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The Truth Be Told
by Jon Mundy, Ph.D.
The truth is true. Nothing
else matters. Nothing else is real.
A Course in Miracles, T-14. III. 3:3-5
We will not attempt to
bring with us a little part of unreality,
as we devote our minds to
finding out what is real.
A Course in Miracles, Lesson 130: 7:2
Last spring, I taught a course at Marist College which
included a couple of weeks on mythology. It got me thinking
about the role of storytelling and truth in our lives.
A Course in Miracles
speaks of the importance of “truth” 859 times. It says that
truth is: “the absence of illusion,” “in you,” “whole,”
“simple,” “God.” What more can we want, than the truth and
the partner who comes with Truth – namely Love.
A Few Course Fundamentals
According to the Course,
perceiving is not the same as
knowing.
Perception is a “process” which includes analysis,
interpretation, and judgment. Perception happens in time and
“appears” to be external to us. Our perceptions are
judgmental and prejudicial. Judgment rejects, shifts,
dismantles, reorganizes, rearranges, separates, and changes.
The ego cannot survive without judgment. Thus, freedom from
judgment is also freedom from the ego. True perception or
“right perception” is necessary in order to experience
“knowledge,” that is, an understanding of truth beyond the
level of perception.
Lying as a Form of Denial -
Why Would We Ever Lie?
The first defense we all learn as children is lying. It is
so simple, so easy, it’s right there on the tip of the
tongue. You get into a little trouble; you need to defend
yourself; you just tell a lie – after all, who is going to
know. Problem is -- someone does know. You know! Now there
comes the experience of guilt -- Dirty! Stinky! Awful Guilt!
We have separated ourselves from the person or persons we
lied to and thereby placed ourselves in isolation. Life can
be lived fully only in truth. When life is a lie, it
involves deception and that can change life from a happy
dream into a soap opera, a drama – a nightmare – a hell on
earth from which there “seems” no relief.
Make Up!
The Course also
distinguishes between “creating” and “making.” Creating, we
do in truth with God. Creating is something we do in love.
When someone puts on “makeup” they put on a face, a
“persona.” What is "made up” is not true. Miracles free us
from illusion, folklore, myths, and “made up” stories.
Marilyn Monroe’s persona as a sex goddess was so completely
over-exaggerated that she is said to have reached “mythic
proportions.” A myth can be defined as a collective belief
that has no basis in fact. A myth is a “made up” story. It
is not the truth. Marilyn Monroe said of herself that she
was not a sex goddess because a sex goddess was a “thing”
and she was not a “thing.” She was a person!
We make up a world and then proclaim it real. All of our
religions are made up. All of them! That doesn’t mean they
don’t contain helpful teachings. Still, they are filled with
contradictions, myths, fantasy, drama, dogma, and unreality.
Nothing the world believes
is true (ACIM, Lesson 139, 7:1). We “make” things to
fill an imagined need. When we fulfill needs, we affirm
belief in separation. This includes all the many belief
systems we make up and then seek to maintain despite
inconsistencies.
Illusion
is stranger than fiction. (Think about it!)
In time, made up stories or myths become solidified. The
concrete is poured in and it settles into laws, rituals,
dogmas, creeds, and canonizations. The founder of each of
our great traditions speaks the truth and the disciples,
then “interpret” that truth with their own perception; their
own projection. Trying to mix truth and dogma, we get a
strange conglomerate which is inevitably more illusion than
truth.
Over the centuries, some of
the greatest teachings have been distorted to arrive,
amazingly, at their exact opposite meaning.
David Hawkins, M.D. Ph.D. in
The Eye of the
I
Religion is the “master game” and the playground for the
ego. God, however, is too big to fit inside any religion.
What we make
up is not eternal.
It may “symbolize” reality but a symbol is not reality.
Likewise, saying that a myth, a story, or a dream is
“reality,” (including our own stories), blocks awareness of
truth. Try as much as we want, we can never make the unreal
real.
The Magic Miracle Confusion
The Course talks
about the ego’s confusion regarding myth and magic. The ego
“makes up” its own “story” – its own world. We can thus make
ourselves – strong, rich, smart, and handsome – you name it.
The fascination with the movie, “The Secret” reflects some
of this confusion. We can “make” a St. Peter’s Basilica and
fill it with the world’s finest art. What we have is a
museum, nice to look at – inspirational perhaps – still it
is a monument to the past. God is here now in this present
moment. Though we make many
beautiful things, everything in this world will one
day not exist and it does not matter. I watched a wonderful
video of a woman standing in a garbage dump, in India,
playing with her baby, holding the baby up in the air making
the baby laugh. The woman was all smiles. It is who we are,
not where we are, that matters. One day “the self we made”
will not exist. In fact, it already does not exist and in
this knowledge, there is great freedom. What is of God
endures forever. Only the truth is eternal.
