Nobody can agree about God, truth, religion, politics, and so many other things.  Religious and political fundamentalists think this is awful, for they believe that there is only one version truth and that the correct version, the true truth as Francis Schaeffer called it, is their view.  Hence, religious and political fundamentalists are on a relentless crusade to convert people to their point of view. 

Fundamentalists deem many types of human expression "ungodly" because they are compelled to do so by their scriptures. Such people believe they are right and everyone else is wrong. Not that they don’t have some good precepts -- for example who would disagree that it is intrinsically wrong to shed innocent blood? It’s just that religionists go way beyond the large scale rules we all agree upon and seek to impose rules onto particulars such as clothing, music, art, cosmetics, food and drink, what one should and should not read, and with whom one may or may not sleep.

Excluding that which is explicitly criminal, the thinking person is correct to interpret the wide range of human behaviors in terms of diversity rather than morality. Indeed, the only way life can be adequately defined or truly understood is in terms of diversity. Personality, food, politics, art, religion, fashion, sports, and the rest of normal human life is, simply put, diverse. Diversity and disagreement can be excellent teachers, for they force us to consider and respect the opinions of others, rethink our views, and tolerate people who are different from us.

When we go looking for God or truth, then, life itself should teach us that they can’t be found in any one-dimensional absolute. Instead, as we will come to discover, our disagreements about God, truth, politics, and everything else reveal the stunning paradox of existence: God and truth reside in diversity and disagreement!

Such recognition would logically force us to cooperate, negotiate, and at least tolerate each other or die fighting. The ancient wisdom states that truth is a two-edged sword. And so it is in this book that we shall both kill the zealot and come to embrace each other. How can we do this?

To discover the answer to this enigma, you must travel with me to the place that is both the graveyard of God and the birthplace of the universe. The place I am speaking of is the seam between dimensions, for it is where Infinity ends and the universe begins. This point is the intersection of two distinct realms wherein a person can utterly reshape everything they know about God, truth, the universe, and self in a single moment. The place is The Disunification.

Why do people search for truth? While there are many reasons, there are two primary motivators. The first is that the heart's thirst for God is tremendous. Yet no one can agree on the question, "Who is God?" No one's view of God is exactly alike, nor is everyone's expectation of God the same. We all see God differently and we all have varied expectations of what can, and should, give us. Despite these differences, however, our divergent views of God and our varied expectations of God have a few things in common.

The search for God is really is the search for love and life eternal. The second, and perhaps more potent, motive in the search for truth are the physical and emotional needs of life. People believe that truth, if found, will meet their needs. This idea that "truth found = needs met" is accepted as gospel.

If I am poor and need the basics of life -- food, shelter, and medicine -- then I will seek a God who can act to provide my needs. If I am clothed and fed then God will be one that can prosper me beyond the basics. If I am fearful of death, then I will seek that God who can give me immortality in heaven. If an enemy has stolen my country then the God I seek will be an avenging deliverer who sanctions the killing of my enemy. If I am an atheist, then the truth I search for will confirm my unbelief and endorse those ethics I require to survive in this world.

Understood from the point of view of need, our search for God, or truth, is dictated by our physical, emotional, and situational needs. God, or truth, becomes that which we use to justify, console, or avenge ourselves. In terms of a mythic structure, we use our particular view of God and truth as the authority and source of our personal myth, or life script. The search to fulfill our needs, whatever they may be, thus becomes our mythic destiny.

We use God, or truth, to legitimatize our needs and motives. Within our personal mythic structure God, or truth, is transformed from a mere idea into a focal point for hope: We will find that for which we are searching, and in doing so our view of God, and even we ourselves, will be finally vindicated in a triumph of faith.

You can see why a person's faith in God assumes monumental importance when their needs and destiny are at stake. But faith, which should more properly be called hope, is no more than simple need-anxiety in religious clothing. We anxiously hope to have our needs met, and if we believe that our needs depend upon a certain view of God and truth, then we will live and act as if that view of God or truth is absolute.

But this idea is not the way of truth, rather it is the deceit of Hope, and old soothsayer on the road to truth. Hope invariably turns our dreams to disappointment when our needs aren't met. Sadly, the error people make when their needs aren't met is to falsely conclude that truth doesn't exist.

Hope is a siren on the road to truth, for she holds out the lie that truth is easy, accommodating, and generous. But life is neither easy, accommodating, nor generous, so why would truth be? Hope serves only to discourage truth-seekers by giving them false ideas. The lesson here is to let go of your hopes when you undertake your search. Let truth itself, rather than your hopes, speak to you about life.

Thus, as we begin our search for truth, it is vital that we distinguish our hopes and needs from truth. The idea that truth will fulfill our hopes and needs is dangerous for it skews our thinking. We begin to develop expectations, such as the thought, "I've been diligent and well-behaved in my search for truth, when will I my hopes be realized? When will my needs be met?" We start to relate to truth as if it were a parent that will reward us for good behavior. But truth has other ideas, and those ideas don't always include meeting your hopes, needs, or parenting you.

You must see that your hopes and needs are quite different from truth. Granted, your hopes and needs are very important, very demanding, and require your attention and effort, but if you were honest, you would admit that they generally don't involve truth.

Indeed, if you look on those less fortunate than yourself, you will see that people's hopes and needs go unmet on a massive scale: Disease, violence, poverty, and hunger form the suffering that millions experience on a daily basis while truth remains silent to their crying need. So when I speak of truth I'm obviously not talking about a benevolent God in heaven who faithfully acts to fulfill human hopes and needs. For the reality is that we have a potent, frightening, and extremely unfair world going on here. And truth is in our midst, existing in a form that somehow includes human suffering and unfulfilled need.

Therefore, since truth doesn't generally act to meet our hopes and needs, it is apparent that one of the aspects of truth is that humans must rely upon themselves, individually and collectively, to meet their own needs. To wait for truth to magically drop manna from heaven is to starve; to have money and not help the needy is to see yourself as separate from the rest of the humanity; to expect God to meet your every need because you're deserving and well-behaved is to engage in a religious version of wishful thinking.

We are responsible for our own needs. This is the burden of life; this is truth. Therefore, strive to take care of your own needs in the best way you can, and expect nothing of truth. Strive to take care of your family, and, if you are able, help others in the small ways that you can afford. But don't expect truth to meet your needs.

"Then why should I even bother to seek truth is there's no reward?" A good question, and one that serves to separate those who would seek truth for its own sake, and those who cannot see truth apart from their needs. To be sure, truth has its rewards, but they don't go to those who are looking for a payoff. What then, is the virtue of truth? A hard question given the suffering of the world, but one that can be answered -- though not in the way those who make needy demands upon truth would imagine.

Accepting the responsibility for one's own needs is the primary attitude of the truth-seeker. Still, truth will surprise you from time to time when you are self-reliant. In any event, truth has placed you in the midst of a world in which you are wholly responsible for working out the solutions to your physical, emotional, and financial needs. Enjoy your freedom with all of its hardships, for in the middle of your struggle lies one of the hidden keys to truth.

