The Awful Truth
The truth is awful because it contradicts everything that is taught and revered as the untruth of the world. People say they want the truth but mostly get upset or affronted when it’s presented to them. This happens when the person becomes attached to their master or some religious tradition, which then solidifies as a particular position in the mind and forms a psychological barrier to the development of individual consciousness. The purpose of any genuine realised teacher is to disturb the perimeter of ignorance which surrounds the innocence and purity of the spiritual centre within the brain.
When people say they want the truth, in most instances they are looking for a teacher or guru to say what they want to hear or to quote sweet sounding poetry; this lulls the mind and emotions into a soporific trance. A spiritual teacher’s real function is to puncture the complacency of the mind, which gains its sense of security through sitting on the fence of its mental formulations. The person enjoys being interested in the truth but balks at having to live it as a true participant of this glorious life. It’s the inner being that resonates with the spiritual light of truth which signals the readiness for the deepening knowledge.
An example of the awful truth is when a man or woman realises that, to break the deadlock of an old pattern of life, they must leave everything behind which was previously cherished. To the sensibilities of those locked into the system of a society identified with personal love, such action would seem unacceptable and totally irresponsible. And yet to find the truth and then to realise it, if that is to be, such events and provocative situations are invoked at various stages of the spiritual process of self-disintegration. Such intensity of experience is the way of the mystic or truth seeker who accepts the adjudication of life without complaint in the knowledge that they are being made free of the tyranny of self.
The truth, although unchangeable, is always moving on. This means that, at every new phase of human evolution, the way in which the invisible realm is imparted through self-knowledge is refined to enable the truth to be discerned more directly through the perspective of the times. Consequently words which were once in common usage, say two thousand years ago, are today out of date and no longer have the power to communicate the truth as before. An example is the word ‘desire’, which once had meaning through the living demonstration of the word in everyday life. But how often today do we say ‘I desire food’ or ‘what do you desire to do today?’ Today’s translation of desire is wanting. ‘I want some food’ or ‘what do you want to do today?’ reflects more realistically the self-driven urgency of the age. And so it is with all words, particularly those relating to love, truth and the way of the spirit.
The more real a spiritual teaching in terms of its timeless quality, the less popular it will be in its appeal to the curious or the masses. It’s far safer to follow a dead master than to be in the living presence of the realised state of consciousness, which will pin the dishonesty of the person and expose the false within. Time is the safeguard to dying now to any unhappiness or negativity, such as the right to be angry or self-doubtful. Popular teachings are time-laden, which means there’s space for the world to keep spinning and to have discussions with like-minded friends, particularly on today’s social media. The awful truth is the end of the world as any structure of permanence in the mind. The world is not the earth but a hardened layer of self, superimposed upon the simplicity of the flesh of the planetary consciousness.
The awful truth is death – the reality of life. Unless I, the man or woman, continually die while alive to the belief in anything, death will always be feared when it approaches. Death is the absence of the world. The world is anything that can be named or remembered. The moment of truth is the elimination of the world as any structure or impediment to the purity of space. This is self-realisation, when everything is lost apart from that which has always been here. What was ‘awful’ is then transcended to the awesome perception of life everlasting. And yet, this is not an end in itself. For still I go on.