Demythologizing, Denial,
Debunking, and Decoding
In the earliest stages of religion, man developed myths and
beliefs in magic. A myth is a story. Children ask questions
and they need answers, so our ancestors came up with
answers. “What makes thunder?” “Thunder is caused by a god.”
Man thus begins to “create” God in his own image. To
demythologize is to discover or uncover the meaning of myth.
The myth of Adam and Eve, for example, is a wonderful
description of the birth of consciousness and of the first
split that entered into the mind of man. After his “eyes
were opened and he was able to distinguish good and evil,”
Adam hid from God. The first thing that Adam and Eve realize
is that they are “naked.” This brings shame and guilt.
Animals do not have guilt as we do. They have no shame.
With Adam, we have the birth of the first philosopher. Man
not only thinks, he also “thinks” about “thinking” and
therein is the rub. Man now has a “divided mind or split
mind.” It also now becomes possible for man to “make
himself.” Mythic stories develop over time. Each age and
generation adds new elements. The more time that goes by,
the more complicated the story, the more unbelievable the
story becomes. Myths are representational, symbolic, or
metaphorical. In much of Hindu mythology, the gods and
goddesses are understood as
representational figures displaying different
dimensions of consciousness. They are not “literally” true
but they point to or “suggest” something deeper. One of the
most fascinating discoveries of the twentieth century was
the realization that the descriptions of modern subatomic
physics and the cosmology of ancient India were much the
same, though they used a different language. (See Fritjof
Capra, The Tao of Physics)
As dreams tell us about the inner workings of ourselves,
myths tell us about the inner workings of the unconscious of
mankind. The more complicated, intricate, and detailed a
myth becomes, the more fancy-full, the more unbelievable.
The more any story is elaborated, the more the ego plays
with it, and the more the characters in the myth are seen as
the storyteller’s own projection. It is not surprising that
the ancient gods of the Greeks, Romans, and Ancient Jews
were, thus, all “fallible,” and very human-like, each
succumbing to the different characteristics of the man who
made up the myth. God, made in the image of man, is
unforgiving, wrathful, hateful, and judgmental. The Greek
and Roman Gods, have affairs, get jealous, and are vengeful.
It looks a good bit like a modern soap opera. It is not a
representation of “truth.”
Denial of error is a strong
defense of truth,
but denial of truth results
in miscreation, the
projections of the
ego.
ACIM T-2, II, 2:5
The Immaculate Conception
Let’s look at a myth the Christian tradition supports as
literally true. We like our savior figures to be “unspotted,
pure – immaculate from the get-go.” A mackerel is a
“spotted” fish. Immaculate means “not spotted” not
blemished, tainted, or stained. To push things back to the
beginning is to push things back to purity – back to
innocence. Many of the Greek gods, as well as the
philosopher Pythagoras of Ancient Greece, Buddha in
Buddhism, and Mithra of the Mithraic Mysteries were all
thought to have immaculate conceptions. They are, thus, all
pure, “unstained,” innocent. The idea is not new in
Christianity. An immaculate conception is something which
happens in awareness – it’s the recognition of the purity of
one’s Being. The Immaculate Conception is not about an ovum
being fertilized Deus ex Machina, but a dawning of Truth in
awareness, either as a concept or as a realization.
Innocence
This past May on my 65th birthday, I opened an
email and tears instantly sprang into my eyes. It was the
news of the death of Judy Femmer, my high school sweetheart.
She was my first love, the first to truly “steal my heart
away.” We were young lovers (though we never “made” love)
for 3 wonderfully torturous years, ages 16-19. When love
first comes, it often comes with great gusto and it can be
overwhelming. I was so in love with her. I remember looking
at Judy and thinking she was perfect, pure -- innocent. She
could do no wrong. She wouldn’t even have known how. The
same thing happened many years later when I fell in love
with my wife Dolores. I still see each of them this way --
would, that I might see all things this way. According to
the Course, we are
to see everyone as we see those whom we love – through eyes
of innocence.
Myths and Parables
The gospel of Matthew says that Jesus “never” taught without
using parables. Jesus “made up” stories because, “In
hearing, they do not hear and in seeing, they do not see.”
