Is there such a thing as Truth apart from personal opinion?
Is it that we are all so terribly personal? What I see, what you see, is the only truth? My opinion and your opinion are the only facts we have? That is what the question implies, that everything is relative. So goodness is relative, evil is relative, love is relative. And as everything is relative -that is, not whole, complete truth- then our action, our affection in personal relationship is relative, and can be ended whenever we like, whenever it doesn't please us, and so on. That is the implication of this question.
Now is there such a thing as truth, apart from personal opinion, personal belief, personal perception? This question has been asked by the ancient Greeks and Hindus, and by the Buddhists. And it is one of the strange facts about Eastern religions that doubt was encouraged. To doubt, to question. And in Western religions, this is rather put down. If you doubt, it is called heresy. So apart from personal opinions, perceptions, experiences, which are always relative, one must find out for oneself whether there is a perception, a seeing, which is absolute and not relative truth.
Now how are you going to find out? If we say that personal opinion, personal perception, is relative, and there is no such thing as absolute truth, then truth is relative. And our behavior, our conduct, our way of life will accordingly be relative, casual, not complete, not whole, and therefore fragmentary. And we are trying to find out if there is such a thing as truth that is not just personal opinion, personal perception.
If this question is put to you, how would you find out if there is truth that is absolute, complete, which is not just relative and always changing with the climate of personal opinion? How does your mind, the intellect, or thought find out? Does this interest you? Because here you are inquiring into something that demands putting aside that which is false. That is the only way to proceed. For if we have an illusion, a fantasy, an image, a romantic concept of truth, or of love or whatever, those are the very barriers that prevent us from moving further.
Can one honestly investigate an illusion? Does the mind live in illusion? Or do we have illusions about everything, about people, about nations, about religion, about God? How do illusions come into being? How does one have an illusion, what is the root of it? What do we mean by the word illusion? It comes from the Latin, ludere, which means "to play". So the root meaning is to play, to play with something that is not actual. The actual is what is happening, what is actually taking place, whether it is called good, bad, or indifferent. And when one is incapable of facing what is actually taking place in oneself, then to escape from that is to create illusion.
So if one is unwilling or afraid to face, or wants to avoid, what is actually going on, that very avoidance creates an illusion, a fantasy, a romantic movement away from what is. Can we accept that as the meaning of the word illusion, moving away from "what is", and go on from there?
The next question is: can we avoid this movement, this escape from actuality? So then we ask, what is the actual? The actual is that which is happening, the actual responses, ideas, the actual belief, the actual opinion you have. And to face that is not to create illusion. Have we gone this far in our investigation? Because otherwise you can't go further.
So as long as there are illusions, opinions, perceptions, based on the avoidance of "what is", these must be relative -There must be relativeness. This is bound to be so when there is a movement away from the fact, from what is happening, from "what is". In understanding "what is", it is not your personal opinion, not your personal perception that judges "what is", but actual observation of "what is". One cannot observe what is actually going on if you say my belief dictates the observation, my conditioning dictates the observation. Then it is avoidance of the understanding of "what is".
I wonder if we've got it. Are we doing this? Actually doing it-seeing, perceiving what is actual, your actual belief, your actual sense of dependency, your actual competitiveness, and not moving away from but observing it? That observation is not personal. But if you say "I must", or "I must not", or "I must better myself", then it becomes personal and therefore relative. Whereas if we can look at what is actually taking place, there is then complete avoidance of any form of illusion.
Can we do this? You may agree verbally, but can we actually perceive our dependency, whether on a person, a belief, and ideal, or on some experience that has given us a great deal of excitement? That dependence will inevitably create illusion. So can we observe the fact that we are dependent?
So in the same way we are going to find out if there is such a thing as absolute truth -if you are interested in this, because this has been asked not only be the present questioner, but by monks who have given there life to this, by philosophers, by every religious person who is not institutionalized, but is deeply concerned with life, with reality and truth. So if one is really concerned about what truth is, one has to go into it very, very deeply.
First of all, one has to understand what reality is. What is reality? That which you perceive, that which you touch, that which you taste, when you have pain, and so on. So reality is sensation and the reaction to that sensation, the response to the sensation as an idea, and that idea is created by thought. So thought has created reality - the marvelous architecture, the great cathedrals of the world, the temples, the mosques, and the idols that are put in them, the images, all are created by thought. And we say, that is reality, because you can touch it, you can taste it, you can smell it.
So we are saying that all the things that thought has created -the knowledge, the acquisition of knowledge through science, through mathematics, and so on- are reality. But nature is not created by thought. That tree, the mountains, the rivers, the waters, the deer, the snake, is not created by thought; it is there. But out of the tree we make a chair; that's created by thought. So thought has created the actual world in which we live, but nature, including the environment, is obviously not created by thought. Then we ask, is truth reality? One perceives that thought has created the world in which we live, but thought has not created the universe. Thought can inquire into the universe. The cosmologists, the astrophysicists, pursue their inquiry through thought, and they will come to certain conclusions, certain hypotheses, and try to prove those hypotheses, always through thought. So thought is relative, and therefore, whatever it creates, in whatever directions it moves, it must be relative, it must be limited.
So the mind is no longer in illusion, that is the first thing. It has to hypotheses, no hallucinations, no delusions, it doesn't want to grasp something, or create an experience that it calls truth -which most people do. So the mind has now brought order into itself. It has order, there is no confusion due to illusions, delusions, hallucinations, experiences. So the mind, the brain, has lost its capacity to create illusions. Right? Then what is truth? That is, what is the relationship between reality -in the sense that we have explained- and that which is not created by thought? Is there something that is not the product of thought? Can we go on with this?
That is, are our minds now, sitting here under these trees, on a rather cool day, are our minds free from every form of illusion? Otherwise you cannot possibly find out the other. Which means -is your mind completely free of any confusion? So that it is absolute order. Because how can a confused, disorderly mind, a mind that is in turmoil, ever find what truth is? It can invent. It can say, there is truth, or there is no truth. But only a mind that has a sense of absolute order, a mind that is completely free from every form of illusion, can proceed to find out.
There is something rather interesting here, if you are interested in it. The astrophysicists, the scientists, are using thought to find out, going outward. They are investigating the world around them, matter, always moving outward. But if you start inward, the "me" is also matter -thought is matter- so if you can go inward, then you are moving from fact to fact. Therefore, you begin to discover that which is beyond matter. That's up to you.
This is a very serious affair; it is not just something for an hour one morning. One has to give one's life to this, not move away from life. Life is my struggles, anxiety, fears, boredom, loneliness, sorrow, my misfortunes, and all the regrets -all that is my life. I must understand that and go through that, not move away from it. Then, if you have gone through it, there is such a thing as absolute truth.