The next obstacle that we encounter on our journey to truth is a swamp that is ever covered by a thick fog. It is an especially dangerous place, for many travelers venture into the fog and quickly lose all sense of direction. The errant foot next wanders into the swamp and cannot find its way back onto solid ground. The traveler is soon doomed to forever thrash about in the murky gloom. Why is this foggy swamp so dangerous?

Because the fog is our past and the swamp is our emotional pain. When we first start to look for truth, our search is usually motivated by the need to be free of emotional pain.

And what is the perceived source of our inner pain? The modern answer is that our pain is rooted in the past. The contemporary idol of psychology preaches that our dysfunctional relational skills, negative self-image, destructive tendencies, and negative behavior patterns flow from our past.

The psychological approach states that we are victims of our past and that we must relive and analyze those childhood and adolescent traumas that created our pain: The abusive parents; the humiliating episodes that colored our self image; the denial; the drunken father; the smothering mother; the illnesses and all of the rest of the horrors that are locked like frozen mastodons in the glacier of our past must be revived and conquered if we are to find truth.

So we wander into the fog of our past thinking that we can find truth by exorcising the demons of our past. We begin to spend much time in the fog of the past, rummaging through its dim haze, certain that the uncovering and healing of our past hurts will enable us to see truth. But the danger of spending too much time in the past is that we begin lose our sense of the present reality.

The psychological model that emphasizes the analysis of our past is based on a belief that truth lies at the end of our pain -- much like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But the idea that the road to truth is paved by an analysis of one's past an idea which the facts simply do not support: Psychology has not cured the world, and even the leading psychologists must admit that healing the hurts of the past is not the same as giving truth.

Our feelings and our pain are definitely important to work through. But you know what? After you get through the pain of the past, you'll find that what you have is self-insight rather than transcendent truth, and self-insight and truth are two different things. While you need self-insight to help clear the path to truth, you have to understand that self-insight isn't the vehicle that will carry you to truth.

Moreover, if you examine your past and its pain too often in search of insight, two things can happen. First, the past and your endless self-analysis can become a religion unto themselves. You'll have endless insights with no real change in your behavior. Secondly, you may simply sink further into your pain as surely as if you were stepping into a swamp. Your pain will take you ever deeper, for it has no bottom. Pain simply becomes a self-perpetuating entity if you dwell on it.

The pain in your past isn't quantifiable. It's not as if there were a fixed amount of pain in you that can be expelled.

If you were abused, you have to get in touch with your pain and work through it. But I tell you that you will never fully exorcise your demons or make your abuser understand the hell they put you through. Beyond a healthy therapeutic limit, then, the exploration of your past emotional pain is useless. The best thing to do is to just walk away from your pain once you realize that you're going in circles. You'll never fully be free of your painful past for the simple reason that it exists in memory -- and you'll never be free of your memory. All you can hope to do is to dissipate the negative emotional intensity of your past.

Therefore, the first two bags that the traveler to truth must lay aside is the past, and pain of the past. How is this done? It is done by forgiveness, letting go, and the realization that your future must be more important than your past. After you've made a self-respecting and reasonable effort to deal with your pain, you must gather up your dignity, forgive, and leave the fog shrouded swamp to sink into distant memory.

An additional bag that the traveler must surrender is the idea that endless self-insight will lead to truth. Self-insight is important, but it has its limits. Can you see the back of your eyes? Can you bite your teeth? Just as the body has limits, your psyche has limits in understanding and analyzing itself. If you lit up the night sky with all of the lights in the world, you still couldn't walk to the moon on that light. In the same way, even if you understood yourself to the nth degree, you still couldn't reach truth based on that insight.

Emerging from the fog of the past, we find ourselves in a quiet hollow. This hollow is our inner emptiness. Contrary to what you may think, however, emptiness is a good state, for it indicates that you're heading towards truth. The value of emptiness is that it has no distractions in it. You can see truth more clearly when you're empty.

If emptiness feels bad to you, however, it means that you're confusing despair with emptiness. By definition, emptiness is just that -- empty. It has no content whatsoever. Emptiness is neither painful nor pleasurable, it is simply empty. If you were really empty, you would have no negative reaction to it.

Despair is often confused with emptiness, but the two are quite different animals. Quite often when a person's beliefs about truth are swept away by the tides of life, the individual can't easily consider the fact that perhaps their beliefs weren't the truth after all. Instead, the enter a state of despair and conclude that truth doesn't exist (damn, but we don't want to admit it when we're wrong!).

In the absence of one's belief structure, life feels empty and desolate. The mood of despair takes over. But there is basic confusion at this point, for the mood is actually one of loss and despair rather than of emptiness. The feeling of loss is very different from emptiness. The reason I emphasize the distinction between despair, loss, and emptiness is that emptiness is an important phase to understand in the search for truth.

When your beliefs fail you, you feel that life has no meaning. But what has happened is that you are upset because you assumed that your beliefs were true and should be fulfilled. Yet life has no responsibility to act upon your beliefs, nor can you make life accountable to your beliefs. It's not life that is cruel, it's that the beliefs you've carried are powerless. Because you're disillusioned, however, doesn't mean that you should conclude that life is meaningless. Instead you should let go of your beliefs and see what is actually out there in life, and that's what we want to do on this journey.

On a related note, loneliness is also confused with emptiness. But loneliness issues from emotional need rather than emptiness. The absence of companionship can make life seem meaningless and lonely, but those are emotional reactions and not emptiness. True emptiness will never feel lonely or meaningless. The best way I can describe the feeling of emptiness is to say that it feels like benign indifference. There's no motive or goal, no good or bad feelings, nor is there any urgent need. It's simply present attention that notices life and doesn't react. As you can imagine, such a state is rare.

Emptiness is a neutral zone, if you will, in which there is no activity. By analogy we could say that those things which occupy our lives are the city and emptiness is a deserted island. A deserted island has nothing on it, it is simply a place in which you can be temporarily free from the city for awhile. On a deserted island, the city is much easier to contemplate than when you're in its midst.

The danger in the face of emptiness is to become afraid of it and thus to fill it with something. Many people interpret emptiness as the absence of God in their lives. They become religious in an attempt to fill that void. But if you remember that emptiness has no content to it, then you'll see that your need for God arises from a different motive. Perhaps you need forgiveness, or you need acceptance and love, but whatever you're reacting to when you look for God to meet your need, just be clear that emptiness isn't the real problem.

Within religion, particularly Christianity, humanity is argued to have an inner emptiness that can only be filled by resort to God. Yet nature has plenty of voids that don't need filling. The sky, for instance, is an impressive void that we are quite happy with. Space is an immeasurable emptiness that allows the universe to expand and grow. Just as emptiness serves a useful purpose in nature, then, so too emptiness serves a valuable purpose in the psyche. So we must not be fooled when religion confuses despair, loneliness, unlove, or some other negative emotion with emptiness.

What need to distinguish our fears, our negative moods,and our needs from emptiness. If you do this, life will make more sense, for you will not have this long-running drama going on about how empty you are. It would be a good idea if you left the suitcase that holds your fear of emptiness here on the side of the road.