Something else was needed, we need a metaphor. Jesus’
parables were not literal events, though they each tell a
meaningful story. In the story of the prodigal son, we learn
that we have all rejected our Father’s Will, and have gone
into a far country (a body in the material world). When we
fail in our efforts, and “repent,” we are able to return
home to the open arms of our Father. Jesus’ parables are
stories made up to
illustrate a point. Despite this fact, I have heard
ministers speak of this parable as though the event
“actually” happened.
Let’s remember that the
Course says nothing about the past (historical
figures etc., nor the future) because the truth is not about
the past or the future. It’s also not about this world. It’s
about Heaven. Every parable in the Gospel of Matthew begins
with the phrase “The Kingdom of Heaven is like. . .” Jesus
is trying to tell us about Heaven, and the best way to do it
for his day was to use parables. But a parable is a
parable. It is a story. It is not a fact. Ultimately, (which
means right now) past and future are both illusions and
inconsequential to the present.
Making up a story is a good way to get ones message across.
Some of out best teachers in the course of history have been
storytellers. From our own country, we have men like,
Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers. A story
involves characters engaged in a conversation, as they are
in Plato’s “Dialogues.” In Galileo’s classic book,
Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems, we have an intriguing discussion
between three people. One believes the sun is the center of
the universe; one believes the earth is the center; and the
third takes a position between the two of these. He does not
know which answer is correct. This
Dialogue got Galileo
into a lot of trouble with the church. It was not a true
story. It was a parable, a story designed to illustrate a
point. In the early 1990’s, we all enjoyed a wonderful book
called the Celestine
Prophecy, which involved a dialogue on the nature of
spiritual development. It was not a true story and James
Redfield, the author, never said the story was true, though
some people read it that way.
The Course contains
a number of warnings. It tells us to never underestimate the
insanity of the ego. It says that illusions can be as strong
in their effect as the truth (ACIM, Lesson 132). It also
tells us not to underestimate the power of a lie. (T-3, VII.
1:6). Hitler perpetuated a “myth” prior to World War II,
telling the people of Germany that Poland and other
surrounding neighbors were a threat. This is the way to
start a war. First, convince the people that a threat
exists; then “make them” an enemy. Soldiers are not to talk
about people. They are to call “people” “the enemy.” It is
then easier to kill them. Hitler was himself, of course, the
greatest of all the threats to the health and wellbeing of
the German people. He played to the ego. The ego yelled
“Heil Hitler!” and all hell broke lose. Little did the
German people know that he would one day kill their own
children, destroy their homes, devastate their hopes and
take away their dreams.
Never underestimate the
insanity of the ego.
Playing to the Ego -- “Make
Up” in the Twenty-First Century
The major myth-making machine of the modern era is
television. It “tells” us its vision. Madison Avenue puts a
“spin” on things; infomercials tell us of the latest books,
drink, or investment opportunity we need to make us happy,
healthy, wealthy, and wise. We easily buy into mythologies,
half-truths, and lies, despite amazing contradictions. How
many folks really stay slim on diet pills? Descending the
stairs into our family room one day, I asked my daughter
Sarah what television show she was watching. She said it was
a show called, “The Real World.” “Oh,” I said, “What is the
real world?” “It is,” she said, “about teenagers who get
drunk and have sex.” Now I know!
There is
a kind of experience
so different from anything the ego can offer that you will
never want to cover or hide again.
A Course in Miracles
We need the truth; we thirst for the truth because the truth
gives us life. The more the truth is known, the less there
is hidden, the happier we are. Truth is happiness, just as
denial and hiding is despair. Darkness hides the truth. To
experience revelation,
all hiding must be put aside. What myths do I buy into? What
would you hide? If you want to do some real soul searching,
ask yourself the questions where, when, how, and with whom
do I hide?
Super-Ego, Conscience,
Courage, and Cleverness
Three words which never appear in the
Course are
conscience, courage,
and cleverness.
Conscience may be a kind of cleverness as in “being careful
not to say the wrong thing, dressing properly, observing
etiquette, etc.” The Holy Spirit does not care how you
dress; nor is God concerned about what tribe owns what part
of the planet. Rather than following the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, the ego follows the guidance of a really big
ego named – “Super Ego.” Super Ego polices unacceptable
desires and helps us have the courage to achieve success and
reach excellence in the eyes of the world. What we are
dealing with is still the ego no matter how “super” it may
be. Courage is often fool-hearty in its cleverness. Even in
the most inventive ways, it is not the truth. Why is it that
people who do truly courageous acts always say of themselves
that they were not being courageous? They were just doing
what they had to do. No matter how many stories we make up,
no matter how many ways the truth may be twisted, all
cleverness is always eventually seen for what it is. The end
story of all hero mythologies is always the same -- God
always wins, which is to say, Truth is always revealed to be
the sole reality.
