 100% peace about the results you're getting back from the energy you're putting out? If not, do you think it's time for a change?