I want to take a short detour through Los Angeles. This place will help me explain why people are so nutty when it comes to truth. I live in Southern California. I was born here some time ago. In the last thirty years, both legal and illegal immigration into L.A. has exploded. People from all over the planet live here.

I know many immigrants, both foreign and domestic, who couldn't wait to get to Southern California. They desired to have a home by the beach, find financial opportunities, and create a new identity for themselves. No longer would they be an anonymous, suffering soul in the third world cities such as Seoul, Tehran, or Tulsa. Here they could be glamorous, rich, and famous.

But for most immigrants, just like most natives, it takes years and years to move up the financial ladder. Owning a home is almost impossible, and without specialized training or education good jobs are scarce. And what of glamour and sophistication? People usually have to settle for walking down Melrose Avenue in a pair of trendy sunglasses, saying such things as,"Two hundred dollars for a studded-leather bra? No way!"

The overriding reality that confronts the novice Angeleno is one of smog, congestion, gangs, drugs, overpriced real estate, job discrimination, and a local police force that can be every bit as violent as the third world militia they left behind. The difference between the mirage and the reality of Southern California is quickly apparent to any new-comer.

And so it is that many have considered truth to be that which will make their lives happy and powerful. People have imagined that if they found truth they would enter into the spiritual equivalent of Los Angeles. But behind the alluring mirages of truth offered by religion, philosophy, or other movements, there is the reality of politics, greed, and tyranny. The mirages of Southern California are every bit as elusive as those of truth. Yet people continue to pour into Los Angeles just as surely as they keep filling up church pews, meditation halls, retreat centers, and weekend seminars.

Why do they do it? We will find that people often seek truth for the same reason that they come to Los Angeles: Myths always sell better than reality. In the next section we will travel through the desert and look at five of the emotional mirages that deceive truth-seekers.

Heading north out of Los Angeles on Interstate 5 at seventy mph, we soon turn eastbound onto the junction of the Antelope Valley Freeway. Traveling east for about eighty mile puts us right in the Mojave Desert. God, what an awful place this is in the summer. It can soar into the 140's on the desert floor here in August. Why, without water a person could wander aimlessly through this place and perish in the shimmering heat.

Now I'm no scientist, but I seem to recall that images can bounce around in a heated atmosphere so that a person thinks that they see something that's really not there. Of course, the same thing happens when we consider truth, for the heated atmosphere of belief frequently makes things appear that aren't actually there.

A mirage is the perfect metaphor for those beliefs that we confuse with truth: Such beliefs are compelling and seem to promise fulfillment, but as we keep walking towards them they keep moving away. Fulfillment is always just out of reach as we waste away in pursuit of beliefs that ultimately slip through our lives like sand through our fingers.

Perhaps we'll see some of these mirages as we walk about looking for the UFO's that fly out of Edwards Air Force Base down the road (everyone knows that the Air Force operates their captured UFO's from Edwards). So let's just head into the desert and see what we can see.

As we stumble around the Mojave, the first mirage we see plays upon our desire for happiness. This mirage offers the fulfillment that we have been looking for all of our lives. But as we approach, happiness keeps moving away. Do you recognize the pattern? People seek truth because they believe that is will give them happiness and personal fulfillment. A popular spiritual definition of truth states that if one can find truth, then they will enjoy an immediate happiness and fulfillment -- and if this wouldn't solve all of life's problems, then I have no idea what would! The notion that "truth, will make me happy," is perhaps the most pervasive of the egoic, wish-fulfillment versions of truth. Although most adults know that life is difficult, they still like to entertain the notion of truth as an escape from, and a solution to, all of life's problems.

The idea that truth is the fountain of happiness and personal fulfillment is an old one. Yet since everyone's definition of personal fulfillment is different, so too must their versions of truth be different. So what is at risk when people argue over the truth? Well, if they equate truth with happiness, then their happiness is at stake when someone disagrees with their truth. But to have your happiness depend on your particular version of truth being true, then someone else's truth -- and thus their happiness -- must be false. To have truth be a win-lose situation is destructive. When people who equate truth and happiness argue for their view of truth, what they are actually doing is defending their right to be happy.

This is not unlike two people with dreams of wealth coming to Southern California and opening up frozen yogurt shops across the street from each other on Ventura Boulevard. The two competitor's would despise each other because each threatens the other's dream. And so we despise each other's truth because it endangers our truth.

You thus threaten another's right to be happy when you quarrel about their view of truth. So allow them the right to be happy by treating their beliefs with respect. At the same time, however, you can point out the difference between happiness and truth. While you can expect a hostile reaction to this distinction, you don't need to argue the point, for their reaction will confirm that they have indeed confused their right to be happy with truth.

In our later work we will see that truth and happiness do not have a necessary relationship. In fact, to use happiness as a yardstick to measure truth is disastrous given the wide range of negative emotions we are capable of experiencing on any given day. You will be much better off if you give up the belief that truth and happiness are one in the same. It is a great burden to create artificial happiness in order to convince yourself and others of your possession of truth.

On our journey we will not equate truth and happiness. By doing this we will be free of the need to be any particular way emotionally. How you feel, and truth, are two different things. Feel however you feel, and allow truth to exist independently of your feelings. Additionally, by not equating truth and happiness we eliminate the need to defend our right to be happy, for we know happiness does not depend on having the "true" version of truth. By doing so, we can get away from the monolithic, win-lose interpretation of truth. This is much easier way to travel through life.

The second mirage is vast, sweeping cloud that blankets the desert. People seek truth because they believe truth will solve their emotional problems quickly. The notion that truth is curative or redemptive is an ancient one. While this notion has some basis in fact, the reality is that truth won't free you overnight. You may have some quick movement, but I guarantee you that you'll hit the wall of your emotional problems again -- and usually sooner than later.

On our journey, we will abandon the notion of truth as being curative or redemptive. If you're in a dilemma, the truth will not save you, for you must save yourself. So don't expect truth to come riding along like a white knight and slay your dragons. Indeed, it is more likely that the white knight of truth will charge up on his horse, knock you on your ass, put hoof marks all over your face, and rudely point out the fact that you've allowed those dragons become so unruly through your fears, conceits, and laziness. I know this because I have a very hoof-scarred face!

Many teachers equate truth with fire, the symbolism being that the white-hot flame of truth will utterly consume and destroy your illusions. I can testify that fire is an accurate metaphor for truth. Far from being polite, truth can be an absolute bitch that torches everything you think about yourself.

Like a mad woman, truth can race through your soul setting your familiar comforts alight. In the old days, the villagers would burn everything you owned if you had the plague. Some people need to lose their inner belongings to the flame in order to be free of the plague that is in their soul.

The second mirage that looms on the desert floor offers you the respect, dignity, and meaning that has always seemed to elude you. "If I can just reach this place," you think, "then I won;t have to struggle with self-doubt or my negative self-image." The promise to have authenticity and certainty concerning yourself is a noble goal. But again, the promise keeps receding as you approach.

