Truth or Consequences was the name of a popular game show many years ago. I don’t remember the exact details of the game nor even who hosted it. But I do remember that there were certain consequences for giving false or wrong answers to the questions.
Although most of these original game shows are unheard of today, the irony of this particular one remains the same. There remain various degrees of gravity to the consequences of being untruthful – that has become a highly rewarded form of “art” in today’s society.
It starts out so innocently with fairy tales to the children and the entrance of “Old St. Nick” or Santa Claus, along with the birth of the Christ Child at Christmas. With the consequential over-commercialization of that particular lengthy midwinter holiday season, few can be found of any religion (or of no religion) who do no capitalize on the Santa concept of Christmas while the original Birth of the Christ Child story continues to pale in significance, even among Christian households. The consequences, children are too soon left with attempting to separate fact from fiction with little help from observing the actions of the adults about them. Such confused beginnings may play a significant role in the refusal or inability of adults in general to accept truth or face reality.
The incident remains ever vivid in my mind when the family was returning home from a visit with other relatives and I made the comment about a particular individual that never could face reality. It was my youngest son, Stan, who hit me with the question, “Who can?” after many years I am still wrestling with that one. Is reality always that obvious and when it is, are we at times only able to cope with it in varying degrees?
In the world of humanity there are three degrees, we read in the Baha’i Holy Writings, those of the physical body, the mental and the spiritual. “The intelligence of man is the intermediary between the body and the spirit… The reality of man is his thought, not his material body. Although man is part of the animal creation, he possesses a power of though superior to all other created beings. If a man’s thought is constantly aspiring toward heavenly subjects only then does he become saintly. If on the other hand his thought does not soar but is directed downwards to center itself upon the things of this world, he grows more and more material until he arrives at a state little better than that of a mere animal (nay, lower than that of the animal that cannot help being an animal.).”
Truth also is of two kinds, absolute and variable, neither of which, like change, is readily accepted. Some change comes gradually while others more abruptly making them much harder to accept. With the very word change, however, automatically springs opposition, regardless of process or intent, primarily due to past experience with deception and the historic absence of truth. Centuries of deceit among men and nations continue to destroy the peace, unity and very foundation of human existence on this planet on every level.
“Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of the world of humanity,” we read in the Bahai’ Holy Writings. “Without truthfulness, progress and success in all of the worlds of God are impossible for a soul. When this holy attribute is established in man, all the divine qualities will also become realized.”
Investigate!
