Day by day, our quest for truth seems to be getting far moreonerous than the search for a unicorn. The rarity of truth is not a phenomenon that transpires in the political realm alone, but manifests in every facet of life.聽聽And the struggle is not just a modern one, but has existed for millennia; it has very likely manifested ever since the existence of humankind on this earth.
But there are many aspects of modern life, especially the advancement of technologies, that have exacerbated the problem so massively, that hope for a non-obfuscated worldview may be quickly fading into obscurity.聽聽Only staunch optimists, ardent idealists, and persons whose heads are buried in the proverbial sand, may think otherwise.
There are two kinds of untruths 鈥� natural ones and man-made ones.
Natural untruths are not created to cause harm (in some cases, they may have been created to save humans from harm).聽聽They occur because of the limitations of our knowledge, cognition abilities, or barriers to perception.聽聽I could perhaps offer the example of the ancient flat earth theory as falling into the category of natural untruth.
Hindu philosophy describes human limitations and the illusory world as the two barriers to the perception of truth.聽聽These barriers are variously described as a veil, a smoke-screen, or lack of illumination (physical as well as mental).聽聽Thus, what we humans perceive is not the absolute truth, but what can be considered as relative truth.
Even though Hinduism does not explicitly state that even scientific truth is also relative truth, what Hinduism states is that there is only one absolute truth 鈥� and that absolute truth is聽Brahman听辞谤听God.聽聽(One need only look into the history of scientific advancement to find examples of scientific truths getting changed, improved, modified over time, or even discarded).聽聽In science we consider something as truth if it is provable by logic, evidence, supporting facts, and observation; and most importantly, by its invariability under any circumstance or with the passage of time.聽聽And truth has to be completely independent of the observer and his biases.
Thus, eternal truth is that which is independent of logic, observer, observations, objects, subjects, conditions, perspective, senses, biases, and is invariable over time.
So, Hinduism considers only聽Brahman听辞谤听God聽as the absolute and eternal truth.聽聽The Hindu quest for truth is stated in the first line of verse 1.3.28 of the Hindu scripture聽Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.聽聽It states:聽聽鈥�asato maa sadgamaya鈥�,聽聽that is 鈥渓ead us from untruth to (the absolute) truth鈥�.聽聽Its expanded meaning is: 鈥淥 Lord, keep me in not in the聽Unreality聽of the bondage of the illusory world, but lead me towards the聽Reality聽of the eternal truth which is聽Brahman鈥�.
This prayer to God is meant to give us the courage, strength, wisdom, full use of our faculties, intelligence and good judgement, to constantly seek聽Truth, and discard untruth.聽聽We must not only discard untruth, but to actively oppose it whenever we see it.聽This prayer urges us to take action whenever we see untruth, thereby fiercely guarding our quest towards liberation or 鈥�moksha鈥�.
It is in our endeavors towards this action that we find great challenges, seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, and life-altering threats.聽聽More than ever, we find that we must keep our faith, our hope, our dignity, and our humanity, in these times of assault on truth coming from all directions, in all aspects of our lives, making human life on this planet itself rather tenuous and precarious.聽聽Otherwise, humans themselves may fade away from the universe, and become part of the untruth that pervades it.
Suresh Basrur聽practises the Hindu faith, participates in inter-faith activities in Victoria, and speaks to audiences about Hindu religion, philosophy and practices.
You can read more articles on our interdaith blog, Spiritually Speaking,
* This article was published in the print edition of the sa国际传媒 on Saturday, November 16th 2019
Photo of sunrise by聽听辞苍听