People search for truth because they believe that it will validate, or affirm, their existence. Everyone wants to be affirmed positively, they want to feel that they count. This need is especially acute if a person has a poor self-image or they have done things of which they're ashamed. But when people link their need for affirmation with a certain view of truth, be it political, religious, or philosophical, their need is magnified. The need for validation suddenly becomes a quest to evangelize and perpetuate their point of view, for the more people that they can get to agree with them, the more real their belief seems.

A person who has linked their need for validation to a religious organization, for example, believes that they are defending God and their church when they argue for their view of truth. But what they are actually defending is their need for affirmation. Thus, when you disagree with such a person's view of God, they hear you say, "You don't deserve to be affirmed as a person." This is of course threatening to anyone who equates a particular belief with their need for validation. One must be able to finesse this sort of person into seeing this distinction. Granted, they probably won't accept it, but it certainly could offer them an insight into their motivations that might prove compelling in a moment of doubt.

Ironically, truth will finally invalidate the person who looks to it for validation. Why? Because truth does not affirm need or neuroses, rather it exposes it. Such exposure is ultimately healing, for it is like lancing a boil to drain infection. This process is the "brokenness" spoken of religious traditions that is so esteemed for its purifying qualities.

The attempt to use truth to validate one's self is no more that an egoic effort to boost one's sagging self-image. If you need help with your self-image, if you need to be affirmed, don't expect any favors from truth. Instead, be prepared to confront and explore the reality and pain of those things that caused your poor self-image and chronic need for validation.

The next mirage of truth seduces the weak and the manipulative. People seek truth in order to gain power, for they believe that truth is a both a commodity that can enrich them and a weapon that can be used against others. From the fundamentalist con who preaches the gospel of prosperity to enrich himself, to cult leader who uses God to reduce her followers to emotional and financial servitude, to the politician for whom truth is a means to an end, this truth-as-a-tool school is full of greedy and unprincipled people.

If a person wants power, money, or needs to invalidate others, what better way to do it than to hide behind truth? People who use truth in this matter clearly have no intention or interest in truth. They may use what looks like truth, they may use facts, religion, nationality, or other lofty approaches to further their psychotic needs. But we must avoid such motives in ourselves and strongly resist and denounce those who use truth in this way, especially if they are in positions of authority. Fortunately, truth inevitably breaks such users in half by grinding them into poverty, prison, or an awful death.

The last mirage is perhaps the most frightening. People seek truth because they are scared of death. Just as the search for truth is really the search for self, the fear of death is actually the fear of dying before you find out who you are and completing your destiny. What a terrible thing to neither know who you are nor accomplish your life's work. Yet, if you knew who you were, death would not scare you.

When people fear death they almost always look to the religious versions of truth for solace. They use religion as a sort of incantation to ward off mortal fear. There's nothing wrong with that, but wouldn't it be better to be able to face the end of life with open-eyed courage instead of an incantation?

If you're afraid of death, then you need to continue reading this book through to the end. All I can tell you now is that fear isn't who you are, that religion won't ward off mortal fear, and that you can handle death. Overcoming the fear of death was one of the most visceral, fearful, and emotionally raw processes that I've ever had to endure. It took over two years of serious consideration and confrontation before it culminated in a realization that I will discuss later.

The mirages of truth arise because our emotional needs distort reality. The common denominator of the mirages is that truth is equated with the fulfillment of emotional needs. You have to realize that truth and your emotional needs can only have a strained relationship.

To summarize what we have said, truth will not validate, or fulfill, your neurotic needs. Truth is not interested in perpetuating your craziness, shielding you from your fears, or sparing you from the tooth of death. Rather, truth will expose your selfishness, your pain, and your fears. In the long run, this is what you need to be healthy. So you might as well quit fighting it and deal with your problems forthrightly.

TRUTH AND THE CAR WASH

All of this dusty driving in the Mojave has made our vehicle filthy. Why, our windshield is spattered with illusions and the tires are caked with false hopes. Let's drive over to Rosamond and pull into the Nairobi Car Wash for their $5.99 jet-wash special.

In our search for truth we are involved for the most part, not with truth, but with a cumbersome introspection of our emotions, particularly fear. We tend to resist truth in favor of an effort to conform truth to our needs. For example, if a person is insecure, they might well try to make truth conform to their security needs. The Nairobi Car Wash can serve as an example of what I'm talking about. Which method do you suppose will wash our vehicle quicker and easier?

Method One: Our vehicle is driven onto the ramp and steered into the guide rail. The vehicle is put into neutral, the conveyor belt grips the tire, and our vehicle is pulled effortlessly through the wash.

Method Two: We have the entire Nairobi Car Wash dismantled, mounted on wheels, and its network of fixed plumbing converted into a series of long flexible hoses. Our car remains parked while the entire cleaning apparatus is driven over it.

To expect truth to adapt itself to your needs is to expect the car wash to be moved over your parked car. It is a herculean effort -- and one which will ultimately fail -- to expect truth to conform to your "parked" emotions. If truth is to work its process, you must allow it to pull you into itself and carry you along to its own conclusions. You must permit truth to speak to your needs rather than your needs speaking to truth.

Do not expect truth to make you happy or fulfilled. While these things may come as a result of your determination, it is more important to stop wishing your life was better, to stop hoping that truth will magically make it better, and to begin your journey to truth by accepting responsibility for the condition of your life as it is in this very moment. Surrender to the reality that you find yourself in if you want truth to reveal itself.

In the next chapter we will continue to look at what truth is and isn't. Our journey will take us through the wild religious and philosophical jungles of truth. As we continue our inexorable journey to truth, we will keeping paring away everything that isn't truth. Like the yogi who continually examines knowledge and experience only to repeat, "Nyeti, nyeti," (not this, not this) so too will we keep examining many beliefs only to say, "not this, not this, truth is not this." But finally, we will find something, and we will be astonished. "This," will be the only word we can utter in that moment.

Let me ask you a few questions. Would you know truth if you encountered it? If so, how would you know it? Could you distinguish it from something that looked like truth but wasn't? Have you ever been in the presence of truth? Please don't answer my questions yet, because you may want to reconsider your response later.

I mentioned earlier that I will be lightening the load along the way by throwing out some of your luggage myself. I do this because I have a good feel for what you actually need and what is better off left behind. In looking over what you have brought, I must now ask that you hand over the suitcase that contains all of your preconceptions, ideas, and beliefs about truth. In short, I want you to surrender the steamer trunk that holds your definition of truth.

I'm serious. If you don't surrender this piece of baggage now, then you may as well not go. It's for your own safety that I ask, because once we get into the deep and turbulent waters of our voyage, you may feel the need to instinctively clutch onto this bag for safety. Unfortunately, this suitcase doesn't float well, and its weight can pull you down quickly under the waves. Take my word on this, when you're being tossed about in heavy swells, it's much better to be free of your wingtip shoes, your girdle, and a heavy suitcase of dubious value.

Another item in your luggage that will definitely cause problems is that damned phrase book of yours. If one is religious then they no doubt carry either one of two popular phrase books. The Judeo-Christian Guide to God, Truth, and Guilt is the standard tome for the church crowd. This book contains such phrases as, "I am lost. Please take me to the nearest Protestant church." Or, "Abortion is never right, but capital punishment is."

