Virtue of Truthfulness – Psychological truths
Virtue of truthfulness – described by thoughts and strings
Content:
- Music from Virtues album: Purity
- Psychological truths
- Invisible realities
- Virtuous life as meditation
- Music from Virtues album: Truthfulness
Music from Virtues album: Purity
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This writing is a translation from Finnish lecture kept on Jyväskylä in November 2009. It tells about the path of the truth seeker and the virtue of truthfulness. When looking back, the road to the west where I’m living at the moment has clearly been through eastern religions. Theosophy has opened my understanding of differences and similarities between religions and worldviews. Rosicrucianism in turn, has deepened understanding of Western mysticism. Ultimately I believe it has shown a very important place of the cornerstone of the intellectual endeavor, namely the importance of virtuous life.
In the first part of the writing I will reveal some of my experiences with meditation and so called psychological truths. Second part is about invisible realities told in religions. Third part is dedicated to the virtues with complementary theoretical definitions and quotes. In conclusion, I try to bind together what I have opened so far.
Virtue of truthfulness – Psychological truths
The truth is hard to define, but life itself has brought some meanings to the word little by little. My seeking started when I was about 13 years old through the practice of martial arts, which I had been engaged in for several year prior. Through it I became captivated with the spiritual, even religious exploration. In the beginning I did not know the term of truth seeking, of course, but rather I swallowed oriental mysticism for its own sake. The natural childlike interest and curiosity was great and brought me with the reality behind.
At some point, however, it became clear that I was searching for something both in physical and mental or spiritual state. Physically, I wanted to achieve the body’s management and sustainability. Spiritually, I wanted to find the right kind of mental concentration and state where the physical being and doing should be light, harmonic and complete. It was somewhat obvious that if physical exercises could lead to a flexible and strong body, mental exercises and mental training were the ones that crowned the skills, making martial arts not only art, but also something that helped to exceed human limits. Interest in supernatural forces woke up at that stage, after all, some martial arts masters appeared in their performance to be almost superhuman (as an example I might mention Iron Shirt Chi Kung techniques). Some of the schools clearly taught that championship is achieved through internal power management. Physical exercises alone would never be able to reach the same level as Chi -force management.
The path transformed from a hobby to mind control and spiritual exercises, and of course to the literature, which discussed the underlying issues, oriental religions and beliefs. Soon, the information on these fundamental issues began to puzzle me and took more room in my life. The importance of the search for truth began emerging and meditation practices began to feel more important. Meditation is, at least at the beginning, a pursuit for something that has not yet been experienced, or at least has not been recalled. We talk about the pursuit of enlightenment or realization. We say that we are already gods, we are already Buddhas, and complete. We just need to remember and return it to ourselves, sweep away the curtains of forgetfulness. On early exploration we strive for the unknown. At best, we have only heard or read the descriptions of enlightenment. Therefore we can say truth contains an unknown element. The difficulty of the search for truth comes from the paradox: How to look for something that you do not know already? Not in any way, except that tampering and experiencing all kind of things, by sensing what feels right and cultivating.
One of the highlights of desiring the unknown and undefined was a mind emptying exercise that I continued to struggle with during martial arts practices. Idea of the empty mind, or mushin is that only a vigilant and empty mind is able to sense the counterpart and the necessary signs. An empty mind makes it possible to turn a situation to its advantage. It must not have any fear or hope. The mind does not latch into the hands of the other party, not the legs, not shoulders, not in the eyes or any other external factors, or designing the attack and defense movements. The mind must glide smoothly and in a continuous motion. In a way, one might think that you let cosmic reality and purpose to manifest, not just through your own wills and plans.
The three fold meditation, namely, calculation of breathing, observation of breathing and being silent is the simplest and most common method of emptying the mind. But think of a new approach. You sit down, cross your legs, calm down, you will begin to calculate the in and out of your breath. How fast you will find yourself mixing the calculation, because thoughts just went their own separate ways? We are talking about a very real spiritual exercise, one in which the effects may be one of the main virtues of what a person can achieve in life. This means the ability to focus the mind and thoughts to a single destination for ten minutes, even hours.
Now, if you get to the point where you are able to calculate slowly your thoughts to ten and even to a second time in a row, you have achieved something. This is actually something quite a few people can do, or even think about in their life time. However, practice is only about to begin. How does it sound that the flight of the thoughts is wholly stopped, all thoughts emptied on the mind? Impossible? Scary? What if thoughts would no longer pop up? What if there is the dweller on the threshold waiting for you? Is it even of any use? The mind invents one hundred reasons drift away from this exercise, but on the other hand, there is interest to know whether it is possible. If it is indeed possible, the interest may be greater than the reasons to avoid it. I must say that I had at least curiosity to go further and it was profitable. The first time I realized that thoughts had stopped, the realization was like winning a lottery or jackpot. I would even dare to compare it with some kind of enlightenment experience. The moment was brief, daunt and strong. Empty mind experience has certainly expanded to new varieties and dimensions between twenty years. Psychologically, perhaps the most important aspect of the idea of an empty mind is that when the blank moment is reached, it opens up new tracks for the chain of association, which otherwise would go the same path day after day, year after year.
This is just one example of how aspiring to the unknown can reach to the goal if it is attempted enough. The paradox: How to miss something that you do not know is really a paradox only; it is nothing impossible or just reverie. In practice, I had books that transmitted information to me, that I did not know true in forehand but only learned its value through my own experience.
The truth may be the pursuit of such achievement. However you cannot realistically say anything with certainty, except when you have experienced it. Even then, as time goes by, your certainty decreases. Now we can see couple of definitions to the truth: unknown, emptiness, insight, experience, and joy. It is said that the truth frees us. Freedom raises pleasure, which I could describe by a cow, which has wallowed the whole winter in the barn and feels the delight and joy when it is released into free pasture from gate in the spring. Pleasure fills each of the cells and half years of being in one place no longer seem cumbersome. The whole body and mind are full of joy, elation and limber.
The empty space is not actually a void but contains everything as opportunities of expressions. Those opportunities will always try to emerge one way or another, usually through thoughts. The activity is a natural presence, emptiness is a natural root. After this experience comprehended by my own reasoning, I do not see any danger and fear, on the contrary, it has very much to offer. In fact, I do not believe that man can live a very happy and harmonic life without encountering this unpredictable, perhaps the scary side of the truth. Buddhists have named this element of emptiness by the word sunyata.
The other side of the truth is perhaps more theoretical, but you have to remember that what is theory and feels theoretical for one person; another may take it as very practical and concrete. Eastern philosophies includes practical basic psychological truths from happiness to basic nature of life, that can be found in life by observing, studying and living, but it also includes more difficult to verify religious premises and axioms.
(to be continued – Invisible realities)
- Virtue of Truthfulness – Invisible realities
- Virtue of Truthfulness – Virtuous life as meditation
- Nature has placed nothing so high that virtue can not reach it
- The door to virtue… Heavy and hard to push
- The only path to a tranquil life is through virtue
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
