To listen to today’s BE: True video, please click BE TRUE VIDEO.
When I was a little girl, the idea of Truth was so comforting to me. It was logical. If something was true, I could relax. No need to try to be right or argue for my point. Truth was truth. And that was that. What a relief to a kid trying to “become someone” in a world that didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.
Growing up watching news reports of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, reading about pollution and how people hurt animals and other people, sometimes I struggled to understand how to find peace with it all, let alone understand where I fit in.
But when I remembered that there was something Greater than everything that seemed to be going on on the television and in the newspapers, it was as if my whole being breathed a giant sigh of relief. When I remembered the Truth that Love was Everything, then everything felt okay again.
I was born into an incredibly loving family. But I was also born into a family of workaholics. So these loving people were often away from home — for weeks or months at a time. I knew they loved me, but sometimes they left me with people who scared me a little. . .caregivers that didn’t seem so caring. Sometimes I got scared — particularly if I woke up in the middle of the night. I didn’t have parents whose bed I could go climb into, because they often weren’t in that bed.
That’s where this idea of Truth helped me so much. If I could remember that however Love did or didn’t seem to be manifesting in my life right at that moment, then everything felt better. Truth was the Truth — and it would always be the Truth. The Truth was that Love was always there, even if I couldn’t see it in the ways that I wanted at that moment. When I remembered that, then that Truth connected me to the Love I needed to feel. And that Love always healed whatever seemed to ail me.
I’ve been turning to that Truth more and more these days.
In our world, there seems to be a lot of divides. Between “us” and “them” — whoever we or they are. Between science and religion, science and politics, politics and religion, this part of the world and that, between left and right, between skin colors and classes. And right now, all those divisions that we have sadly come to accept as "the way things seem to be right now” are making this global crisis even harder to navigate. I would go so far as to say perhaps this attitude is part of why we’re in this global crisis in this particular way.
That’s why my childhood idea of Truth continues to comfort me. Above all these seeming divisions, above the fear so many are feeling, above all the I don’t knows — the Truth that Love is All-in-all is still there. Just like it was when I scared in the middle of the night as a little girl.
Well, you might be saying, that’s all well and good, but how does that really help us now?
Richard Rohr says: If something is spiritually true, it will also be true in the physical world, and all disciplines and all religions will somehow be looking at this “one truth” from different angles, goals, assumptions, and vocabulary. If we are really convinced that we have the Big Truth, then we should also be able to trust that others will see it from their different angles—or it is not the Big Truth.
Big Truth is written in reality itself before it was ever written in books. If you say yes to Reality, to “what is,” you will recognize the same truth when it shows itself in anyone’s sacred scriptures. If you do not respond to the “good, the true, and the beautiful” (the three qualities of being) in daily reality, I doubt if you will ever see it in the best Bible translation in the world. If it is the truth, it is true all the time and everywhere, and sincere lovers of truth will take it from wherever it comes. If it is true, it is common domain, and “there for the mind to see in the things that God has made”. Or,“If it’s true, it is always from the one Holy Spirit.”
The important question is not, “Who said it?” but, “Is it true?”
When we are being bombarded with all kinds of opinions, many of which cause us to feel fearful or confused, we need to stop looking at the source and instead lean into the Truth that lives in each of us and learn how to listen to that! It’s a skill so many of us have forgotten. And not through any fault of our own. We were taught that our parents were right, our teachers were right, our politicians and preachers and bosses were right. And even when we knew they weren’t entirely right — or perhaps were entirely wrong — we were told to believe them. We were told to stop listening to our True Selves — and sooner or later we did. We have forgotten how to hear the Truth that sets us free.
In every spiritual tradition, every great teacher has spoken about Truth. Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths. Jesus said that if we know the Truth, the Truth will set us free. Rumi said, “That which is false troubles the heart, but that which is true brings joyous tranquility.” Confucius urged us to make faithfulfulness and truth our masters. And there’s a wonderful African proverb that says, “A lie has many variations, the Truth none.” And that’s just the tiniest smattering of what the world has said over thousands of years about the Power of the Truth.
This is why the practice of being true is such a lifeline right now. Just like a compass, each of us has our True North. That True North in each of us is always love Love. Our internal needle will always realign itself to Love when we choose Love. But to choose Love over fear right now requires us to remember how to be true, hear true, listen true and live true.
We have all learned so many habits of thinking that justify having us believe that there is an “I” that is different and separate from “them”. That there are fears that are justified — making our fear-based reactions justified too. But none of that is serving us or our world right now. And none of that helps us when we wake up in the middle of the night not knowing what to feel or who to believe or whether we can trust anyone or anything we hear or feel or think or believe.
This is where having a simple heart-centered practice comes in to save the day.
When you’re rocked by fear, please please give Byron Katie’s “The Work” a try.
It consists of four questions — and working your way through them REALLY helps. If you want to see how it can radically transformed a life, check out her extraordinary story.
When fear tries to get your ear, ask yourself:
Question 1: Is it true?
Question 2: Can you absolutely know it's true?
Question 3: How do you react—what happens—when you believe that thought?
Question 4: Who would you be without the thought?
And then turn that thought around.
You have then invoked the power of Truth — and that Truth is powered by Love.
When we remember our True Selves and are willing to slough off more and more of our learned false selves, we’ll all find that we recalibrate to the True North of Love more and more. When each of us do this, the world starts to look and feel and act differently. We all recognize that our individual separate opinions are not the point. The Truth that Love is All is the point. The Truth that has always been the Truth. And we will all feel what I felt as a kid—a huge sigh of relief.
Today, when you feel fear or doubt or anxiety or stress or discomfort of any kind, try practicing being true by asking yourself Katie’s Four Questions about whatever you seem to be thinking.
And then remember that what is true has always been true. What is true will always reflect itself out into our world. We are the movie projectors that create our external reality. And when we are true, the world reflects what is true back to us. And what is true is, was, and always will be LOVE.