posted May 15, 2005 08:16 AM         

The key to communication is the truth—being willing to hear it, and to speak it. The ego, the head, wants to reason, wants to be right, but the heart yearns for truth. Without honesty, and above all rigorous self-honesty, there can be no awakening, no enlightenment. The truth shall indeed set you free.

I learned a long time ago that, in relationships, it is better to tell the truth right off the bat, and risk the small pain of hurt or rejection, than to lie. Otherwise, if you lie, then at some point—weeks, months, or years down the road—you have to deal with the much bigger and longer-lasting pain of betrayal. It creates all kinds of turmoil when someone, whether it’s you or the other person, suddenly realizes that they have been deceived all this time.

There is a cleanness, a lightness and openness, to living with this depth of truth and honesty. You know what it’s like, when you tell a lie, and then you have to continue telling it, and you hope you remember your own “story” correctly so that you don’t get caught in the lie? That way of living creates suffering inside. It’s not liberating at all.

But as you awaken to inner freedom, you will tell the truth naturally. You couldn’t do otherwise. You wouldn’t do anything that causes suffering to yourself, and you don’t want to do anything that cause suffering to another. Practicing being very present and truthful frees you from the attachment to your story, your personal history, and brings you closer to genuine freedom.

Unfortunately, many people grow up in families or environments where it is just not safe to tell the truth. They get judged for it, scolded for it, even beaten for it. Being met by invalidation, rejection, judgment, ridicule, humiliation, or shame every time one tries to speak out results, inevitably, in a suppression of aliveness and authenticity. Therapists offices throughout the country are filled with clients who are struggling to work through these issues.

Psychotherapy is a very useful tool for healing the mind and emotions, but without the transpersonal perspective, it doesn’t bring about true freedom. You just rearrange the furniture in your mind, so to speak, so that you feel a little more at ease, a little more comfortable, inside yourself. But you are still a prisoner of your own story. You still believe in the dream world you’ve created inside your head. The difference is that you just now have a bigger prison cell to roam around in. You have a little more freedom, but you are not really free.

To take a stand for truth means going deeply into your own psyche to see if there is anything you haven’t been looking at that you need to examine, anything that is blocking your freedom of expression. Then you’ve got to look and see if there is something you need to say to somebody that you haven’t said.

The more willing you are to face the truth within yourself, to hear the truth from others, and to speak your truth without fear of the consequences, the more you tap into your passion. You connect with the source of courage within you, the boldness that is needed to take the risks in life that are necessary to achieve great things. Then your destiny, your unique purpose in being here, starts to be fulfilled. Being willing to hear the truth from others and to speak it confidently is one of the most empowering forms of self-expression available to us. It is one of the most critical skills, or practices, on the path of awakening.

©Jim Dreaver, 2005