The other much-in-demand religious phrase book is the Guide for the Astral Planes Traveler which is subtitled The Utterly Profound and Somewhat Morally Relaxed Compendium of Thankfully Non-Western Truths. One can find useful phrases such as, "Well, the reason I haven't created a million dollar reality for myself is that I am still working through my limiting ideas about wealth," and, "I am not of this world. I have unlimited powers. However, I choose not to show those powers lest I change history. Therefore, please give the body I in money so that I can continue this game." Why are these New-Ager's so infatuated with money? Perhaps it's because they're more middle class than galactic.

If one is an atheist, then they no doubt carry that dependable classic Who Needs God When There's Science and a Good Freeway System? A particular phrase that caught my mind concerns how to toy with the youthful, well-scrubbed Mormon missionaries who visit your home. "Obviously we disagree about truth. But I'll read your copy of the Book of Mormon with an open mind if you'll read my copy of Atlas Shrugged with an open mind. What do you say, is it a deal? Would you like to talk about this over a cup of coffee?"

For the agnostic, there is the redoubtable All Roads May Well Lead Somewhere, But What Can We Really Know? Here, the reader is advised to be polite but firm when dealing with religious truth claims, "Yes, you may indeed be correct. It is possible that the Antichrist will arise from the European Common Market and kill everyone who doesn't agree to have a laser credit card, prefixed with the number "666", etched on their hand or forehead. But in the meantime, I'll keep my Visa card, and, as always, remain wary of bullying, laser-wielding Europeans."

Phrase books are basically the set of responses about truth that we carry around. If an alien, that is anyone who holds a different view of truth that we do, brings up the subject, then we can quickly turn to our phrase book and attempt to deal with the potentially threatening foreigner.

In the above examples, assumption and emotion dominate the conversation, for it is clear that each respondent has a different view of truth. Indeed, it seems that each and every one of us has a differing view of truth -- even those who share the same religious or philosophical beliefs often find themselves in disagreement about the finer points of their doctrines. But as we have said, much of this arguing happens because people equate truth with happiness and then must defend their happiness.

Just as we identified five emotional mirages that corrupt the search for truth, there are many intellectual jungles that corrupt the search. These intellectual jungles take the form of assumptions about truth. We could say that these assumptions reflect "what everyone already knows about truth and reality."

Some of these assumptions have a contrary view, thus mirroring the popular, inconsistent pictures of truth that inform mass culture. By the end of this chapter we will see that there is much schizophrenia and murky thought surrounding the notions of God, truth, and reality. In short, we will further sharpen our view of what is truth and what isn't truth. In fact by the time we finish this chapter you may well find yourself wondering if truth exists at all. So let's all pile back into the tour bus and head for the dark and fearful Jungles of Assumption.

People spend countless hours reading, praying, meditating, and listening to teachers in their search for truth. This concern for finding the truth reveals two things to us. First, as a general rule most people don't enjoy the life they're living. Said another way, they don't care for the reality they find themselves in.

Secondly, people assume that truth and reality are different. Thus, they can only conclude that their miserable reality is somehow illegitimate. Given this logic, the naturally come to feel stuck and hopeless in life. Worse yet, they come to believe that they are phony, inauthentic, and at best semi-real. And why not? After all, if one believes that truth and happiness are identical, and one is not happy, then one can only deduce that their unhappiness is a result of lacking the truth. And if one doesn't have the truth, then their life is a lie. They are false, meaningless, and insignificant.

What a saddening bind. You can see what sort of convoluted messes happen when we make assumptions about truth without thinking through the logic. But that's what this jungle is like, its a twisted mess of assumptions, counter-assumptions and wrongheaded ideas. Why, you could wind up believing that God despises you when the real issue is that you are unhappy.

There's no clear paths in these jungles, that's why this screwy self-crucifying shit goes on. Some say its voodoo, but I say it's because there's too many guide books written by fools who are still stuck back in the swamp. Anyway, let's move on before a teleological tiger has us for lunch.

The search for truth is a curious term, because it assumes that truth is missing from one's life, and that it can perhaps be located if one searches hard enough. But if the truth is absent to from one's life to begin with, and if one suffers from the feeling that they're a phony, then how will one know truth when, and if, they find it?

Well, obviously people have some inkling that truth can be found in either religion or philosophy, for these are the traditional sources they turn to in their search. but religion and philosophy are vast jungles that people disappear in altogether. Before we head into them, however, I will tell you two things about these jungles that will make our travel easier.

When it comes down to truth in a conventional sense, the whole question can be reduced to two possibilities: Either a personal source, such as God, a universal mind, or a supreme oversoul, created the Universe and everything therein, or the cosmos evolved randomly via the impersonal forces of nature.

As a diagram, these two possibilities would look like this:

----Personal Spirit

Two Possibilities For Our Origin

----Impersonal Matter

Religion and philosophy are an elaboration on these two possibilities. That's it. The key question in the search for truth -- as far as religion and philosophy are concerned -- is whether or not God exists. After this question is settled, religion and philosophy become complicated, for then they get into arguing the details: What does God's existence or non-existence mean to humanity in terms of morality? And that's really all that religion and philosophy are about. Therefore, we needn't be intimidated by their spiritual and intellectual trappings or their hard-to-read maps of truth.

We should also notice that this either/or view of truth is a trap. What do I mean by this? Simply that if you accept only these two choices then you are immediately painted into a corner. If you choose God, then you are forced to decide which version of God is true. If you choose the no-God option, then you have to explain how thought, or love, or the human body came about by accident. But what is the option to God or no God? I don't want to get into that just yet. Instead, I want you to mull over the question as we go along.

Behind all of the window dressing of mystery, ritual, academia, and holy books -- both sacred and profane -- there are several fundamental assumptions about God, truth, and reality that may or may not be true. These assumptions are consistent with the primary dilemma of God's existence, for they alternately reflect a belief, or non-belief, in such a One. As we enter into the jungle of these assumptions, our voyage will take on a seriousness that demands you let go of everything you think you know about God, truth, and atheism.

The first jungle we encounter is the large and verdant Jungle of God. The belief in this jungle is that God created everything, and his name is Allah, or is it Jehovah? No wait, I think its Krishna, or perhaps her name is Hera. I forget. But what's obvious is that this place is more properly called the Jungle of the gods (or Jungle of the "Gods" if you prefer). There are many Gods here, even though you can't see them because they're invisible, and they're all competing to be the only true God. And the screaming you hear? It's the tribes of the various warring Gods figuratively and spiritually slaughtering each other en masse.

Look at this religious warfare, it's unreal! It's like being in a giant cosmic bar fight. Quick! Duck before you get hit with that flying doctrine! Ouch, a frothing Seventh Day Adventist just punched me! Let's climb up a tree and watch the fray from a safe place. Look at this mess: There's copies of the Bible and Koran flying everywhere, the Hindu's are trance-dancing, the Dervishes are whirling, the Pentecostal's are screaming in tongues, the Mormon's have launched a counter-attack while clad in their secret underwear, and some Buddhists are lighting themselves on fire!

There's no God in control of this pandemonium. Why, we're not even going to get involved in the question of who's God is true. That would merely result in us being dragged into a fight that's been going on since the time of dirt. Instead, we're going to sneak out and not consider the question of God until we much later.

By the way, one of the cardinal points that any religion makes about God is that God is absolute, that is, there is nothing greater than God. These religions also insist that God is truth. They depict God as absolute in order to assert that God's morality is an expression of absolute truth. And since God created humanity, God's absolute morality is the only standard for human conduct.

To the religionist, then, there is an unarguable basis for morality: the absolute truth of God. And who would dare argue with this? After all, absolute truth is a heavy club to those who are fearful of divine judgement. Of course, individual religions disagree over what the moral character of God is, so we are only speaking in the most general of terms here. Anyway, the insistence that God is absolute makes all of the arguing even more intense because there can only be one absolute God. Anyway, let's slip out of this zoo while we still have our heads.

Oh no. I expected this. It seems we were caught sneaking away and now the catcalls have started. "Atheist troublemakers!" shouts a perturbed Hindu. "You bunch of godless antichrist swine," yells an angry Christian Scientist. "Infidel pigs," curses a Mohammedan. It seems that the only thing religious people hate more than each other, is someone who doesn't believe in God. But we never said we didn't believe in God; we simply said we want to look somewhere else for God besides religion. Oh well, they never listen anyway.

The heckling behind us, we wind our way down a river and come into the person-eating Jungle of the Atheists. This assortment of rabid intellectuals, religion haters, and pissed off former Catholics is a mean bunch. They make a good argument, however: Why should we spend tax dollars to promote any religion?

These are hard-boiled skeptics who won't believe in God until the Divine personally visits their home and presents a valid California driver's license.

Religionists claim that atheist's have no basis for morality. The church folk complain that in a society where the values of an absolute God are rejected and, "man is the measure of all things," there can be no truth, but only immorality and violence."If there's no God, then what's to stop me from killing?" challenges the religionist. Well, prison is a good reason not to kill, at least in my book. But the religious feel that we need an edict from God to behave constructively, whereas atheists feel that humans can behave responsibly because they choose to do so.

Within evolutionary thought, there is no God, and therefore no moral truths or absolutes. There is only moral relativism. Thus, morality is considered simply as a fallible human creation which can be variously expressed in the relative terms of the survival of the fittest, the principles embodied in the Humanist Manifesto, anarchy, situational ethics, the submission of the individual to the state, and expediency. There is no moral truth except what is personally and/or cooperatively agreed to.

The implications of this absolute or relative question

are staggering. Because truth is considered to be the ultimate principle, or the final authority, by which we can judge human affairs, what is at stake in the battle to define whether truth absolute or relative is awesome: The political agenda of nations and the personal freedoms of people everywhere hangs in the balance of this decision. Vital questions such as personal and collective self-determination, abortion, the death penalty, education, religious freedoms, and certain forms of self-expression depend upon how individual's and countries decide the question of truth.

Essentially, truth is considered to be the standard by which everything else is interpreted. It is plain to see why there is and unending dissent between religious and non-religious groups over the moral significance and legally allowable limits of such concepts as "self-expression" or "the right to choose". Indeed, even within religious circles, there is heated debate over the meaning of these issues.

Of course, history shows us that whether God is embraced or rejected, there is still immorality and violence. It doesn't appear to make any difference if one draws their morals from God or the human mind, for human conduct seems unchanged whatever the source of its truth -- thus dispelling another assumption that the truth will set one free from their worst impulses. The bottom line between believers and atheists is that neither side can decisively prove God's existence or non-existence.

Now that we have seen the basic distinctions between the religious and the atheistic, we need to return to further examine the Jungle of the Gods, for it is much bigger than the atheist's jungle. Surrounding the main jungle that we first visited, there are several smaller jungles. We owe it to ourselves to traverse these sub-jungles so that we can see how religion constructs the various models of God. You'll be amazed to see the wide array of options that are available when one is considering a new or used God.

The natives of the God-is-in-Everybody sub-Jungle teach us that spirit infuses everything from our central nervous system to the galaxies. The belief that God is in everybody is rooted in pantheism, which is the belief that God is in everything. Based on this belief, all one needs to do is to realize this fact and awaken to the truth, or the divinity, already within them and the rest of manifest nature.

But what keeps people from awakening to their inner truth? Usually some sort of moral problem, such as ego, pride, greed, or jealousy is cited. Therefore, to arouse inner truth requires that great effort, divine grace, and prayer be used to eradicate one's egoic desires that keep inner truth suppressed.

This God-in-everybody version of truth can also be called Universalism. The universalist embraces the conviction that, since God-is-in-everybody, all roads lead to truth. The principle of universalism is that truth can have many expressions. As an allowance for individuality and spiritual pride, however, the universalist considers that some roads are better than others in terms of speed, insight, and enjoyment.

The task of the universalist is to find a path that most closely suits his or her preferences and requirements. If asceticism is desired, then a path that emphasizes poverty is chosen. If the gospel of prosperity excites a person, then they will no doubt find a group that believes God wants people to have the best in life. Since all roads lead to heaven in the thought of the universalist, the essential criteria is to choose the path that will be the most compatible with one's spiritual goals and desires.

But what points up the weakness in the God-in-everybody form of universalism, happens when I claim that the God within me advocates capital punishment, and you say that the God within you finds it repulsive. It can be any issue of course, but if God were truly within everybody, wouldn't we always be in agreement?

In contrast to the belief that God is in everybody, the tribe that inhabits the sub-Jungle of Dogmatism argue that there is only one true path to God. And, unlike pantheism, the belief that there is only one path correlates to the idea that there is only one God. While the belief in one God and one path to truth is technically called monotheism, its more well-known name is dogmatism. The principle of dogmatism is that truth can have only one expression.

The search for truth is much more complicated for the dogmatist since they are trying to find the one true God from among dozens of contenders. Suspicion, intense prayer, and an overwhelming inner witness, the "burning bosom" of Mormonism if you will, are needed to find the true way. Predictably enough, such people are attracted to the dogmatic Gods of dogmatic religions. And once a dogmatist believes that they have found the true path, well it's only a matter of time before they'll show up on your doorstep to announce it.

The dogmatist confuses his or her own strong emotion, inner conviction, and the "miraculous signs" they see about them as proof of their own religious assumptions. But strong emotion, inner conviction, and miraculous signs are not proofs of God, they are merely evidences of a determined will, or possibly even a deep-seated need to dominate others. Under this dogmatic schema, people are understood to be separated from God by choosing to sin. The sinner cannot attain truth; only God can fill the sinner with truth. So how are sinners filled with truth?

Spirit-truth is said to infill, or enter into, a person's body thereby illuminating them -- but only if they meet God's conditions for salvation. The analogy is of an empty glass being filled with water. This process of the spirit filling a believer is often called, "the baptism of the holy spirit."