When I despair, I remember
that all through history the ways of truth and love have
always won.
There have been tyrants,
and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but
in the end they always fail.
Think of it... always!
Mahatma Gandhi
Truth Undoes What Never Was.
Why are we so gullible? How is it that so many people can be
fooled? Heaven lies beyond illusion where truth and beauty
wait untarnished by time. Myths, dreams, dramas, soap
operas, and stories are not true, including the story we
make up about ourselves or the “case” we build for
ourselves. Truth is, we are each a child of God -- nothing
less than that. We cannot bring truth to illusion because we
really do not clearly know what the truth is. We know a
great deal more about our stories. Some people are
“fascinated” with movies, myths, fiction, dramas, and
tragedies. They, thus, come to know more about illusion than
truth. In an age of computer graphics the illusion becomes
even more complex.
Never be afraid of looking at your own drama and never be
afraid of being wrong. “Agree with thine adversary
quickly, while thou
art on the way with him.” – (Matthew 5:25). Admit to your
spouse, who already knows it, that you are an
“ego-alcoholic” and she or he will probably be pleased with
your honesty. Nothing beats radical honesty. Drop
defensiveness quickly, acknowledge thoughtlessness and
selfishness promptly, and gain much wisdom thereby. Be still
and be clear about that which is false. Let it go so that
truth may come to the fore.
Sufi Mystic, Al Ghazzali (?- 1111) said that the mystical
vision of truth is the only way to achieve peace. The eye
delights in beauty, the ear delights in music, anger
delights in taking vengeance. “The highest faculty in man,”
he said, “lies in the pursuit of truth.” Our greatest
delight lies in its discovery.
Truth is Kind. Where
God is, the truth is. Where the truth is, God is. A
tautology can be read from left or right. God is truth and
truth is God. The truth sets us free. Only truth succeeds
because only the truth is true. God is Love and Love is God.
God, Truth, Love are all the same. We must utterly immerse
ourselves in Truth until the Truth has its way with
us. Surrendering to Truth is surrendering to God because God
is Truth. Surrendering to God means surrendering everything
we believe that’s contrary to Truth. To be in truth is to be
consumed by the Allness of God.
Just Being
Being “real” means not putting on any makeup. Not engaging
in a show, not pretending. Just being is wonderful. Just
being is freeing. We are all like everyone else -- just
people here. Be glad! It is easy to love “regular,”
“ordinary,” people. Specialness always gets in the way. We
are safe only in truth. If we are lying, if we are hiding,
we are not being present, we are pretending, we are not
being love. We are safe only in truth. We are safe only in
love.
Truth is True, Nothing else
is True, and just isn’t there.
So Truth is all there is.
And that’s God.
– Ben Gilberti
Our task is to free ourselves from our “mythologies,” our
“super-egos,” and out “ego-ideals.” In knowing that you are
“nobody” is all freedom. It’s impossible for there to ever
be anything separate from God; not now, not ever, – nowhere.
Truth is a thing of life, not of words. Your purpose (in
case you did not know) is to be the Presence of God; and, we
get to be the Presence of God by being true to ourselves.
Why be anything else? Why do anything else?
Truth is beyond belief, beyond rites and rituals, stories
and myths. The truth is so beautiful, so vital and alive
that nothing can diminish its glory. Truth is God’s Will.
Truth is your will. Truth is my will. What we want more than
anything is to do God’s Will. Believing in our own dreams
and dramas rather than God’s truth, blinds us to the beauty
of truth. We do not know God because we do not know
ourselves. As we come to know Self, we come to know God; we
also come to the truth and we leave the impure behind. Truth
is always abundant.
Workbook Lesson 268
Let all
things be exactly as they are.
Let not our sight be
blasphemous today, nor let our ears attend to lying tongues.
Only reality is free of pain. Only reality is free of loss.
Only reality is wholly
safe. And it is only this we seek today.
We side with truth (today)
and let illusions go.
We will not vacillate
between the two, but take a firm position with the One. We
dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God
planned it be. We will not argue it is something else.
We will not seek for it
where it is not.
In gladness we accept it as
it is, and take the part assigned to us by God.
Only Truth is True.
You can’t be anything else.
How simple is the obvious.
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The
Institute for Personal Religion
