No one can ever become who they truly are unless they are willing to accept and acknowledge the truth—look and seek for truth relentlessly—to desire above all to move deeper and beyond the sleeping reality which is the (un)reality of untruth.
You can’t have another agenda because that would put you out of alignment and at cross purposes with finding and connecting to your own reality, who you really are, and the truth and the nature of reality. Desire for truth above all is love of truth and wisdom—the part of you that is really attracted to learning, devoted to learning and really evaluating deeply what’s coming your way, and not content to operate out of nor base your decisions and actions on implanted, conditioned notions or fear of any sort.
It means being willing to look beyond and underneath the surface of things, not being deceived by appearances, conventions, opinions, externals, or any unreality around anything. It means desiring to learn and know things that are truly resonant with reality, to unravel and pierce through all deceptions and illusions and discover the distilled and valuable meanings and essences of all things.
The first veil to making real progress developmentally is untruth. If you’re going to get anywhere then always being willing to discover the truth about yourself has to be your number one agenda. Even if you can’t change something immediately, you’ve got to see and recognize the truth because otherwise you’re shadowboxing and you can’t get anywhere; you’re left to believing in and letting phantoms and illusions cloud your mind, alter and distort your perception, and run your life, turning you into no more than a slave to them.
From the standpoint of Self-Observation it’s necessary to be constantly watchful of the contents of your mind so as not to be deceived and fall under the spell of the aberrant machinations and thought processes of your own mind, to be able to tell b.s. from reality. It requires attempting to ascertain the real reasons for and consequences of things that you think, say, and do – not hiding behind excuses and rationalizations, not getting identified with your ego and its reflex reactions to criticisms, not letting that take you over and usurp power from the real you. It is possible to ask yourself: “Am I speaking the truth right now or is it just an excuse or rationalization because I’m scared of doing something, don’t want to do something, am deflecting a criticism, or whatever else because I’m basically not being honest?”
In the end it comes down to letting go of the ways you buffer yourself against feeling and being impacted by the full pain of the dis-ease of your own state, neither lying to yourself or seeking out mood- altering distractions or stimulations—having a genuine willingness to incur a real understanding and possibly discomfort with your true state. Which will drive your desire to overcome it! If you could really see the weight that’s crushing you, it would mobilize the power and will necessary to throw it off. With some addictions for instance, people who are obese, heavy smokers, alcoholics, or shopaholics, etc., yet are somehow able to get on the right track and finally really change. They’re the people who have stopped being in denial, ceased buffering themselves with a labyrinth of lies and devious behaviors, and finally seen their reality for what it is.
It is not the truth that we should be afraid of, which is why it has so often been said, “The truth will set you free.” Rather, what we should fear are the consequences that will invariably befall us as a result of ignoring, hiding from, or buffering ourselves against the truth. The best course is always to face it so we can be released from the chains and paralysis of untruth, and set about changing the things that need to be changed.