Again, the problem with the separate-God-of-truth is that no one can agree on which religious version of God is the one and only truth. The predictable outcome of dogmatic religious disagreement is embodied in the person of the Devil. The Devil is viewed as the antithesis of truth. The Devil works to deceive people and keep them from the truth. Consistent with the dogmatic view that God is the source love, truth, and morality, is the belief that Devil is the source of evil, deceit, and immorality. Further, the Devil takes many forms in order to deceive people. As the scripture cautions, "Even the Devil himself masquerades as an angel of light."

Based on the assumption of the Devil, I can claim that my religion is truth, while your religion is the work of the Devil. My assertion is based on the fact that my bible tells me so, and if your bible happens to say the same thing, then it is further evidence that Satan has gone so far as to trick you in writing. Doesn't this begin to sound like the logic of stubborn children and arrogant adults?

What dogmatic assumptions finally reduce to is a circular argument, that is, an argument that refers only to itself for proof. In logic a circular argument is called a tautology. The classic tautology would be to assert that one's bible is the truth because it says so. This would be like Xerox insisting that it was the truth because an internal memo written by one its own people said so.

In dogmatism, there's no proof, there is only the threat that if you don't believe you'll somehow perish. Further, to deny dogmatic claims is to be accused of being deceived by Satan. Talk about a teflon religion! Nothing sticks to dogmatism. Indeed, such religions are practically bulletproof when they surround themselves with circular arguments.

The dogmatic religions of the world agree that God and truth are synonymous; that God created the heavens and the earth; that

God is eternal. What they violently disagree about, however, is just exactly who this God is. Christians and Hindus, for example, agree that God is actually a godhead, or a trinity, composed of three different people, although they disagree on the identities of those in the godhead, whereas Islam argues that God is one.

A dogmatic religion, then, is essentially a group of people who have all agreed on a very limited interpretation of God which they consider divinely inspired, sacred, and wholly beyond question. This interpretation is spoken of as a religion's theology, and is formally codified as a series of doctrines concerning God's nature, moral character, and the technicalities of how humans are to worship, approach, and relate to God.

Of course such dogmatic religious arguments for God attempt to offer proofs of their assumptions. But how can we realistically verify such proofs? How can one verify faith if one is faithless? Or how can one verify reason if one is unreasonable? To answer that one must embrace faith or reason in order to verify faith or reason removes objectivity and promotes a curious tautology that states: One can only see my truth if one embraces my truth.

This circular argument, popular as it is for is seemingly spiritual overtones, is but another example of the teflon-coating of religion. To argue that a belief can only be proven by belief, is akin to arguing that lizards can only be understood if one is a lizard. While this makes perfect sense, the problem is that if you're a lizard you only know about the world from sitting on hot rocks and eating bugs. So a dogmatist only knows about the world in terms of his or her own beliefs.

What is actually being sought in a dogmatic religion, then, is not the truth. Indeed, the search for truth ends and theology begins the moment one embraces dogmatism for the believer already claims to have found truth. So truth is not the object of dogmatic religion, instead what is sought is the personal experience of God, the divine confirmation of one's belief, and the "signs and wonders" that are said to accompany belief. The religious experience of dogmatism could more correctly be spoken of as an effort to confirm one's already held beliefs.

The next jungle we visit is populated by well-meaning natives who believe that truth and morality are the same thing.

"Of course you should behave morally," they insist, "for morality is an expression of truth." No wonder they call it the Jungle of Good Behavior. Fighting does break out here however, because the natives can never agree on who's moral code is truth. One tribe believes that birth control is immoral -- they're a large tribe -- while the neighboring tribes conscientiously passes out condoms and birth control pills at the village high school. What is a good moralist to do?

Still, everyone agrees that truth and morality are one in the same. But are they? This assumption stems from the idea that God is considered to be the embodiment of truth and morality, thus making the two synonomous. But let us consider for a moment that the two are not related. Why would anyone want to link them then? Simply for the reason that to couple morality and God imbues a religion with the ultimate in moral authority. Who can argue with God's moral authority, after all it's the truth! Do you detect a circular argument? The possibility exists that the morality demanded by religion created God not the other way around. So this idea that truth and morality have a relationship may be suspect.

The next jungle presents a problem: Nearly every believer's favorite place, the Jungle of Faith has been long known to exist, the only problem is that no one can find it. Faith exists when one cannot visibly produce truth. If truth exists in spirit-form and we are material, then we cannot see, hear, or touch truth. Thus we must have faith. Faith is the belief that an unseen God sees you, knows you personally, and listens to your prayers. As the old adage about faith goes, "I asked God to see a miracle so that I could believe, but God's word said that I must first believe and then I will to see miracles."

But is there actually any linkage between truth and faith, or is faith really another word for belief and hope? It all relates back to the desire for happiness and self-fulfillment doesn't it? We want to be happy, we believe that if we have truth we will be happy and fulfilled, so we have faith that our "truth" is the absolute truth. So what is at stake in faith is not truth, but rather one's happiness. Thus, to link truth to faith is to suppose that faith is some sort of catalyst that activates truth. But truth is not interactive, it doesn't depend upon any action on your part: How could either your faith or denial add to, or subtract from, truth?

Faith is the refuge for those who cannot produce what their God promises. Faith is also another form of religious teflon-coating: If your prayers were answered, then you had faith; if they went unanswered then you didn't have faith. But again, the logic of faith assumes that you can manipulate God by an action on your part. Yet, the fact is that if an absolute God decided to act on your behalf, or withhold action, then your faith wouldn't matter. You can see why this jungle is lousy with con-men, healers, and the disappointed. Let's get out of here before they ask us to close our eyes and tap our shoes together.

What's this off in the distance? It looks like a tribe of savages wearing glasses and pouring over the arcana of the ascended illuminati. My goodness, it seems we've found our way into the Jungle of the Obtuse Metaphysicians. This is the jungle where all the natives are metaphysicians and everyone believes that Truth is Secret Knowledge...and knowledge is power.

These people feel that truth is reducible to a body of secret knowledge that, if learned, will enlighten a person. The workings of the universe can be known, it is alleged, thereby enabling the knower to transcend the limits of both time and space, body and mind. "If we could learn the physics of spirit, then we could move through walls and fly," avers a grim, bespectacled metaphysician, his forehead scarred from too many midnight leaps of faith against the living room wall.

Theses "Traffickers in the Esoteric" argue that to uncover the secret knowledge of the ages would be akin to looking at the schematics of the universe -- though they suppose that one would even know how to read such schematics, let alone manipulate the forms and processes being detailed. The assumption of secret knowledge emphasizes the limitless power of mind to comprehend, absorb, and utilize the metaphysical forces of the cosmos. This theory of the unlimited mind is inspiring, but just as truth can be confused with belief, knowledge can be confused with a covert desire to be God.

The idea of truth as knowledge assumes that one can discover the accurate facts about the universe. The thinking is that if one can locate the accurate facts about the universe, then they can improve their life based on this new information, or truth, that they have located. But what if you were jealous by nature and you found out that the universe despised jealousy? Would simply knowing the facts make your jealousy disappear? If you discovered that God loved you just the way you are, would be less neurotic about your financial difficulties?

