Truth and Untruth

Hislop: We do not perceive life with absolute clarity, and yet we are acting all the time, and unclear action makes for a confused life. We are unhappy about that confusion, and in an effort to remove it we accumulate ideas of truth, God, reality. But those imaginings do not remove the confusion. Life is still confused. So the question is: what is the big factor that prevents us from seeing the truth of life clearly?

Sai: You say that truth, God, reality are imagination. Why do you think they are imagination? They are not. Time, work, reason, and experience; these four in harmony together, that is truth. When the four are found not to be in harmony, then you feel it is untruth. An example: Yesterday you came to Banga­lore, and from there to Puttaparthi, by car. Travel is work. It took you four hours to come from Bangalore. That is time. You came to see Swami. That is the reason. Having seen Him, you got happiness. That is the result. On the other hand, last night you dreamed that you were in America and were shopping. In this, the four factors were not involved. There was no work, there was no time expended, and where is the result? This is untruth. That experience was imagination, only mind work. This is the difference between truth and imagination.

Hislop: But truth, that is in terms of work, time, reason, and result—you look around the world and you see those things in operation, and the world is in a mess. So there must be more to it than that?

Sai: When you don’t have absolute faith in the result, then doubt arises. An example: Now it is daylight and the objects in the room are seen very clearly, and there is no doubt regarding them. At night when it is fully dark and you must grope around and do not see any of the objects, there is no doubt about that situation. But at dusk, when it is half-light and half-dark, doubt can arise, and you may see a rope and imagine it to be a snake and be afraid. Light is not full, and vision is not clear. Full light is wisdom, and full dark is ignorance. Doubt arises when there is half-dark and half-light. The half-light is wisdom, and the half-dark is ignorance. Ignorance and wisdom, when there is half and half, there is doubt. Now you are in the middle stage where you have this little bit of wisdom and some ignorance [they] are mixed. You are not fully experienced.

When you have proper exper­ience, the doubt will vanish. Because you are not experienced, you are having this doubt. A small example: While suffering from malaria, you have eaten a sweet but feel it has a bitter taste. It was not that the sweet was bitter, but in your experience it was bitter. It is not the fault of the sweet. Ignorance is also a disease like malaria. And the cure for this disease of ignorance is sadhana (spiritual practice). Man has doubt only while he does not know the truth. Once you experience the truth, doubt will vanish. Truth is one, and for all time truth is truth. Whatever changes, know that as untruth. Once you were small and you grew bigger. That is also untruth. Where is the body of the ten-year-old? All has merged into the present body. First, untruth, then when we have the experience we know the truth. Dark and light are not different, they are one only. A small example: Last night you ate fruit. In the morning it becomes stool, and you pass it out. It was fruit yesterday, but the bad and the good are the same, only one. In one form, it was fruit, in the other form it was stool.

A Visitor: The explanation is good.

Sai: It is the same with light and dark. When the light comes, the darkness goes. But really, the darkness does not go anyplace, and the light does not go anyplace. When one comes, the other is unknown; it does not go anywhere.

Hislop: This mixture of light and darkness, of ignorance and wisdom, that creates unhappiness, that creates trouble—Swami says that the mixture fades away with the right exper­ience. The question is, what is the basic factor that prevents us from having that right experience?

Sai: We don’t have the intensity that is required. Even to study books, how much is needed to come to the stage when we can read difficult books. How many years, how many hours of toil we put into it. If you have the same intensity in spiritual practice, you will surely know the truth. But we are not as intense as we should be on the spiritual path. We do not apply concentration and one-pointedness. Full concentration is needed, even in the world, in walking, talking, reading. Without concentration you cannot do anything. Even in little things of the world we use concentration. But when we try to think of God, then we get restless, and the mind is unstable.

Why do we do the things of the world with full concentration? Why? Because we are fully interested in it. And with God we have these doubts. In whatever work you love deeply, you have full concentration. In whatever you don’t love deeply, then concentration is not full. A small example: You are driving a car. And at the same time, you are talking to your passengers. The road becomes narrow and dangerous. You say, ‘Please let us not talk now, I must give full concentration to the driving.’ Why do you say this? It is because you deeply love your life, and you must concentrate deeply to avoid an accident. Because you have this love for body, you concentrate on its safety. When you have deep love for God, then concentration on Him will come automatically.

Hislop: But that is the point, there is the whole point.

Sai: In all these experiences, we must hold to the truth, to life. You love life. Because of life we have all these exper­iences. So we cling to that sort of pillar that is life, for we know that without life we don’t have experiences. Life gives so many things externally, but life does not change. Life is the same. That life is truth and that is God. The unchangeable is truth.

Hislop: Since we are that truth, we would like to have love in our hearts and flow naturally with life and not according to our arbitrary wishes. Yet we don’t. Swami says we do not because we lack the intensity. So we say to ourselves, ‘Well, I must get that intensity.’ So we strive toward that goal, and striving toward that goal makes the thing stronger and that prevents the desired intensity.

Source: Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba