I once had to choose between love and truth. I would have chosen love over anything else, but truth was the one thing over which love, unfortunately, did not win. I was in a lose/lose situation; if I stuck to my truth, I stood to lose the love, and if I stuck to the love, I stood to lose myself and by default, eventually, the love as well.
Truth is the oxygen that keeps me being me, without it my essence starts to fade. That which makes me who I am is no longer. And then what do I have to give? If I am not true to myself can I be true to anyone else?
There is nothing more important to me than love, no greater power, no achievement, no possession, no emotion, no goal, no consideration. Nothing, absolutely nothing, stands above love, so how could it lose the battle against truth? What is truth anyway? And what makes it so powerful?
Truth is what is, what was, and what will be. Truth is a knowing. Truth is a calling. Truth is it. There is only one truth and its unmovable, immutable, inalterable, inflexible and inevitable. Perception of the truth may vary according to one’s vantage point, but truth itself does not. Truth is absolute. Truth is something you cannot ‘un-see’ or ‘un-know’. Truth has the power to transform, to transcend, to elevate. Truth enlightens, empowers, uplifts. But it requires courage, humility and responsibility. Truth can be ugly, painful, hurtful, horrific. You may try to ignore it, reject it and even disguise it, but if you follow your intuition, if you listen to your heart, if you trust your gut, if you have the strength, the courage and the determination, you will find and face the truth. You will learn to embrace it even if it hurts, you will stand by it, you will fight for it and in return for your courage the truth will always, - set you free. And mustn’t one be free in order to love? In order to be? In order to give?
True love can only be found when truth is embraced without fear. True love does not ask you to stop seeing what you see, to stop hearing what you hear, to stop feeling what you feel, to stop knowing what you know. True love does not ask you to stop being you. What kind of love is that? It’s the kind of love that loses the battle against truth.
I believe life is a journey of remembrance. A process, through experiences, of remembering what our soul already knows; the truth of who we are, the truth of why we are here, the truth of the reality that surrounds us. The more we align ourselves with this truth, the stronger we become, the happier we feel, the greater the freedom we experience. Our greatest responsibility in life is to align ourselves with truth; to look at it from every angle, so that our perspective does not distort our perception of it and when we see it for what it is, to take it in, to embrace it, to face it, to accept it and to either fight it or fight for it. Remember we live in a universe of relativity, a binary construct where opposing forces are always at work. The Yin and the Yang, the good and the evil, the light and the dark. Truth is made up of both. There cannot be light without darkness, and so darkness must be faced so we can shine the truth of our light, this is why courage is required.
Awareness comes when truth is found. Enlightenment when that truth is embraced and freedom is the resulting reward. So be brave, search for truth and fight for it, yes, you may, like me, lose the love of some along the way, and yes, it hurts, I am still heartbroken, but I am not broken, I am not lost, I am me, I am whole and I have truth in my heart. I am free.
“For though we love both the truth and our friends,
piety requires us to honour truth first.”
Aristotle