There is a huge gap between knowing truth in a factual sense and actually living, or incarnating, the truth. In fundamentalist circles, they speak of this gap as the difference between "head knowledge" and "heart knowledge" (Oh dear, I'm having a glory spell just thinking about how profound this last distinction is!). We could never know enough to comprehend the universe, let alone our own behavior. Let's give up this fiction of the unlimited power of the mind and drive on out of here while we still have our common sense.

Uh oh. We're in big trouble! We've inadvertently stumbled into one of the trickiest jungles of them all. I guarantee you that you've been here often and you were fooled every time. This seductive place is called the Jungle of Wishful Thinking. The mantra chanted by this jungle's spellbound natives goes like this: Truth is Different Than Everyday Reality, Truth is Different Than Everyday Reality.

This is a major assumption. Almost everyone believes this one! Because truth is popularly equated with a non-physical God, or realm, truth is naturally considered to be the actual, or unarguable, form of reality. In this thinking, truth is contrasted with what is held to be the bogus variety of everyday reality. For "everyone" knows that everyday reality is filled with lies, illusions, sales people, problems, and all manner of pain. Everyday reality is held to be suspect, at best semi-real, and certainly not the truth.

According to this notion, then, "truth" is believed to occur in a spiritual domain that, while co-existing with everyday reality, is outside of everyday reality and thus free from the illusions and lies of everyday. Therefore, as the stereotype goes, if one could always live in the reality of truth, or what might be called a continual state of enlightenment, one would exist outside of, and hence be able to see through, the petty lies and foolishness of everyday life, even though their physical body would still exist therein. Consequently, anyone who could attain this level is held to be immune from the temptations and weaknesses so common to the semi-real product called everyday reality.

Such a state of constant truth is seen to be chock-full of many wonderful things. To live therein is to reap a whirlwind of blessing: One will be able to realize God and their "true self"; tap the source of real love, happiness, and fulfillment; achieve freedom for fear and worry; become courageous; balance the heart and mind perfectly; solve problems quickly and easily with the superior wisdom that truth brings; attain prosperity; and finally, keep the body in perfect health because all desire for cigarettes, chemicals, and the wrong foods will disappear. In short, to live in the truth and apart everyday reality, is generally equated with a god-like state.

People have thus come to regard a person who claims to live uninterruptedly in the reality of truth as a saint, a guru, a holy one, or a mystic -- for the main reason that so few are able to successfully live on such an etherial plane. But saints are subject to great scrutiny and suspicion. We love to cast down the holy when we discover them with an underage lover in a boozy bed of passion that is lined with the one hundred dollar bills the faithful have sent in for the work of God.

But this is schizophrenia, wanting to believe that there is a level of truth and reality above the everyday existence, worshipping those who claim to have attained that level, perhaps even trying desperately to attain that level ourselves, and yet wanting to tear to shreds those who claim that lofty realm and live like the rest of us would if we had their money and fame. After all, you can't negate everyday reality about truth and cast down your idols too!

I beginning to feel hypnotized. I feel like I'm floating. Wait, look! There's the Divine Person waving to me! I've just had a revelation, did you? What, we're already there? I guess I came under its spell without knowing it. It seems we've made our way into the etherial Jungle of Satori. The natives of this place are convinced that Mystical Experiences Confirm Truth.

There is a widely held notion which suggests that one will intuitively know the presence truth when they experience it. The implication being that some sort of powerful, confirming inner witness will arise, such as the Holy Spirit's voice, visions of God, or the appearance of angelic messengers. Or perhaps there will occur an unmistakable inner resonance, an awakening of one's true self. If nothing else, it is alleged that a profound and overwhelming sense of happiness will wash over a person, thereby verifying the presence of truth. What is being described here are mystical states of apparently high consequence, but are they the actual presence of truth?

People have indeed experienced such states, but they are infrequent, and often brought on by fasting, meditation, chanting, wish-fulfillment, a self-induced trance state, hypnosis, or drugs. It is extremely rare that these states become the day-to-day reality of a person, for these occurrences are almost uniformly short-lived and unstable. They are more of the nature of an epiphany, which is a sudden, mystical insight that generates great emotion.

An epiphany can also be called satori, a peak experience, or a mystical experience. These temporary reveries can be characterized by a feeling of peace, love for all humanity, the desire to do good works, and a cessation of emotional conflict. In short, just what many people think the presence of truth should bring. Which leads us to our next glittering generality. So what can we say about these matters of mystical experience and truth-versus-everyday-reality?

In assessing whether or not mystical experiences are a manifestation of truth, we must first look at their apparently contradictory nature. The Moslem will interpret his or her epiphany as solid evidence for the reality of Allah, while the Christian's serendipity will be taken as a glorious proof of the divinity of Jesus Christ. And the Hindu can only deduce that their experience of the Lord Krishna's grace is proof of the reality of this wonderful Blue Person so reverently spoken of in the Bhagavad Gita.

The heavenly parade continues as the mirror-entranced Roscrucian, the well-fed Mormom, the affirmation-spouting New Ager, and the ecstatic Hindu, all claim to have been confirmed in the reality of their faith by the presence of truth. Indeed, even the atheist can be touched by such a transcendent state.

That mystical experiences happen to people of opposing religious faiths returns us to the dilemma of universalism versus dogmatism: Does truth belong to all or to just a few? It seems that this question continually confronts the seeker, for no matter how far one explores, the road to truth always returns to this fork where one must choose. And beyond determining if truth is universal or limited, one must also decide whether or not God exists. Such options should lead the wary to suspect that perhaps choice itself has more to do with the nature of truth than do these other things.

Think you're ready for a little mind-bending? Well this next jungle is going to toy unmercifully with your beliefs, for we are now in the Jungle of Honesty. The wisdom here says that Truth and Honesty are Synonomous. But could it be that they're not?

"If everyone just told the truth life would be so much easier, we could just cut out the bullshit and level with each other." Have you ever echoed this sentiment after being deceived by another? What's interesting about this idea of truth telling is that it blurs two different meanings of truth.

In the case of telling each other the truth, what is meant is that we should accurately state the facts about what we did, said, and felt -- in short, we should be honest. In the legal sense of the word, the honest and accurate communication of the facts is defined as truth. In the sense we have been using the word, truth is defined as the ultimate state of the universe: Is God or materialism the truth? In this book we are interested in truth in this latter sense.

However, because God, truth, and morality have been associatively linked, it is easy to see why honesty is equated with truth. Yet this is where people get confused and embittered by religion. If a religion were honest it would tell you that the best it could do is offer an interpretation about God and truth. However, religions claim to have the absolute truth and are therefore not in a position to admit to their interpretative nature. And so when a religion's version of God doesn't shake out, when its God can't deliver, people turn away. They feel lied to by the religion or betrayed by God. But what essentially happened is that the religion wasn't honest about its "truth".

If one believes in God this assumption makes perfect sense, for God is seen as the ultimate, eternal, and absolute being, and therefore the unarguable truth. The implication of God as truth is that if one finds God, they have found truth. The problem is thus in locating the "true" God as opposed to the "false gods." More on this point of the true God-versus-the false gods in another chapter.