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Honesty, Truth? For What?

Café-Salon Philosophique #27

December 5, 1998

No. of Participants: 18

Topic for the Evening's Discussion - "What is Truth? What is the difference between relative truth and absolute truth?"

Samuel welcomed all new and old to Cafe. The group met for the second time at the Troubadour Bookstore located at 1638 Pearl St., a unique specialty bookstore that caters to the "artist in everyone!"

After mingling among friends and "goodies" provided by the store owner, Deb Evans, every one found their place to begin the evening discussion.

Participants were asked to share topics of interest. Some ideas were, "What is authenticity versus fake, emptiness versus love, honesty versus dishonesty, deception versus the self?" Lester asked, "What is reality? What is absolute truth versus relative truth?" The group decided to focus on this topic.

Miriam began the discussion by defining truth as "the opposite of a lie." "It is when everything is stripped down to the basics." Reinhardt feels that "truth cannot be defined. It stands on its own. Truth is undefinable."

Akiko believes "truth comes from the bottom of the heart." Ted thinks "truth is not the past which is full of memories or the future which is the imagination, but the present moment - the right here and now." For Jeannette, "truth changes as reality changes."

Aziza says, "there are many levels of truth - universal and personal," but, that she "really wasn't sure just what absolute truth is." Duane finds truth when he is in "his own world."

Stephanie thinks that "truth is a combination of information of the here and now. Things change moment to moment. In truth, there should be no judgements or intepretations. But in reality, things are very subjective." Wayne agreed with this statement. Lester said, "There must be facts that reach a conclusion in order for something to be called an absolute truth."

Samuel offered this bit of wisdom, "Truth is debatable and can be manipulated. Honesty cannot." You are either honest, or you are not.

Vineeta "doesn't quite know what truth is." She knows it has "nothing to do with what she thinks it does." Prashant offered three parts of truth - being, knowing and acting. He defined "being" as living one's own reality, "knowing" as what one can become; and "acting" out personal truths and honesty in life."

Lester summarized the group's definitions of truth by stating, "basically, we have spoken about personal and relative truths. Absolute truths must be built upon facts. We have not outlined any facts from which to build a foundation for reaching the higher level of absolute truth."

Samuel then asked if we could possibly "elevate our beings to visualize or possibly imagine what absolute truth might be?" Stephanie replied with, "I don't think that there is such a thing as absolute truth." Wayne says that "our minds are too fuzzy. We do not think clearly. We are out of touch with the omnipotent one."

Prashant said that there are "too many paradoxes associated with truth, such as yes/no, the ying and the yang, male and female, the bicameral mind, and truth versus lies. Life is full of contradictions."

Jeanette agreed and said, "there are many shades of grey in trying to understand life." Lester asked the questions, "Is truth in and of its self, or is it because of something else?" Samuel answered with, "Truth is a concept." (Participants were unable to answer the question and continued to circle around the void by "defining" truth)

Stephanie continued the conversation with, "truth is a template based on a set of rules." We all have our own set of rules. We live with rules according to societal norms, our culture, work or by ethical standards.

Lester asked Stephanie if she thought rules were absolute truth? She said, "yes and no," but, did not elaborate further.

Aziza said, "Truth comes from consciousness. Truth comes from the void of possibilities within our minds." Wayne felt it would make him "nervous" if he were to know those unknown possibilities.

Prashant asked, "Are rules really truth?" He believes that absolute truths are scientific in nature. Like the constant of the sun shining. He then gave the example of Newton and the law of gravity. With the advancement of science and the capabilities to measure more accurately, Einstein's work disputed the "absolute truth" of "the law of gravity." Also, "Galileo's discovery of planet motion and revolution around the sun through the telescope could be thought of as an absolute truth."

Absolute truths are based on facts, not just through general consensus of a group. Consensus is usually formed by personal opinions and not based on facts.

Ted brought up the point that "truth can manifest in others ways other than by scientific facts." "What about the sense of movement, colors and sound?" "What about the sixth sense and other dimensions?"

Samuel then asked, "Why has it been difficult for people to define truth? Why the deep confusion? Why is it difficult to define truth in one's own life?"

Wayne said, "Because we are superficial and stop at the surface of the skin." Prashant feels "life is very subjective and it is hard to define the truth depending upon which system one has learned to live by."

Ted thinks that "details disappear into the mystery." Samuel said, "you are the mystery." Humans are not awake. They are lazy and use only a small percentage of their brains. "We are masters of escaping the truth within ourselves."

Prashant added, "we learn to contradict our existence. We agree to disagree and disagree to agree. We find the most security in being true to either ourselves, family, or a group."

Samuel expressed his truth in saying that for "30 years he has been the most talented liar in the universe because he is not a human being, he is a human becoming." "I am." Others let religion define their truth - Buddhism, Judaism, Catholicism, this ism, that ism, etc.

He then asked the group, "Do you know who in you talks? Why do you talk? Who is thinking? Why do you do what you do?"

Prashant responded with "real truth comes from ethical acting. It depends upon how one acts." Aziza "desires to find meaning that will concretize the truth." She would like to know from, "where does truth come?" "Why am I alive?"

Samuel responded with this quote -

"My existence is through you, and your appearance is through me. But if I would not have appeared, you would not have been." Ibn-El-Arabi

And Shakespeare said, "To thine own self be true."

The next question was, "Is life a lie or is there truth? Wayne answered with, "It is both." Stephanie feels "we are trying to live the truth." Jeannette thinks, "life is full of contradictions." "It is also a paradox, a mystery. Truth can also be elusive."

Samuel then asked the group to summarize "what they had learned from the discussion."

Wayne didn't feel that it was useful, but important. Stephanie felt as though she wasn't "getting anywhere" but stated, "to thy own self be true." Duane was "thoughtfully entertained." Aziza still "doesn't know what the word truth means," but believes she needs to "follow her own inner knowing and trust herself."

Jeannette believes "trust comes from within." She felt that there was "no real truth tonight." Ted found the meeting "entertaining," and "found it interesting how the group was having difficulty in defining truth."

Suzy's imagination formed an image of "water in all of its transformational glory." This image "represented truth to her" and with "what was taking place tonight within the group." Reinhardt thinks "truth is hard to find because truth is not a concept." Miriam was amazed at "how little she knew about truth."

Lester found that the "connection with the people in the group drew out an essence of truth, but not absolute truth." Prashant said "we worked towards defining the meaning of truth only. In India, the word for truth is, "satya." "Gandhi always insisted on absolute truth."

Vineeta was "very relaxed and sleepy." She had a hard time "conceptualizing and figuring things out tonight."

Participants ended the discussion, still pondering, "What is absolute truth?"

What do you think? How would you define absolute truth?

Our next meeting for Cafe-Salon Philosophique will be at the Troubadour Bookstore, 1638 Pearl St., Saturday, December 19, 1998 at 6:30 p.m. Come with a topic to discuss! Invite your friends!

Reported by Alessandra

"Samuel brings awareness to the soul of people and gives the artists who work under his direction the need, dedication, and love for the world of silence and the beautiful art of movement."

 

- Marcel Marceau, BIP 1961

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LCDS is an independent school for self-discovery through the human Arts.  The school offers seminars and workshops teaching the concepts of Theater, Mime, and Movement.