We sometimes have learned to tell lies in order to preserve or enhance some structure, some position in the social fabric. After some time it becomes normalized. Like a fish swimming in polluted water so long that doesn’t notice anything amiss. It’s not right, but there’s no other frame of reference to raise any mental red flags.

But deep in our conscience we know that our habit of lying goes against the natural law. And so there is a vague agitation in the mind-heart that we accept as a part of our existence. Agitation in the mind-heart results in pathologically altered signals in the nervous-endocrine-immune complex.

Pathologically altered signals in the neuro-endocrine-immune complex results in various forms of pain, stress, suffering, and illness.

But if we are so steeped in our unskillfulness that we don’t realize it’s unskillful, how can we disrupt the cycle and break free of suffering? How can we level up into greater health and more durable happiness?

It is necessary for us to look with fresh eyes at old material, to see as an outsider would see. We must develop what’s called an impartial objectivity. This earlier blog post contains some introductory material on the subject. So does this one and this one.

But prior to this, we must sincerely want to know the truth. We’ve got to really want to be told about ourselves, both good and bad. The problem here is dealing with the related ego-tendencies of:

1. feeling angry and rejected at any type of criticism
2. minimizing our bad feelings by shifting the light of attention away from our faults and shortcomings
3. maintaining a false happiness by artful denial, overemphasizing the good in us by the wrong use of gratitude statements, affirmations, etc. This in turn feeds into points 1 and 2 above.

If only we admit the truth of this inner childishness and make ourselves teachable to our own Higher Self, we would create the conditions for reconnecting what is disconnected and recovering a deep, deep happiness that we know to be our original state. But admission is only a preliminary step. Admitting we have a stain on our shirt and getting the stain out of our shirt are two different things. The process of cleansing, mending and restoring what is stained, broken, and isolated in us is long-term work that has us frequently toiling in obscurity. We remind ourselves that wisdom is its own reward.

The truth is happiness, while unhappiness is always error and misconception.

Pathwork Lecture 162

Action Items/Points to Ponder/Reflection Questions

< Over the past 24 hours, have you told a lie? Why? What actual or perceived benefit was there to speaking untruth? What perceived or actual harm was there to not telling the truth?

< A car goes straight because the driver decides so. The car goes left because the driver decides so. The car goes right because the driver decides so. We change directions between truth and lying because we decide so.

< Living by deception makes lasting inner peace impossible. Since we are not separate from Divine Truth, living by deception means constant fear–whether conscious or unconscious–of being found out. It means creating a mental fog in order to not have to face the truth.

< Not living by deception makes lasting inner peace possible. We do not suffer in constant fear of being found out, nor resort to creating a mental fog in order to avoid the truth.

< “To err is human, to forgive divine.” (Alexander Pope)

< In what ways do you tell yourself everything is fine when in fact it is not? In what ways are things not fine?

< The practice of meditation enables us to progressively deepen our self-awareness by turning our attention and concentration inward. Connect with a qualified instructor and practice.

< Giving up an established, comfortable, and even profitable position based on a foundation of dishonesty requires a destruction of sorts. In some ways it is comfortable and in some ways it is uncomfortable. Are we willing to endure these temporary inconveniences in the name of creating something better, more solid, stronger in truth?

< The presence of conscience is never far away. It is only we who turn away from it in fear and pride. There is always the option to change, to turn toward our conscience, to want to listen to it and heed it.

< Sometimes it is the case that our conscience tapping us on the shoulder is only a vague sense of something amiss, something not OK in an overall story of things being OK. It’s important to note these feelings in real time and learn to listen to it.

< In a culture that values appearances, it can be a big-time challenge to keep it real with ourselves.

< Gradually increasing the degree to which we live in honesty and integrity, to that same degree does agitation in the mind-heart cease. Agitation in the mind-heart ceasing, pathologically altered signals in the neuro-endocrine-immune complex are reverted to their original healthy signals. Neuro-endocrine-immune signals being healthy, there is eudaimonia and good physical health appropriate to one’s constitution.

Copyright (c) 2020, Justin Jaucian