PHILALETHIA, LOVE OF TRUTH
What’s true is not false. In the absence of truth the false has power. What is the origin of falsity? What is the origin of truth? In the case of the false, its origin is none other than the mind. The false does not really exist; it’s just that the mind superimposes the false on what is real reality. The true truth is reality itself, actuality, thusness; whatever is just is, without the superimposed descriptions made about it by the fragmented mind.
The love of truth, or philalethia, is an acquired love. It happens when a person becomes capable of determining what is false. When truth dominates someone’s idealistic pursuits, a lot of enquiry into the real has already been done. The result is cumulative; the more enquiry, the more the false loses its power to deceive. Finally it is known that the false does not exist and never has existed.
Someone might say, “The dam has broken; run for your lives.” If the dam has broken, that’s the truth; if it has not, the idea is false. The falsehood is just a statement that engenders an idea. The statement is a statement; it is a real statement, but its content is a falsehood. The idea the falsehood produces is a real idea, but its content is a falsehood. Falsehoods exist only as notions, ideas, and imaginations, but they have no true or real basis of support.
A lie is a falsehood, yet it can truly exist. Lies exist, but there is no support for their real existence, so we can say that lies and falsity exist only as an imaginative absence of the real and true. Once the truth is known, the false cannot stand and it becomes absent. This absence can be known too, although there is nothing there to be known except the absence. Someone who has understood in this way is set free from the influential powers of the false. This absence of the binding power of the false has been described in traditional literature about such subjects as moksha (liberation) or bodhi (awakening). The most toxic falsity that becomes known to an enquirer is that of the ego-notion. It is conquered only by the philalethian, the lover of truth.
©2014 