Holte's corner

Why are lies so dangerous?

My thoughts for today are on the subject of lies and lying. And why the tendancy to lie in print, in the media, to others and to ourselves is so dangerous. To me lies are even more dangerous to ourselves and to others than violence. Because violence generates it's own punishment. But lies can poison entire fields of relations. And most importantly, the lies we tell ourselves hold us back from becoming the wonderful beings we can be, or even make us ugly beings toiling in stables.

The Jewish new year just passed and the most important holiday of Yom Kippur. I like this new year, because a day of atonement is a good thing. We need "teshuvah" or "apology." We need to own up to our own foibles, mistakes, errors, and most importantly our own lies and self-deceptions. Owning up to lies is a necessary part of correcting our lives and correcting our perception of reality. It is a part of reaching enlightenment. If you look carefully at what is being taught, ending self-deception is the ultimate goal of people East and West.

To reach enlightenment is part of repairing our world and making our own part in it a better place to "be". But to do so we have to atone for and redeem those things that are bent, torn, and acknowledge how we helped bend and tear them. That is atonement. We have to "ransom" our lives back from the blind causes we've made individually and collectively. Because we have to pay a toll in "Karma" or consequences for each thing that we do unless somehow it is "forgiven" or set aside by the world around us and the beings in it.

However, this is not just a matter of confessing sins or bad causes. That is but the first step. It is a matter of straitening out our lives. The reason that the buddha taught "dharma" and Jews teach Halakha[Law], is that good intentions are important, but until we have better habits they are not enough. Laws are aimed at reforming our habits, getting us in the habit of thinking "straiter", acting less perverse, doing the things our noble principles profess.

Simple laws like chanting the daimoku, and general principles, are for waking up our minds, but unless we act out those laws and principles; discipline ourselves, this is just a beginning that can prove insufficient to make our world a better place and our own lives happier.

Following rules and discipline is important. But it too is just a first step. We then have to struggle with and awaken to the reasons for those rules and disciplines. Sometimes that involves breaking them and seeing the consequences. Once we learn the general principle behind a set of rules, we no longer have to live in fear of the rules. But rather of the kinds of causalities that necessitate them. Just as a child obeys his parents at first out of fear of a spanking, and only later because he/she appreciates the value of not crossing the street outside the cross walk.

Atonement and reflection therefore are "First steps." There is a story of a man who awakened to his failures, and had to toil in his own fathers stables until his father was able to raise him to appreciate that he was his son and deserved to entire the entire estate. We are like that son sometimes. Sometimes we are atoning for the fact that we are not fully aware that we don't have to atone for what we haven't, or won't ever do again. Salvation isn't a one time thing, but an ongoing process of reforming and redeeming our lives from the things that bind us, enslave us, or make us miserable. We cannot succeed in fully removing the "shackles of our arms" unless we remove the shackles on our brains.

When Christians are "saved" more power to them. Finding a teacher and accepting that salvation is there for the taking, is but a first step. After one awakens to the monstrous insufficiency of an unenlightened life, one needs to start mastering the meaning of causality. Life is creative, and we participate in that creation. People who see God/Buddha as a higher power speak of the "book of life" as being written right now. Right now is creation. If there is an ineffable and great God, then he is creating this moment and all moments before them. Thus this moment is, at least potentially, an act of creation. If we are conscious we are part of that creation. It is up to us to take the next step and actively write in that book. To write better stories as we become more aware of our role in life.

Thus being "born again" is but a first step. Christians should not hold there in an endless repetition of that event but try to grasp it's deeper significance. They have to move on and start to act out the spirit and purpose of their teacher. They need to actively work to save the world and bring about the "redemption" or repurchase of all the things that have been mispent and put into hock to bad causes and bad thoughts. Rosh Hashana, the day of redemption, is the time for that moment for reflection of Jews. Moslems do this in their month of Ramadan. Buddhists do this in their meditations. Higher consciousness is important not as an end, but as a first step.

Higher consciousness is but a first step. Once you awaken you have to take action.

And the enemy of higher consciousness is lies. False beliefs. Anti-salvation. Kings who are selfish and don't save anyone, not even themselves. Belief in lies is "unbelief." Unbelief is the source of evil. That is the meaning of "anti-Christ" of "false-profits." The Kaffirs in this world, the "unbelievers" are often those people who claim to be most certain that they have all the answers. Indeed I'd say that before a Moslem should ever touch one hair of a Christian, Jew or Buddhist -- or vice versa -- one should first look long and hard in the mirror at ones own beliefs. Are they really the seal of the divine, or a stamp of oppression? I speak from bitter realization.

The divine, the enlightenment, is inherent in all of us. Truth speaks to all of us. But truth is often painful. It seems to be "from the devil" because it sometimes makes us miserable. Change is painful. Acknowledging error is painful. Taking the step of remedying situations is even more painful. People become stuck in the stage of apology. Apologizing endlessly for the wrong things. People become stuck in the stage of repentance. Repenting endlessly for the wrong things. AA people get stuck longing for alcohol and returning to meeting day after day. If we get stuck, we lie to ourselves.

We have to move on. And that means eschewing all forms of lies. And recognizing that fiction is a big part of our lives, and that therefore lies are probably inexcapable, and thus we have to remember to tell the difference between figurative and literal. As we awaken, our inward lives as "knights" or "golden ones" and our outward appearance as beings with feet of clay, becomes more important to us inwardly, and less important to be displayed outwardly. We have to learn to distinguish Fact and fiction, the message from it's vehicles, the truth in prophesy or ravings, from the vehicles. Our dreams and the means we use to make them come true are themselves acts of faith and divine things. Valuation is an act of volition. Faith an act of realization that reality is what we make it, not belief in unreal things. Belief in unreal things is unbelief. WE become aware enough when we recognize the value of a story lies not in whether it actually happened but in the model it provides for us to take action with. We come to see stories differently. A child believes in Santa Claus. An adult believes in the principle behind Santa Claus. Knowing that something is clay, doesn't make it any less valuable to turn it into a porcelan work of art. Life is our clay, if we are to be "Buddha's" or "Bodhisattvas," "Awakened ones", "apostles," we have to treat our lives as clay and fashion something noble and beautiful out of them. That is a struggle. It is a struggle with the notion that they are "only" clay. If we do so then we can make fine pottery, beautiful images, and worship the divine that gave us the ability to do this.

Posted by cholte at September 27, 2004 07:50 PM