Can you want truth?

[ivory]

My question is, can you want to know the truth and still get it? I hear so much about wanting truth being a hinderance to truth on the path? What is really true about this?

[Forestluv]

Wonderful question. One thing I try to be aware of is the source of the wanting.  I experience sef-seeking wanting at times. Yet, I also experience a pure, genuine wanting at times. 

[RichardY]

You can't handle the Truth!

[alankrillin]

It is only the ego that can desire to complete something that is already complete. 

There's so much you can do with the ego, you can go on an so many journeys, and mental masturbate about spirituality forever if you like. 

All the changing within the unchanging emptiness is truth. 

All you need to focus on is awareness, how can anything exist at all?  And yet you know without a single doubt that you are here. Existence. 

[Shadowraix]

Yes definitely. That desire is a part of the truth after all. The pursuit of truth is mainly unwiring a lot of things you've been programmed to do and think. It doesn't make you experience anything different but the perception and perspective does change. It's a recontextualization.

[Anton Rogachevski]

It's irrelevant, you are always going towards your destiny, be it truth or falsehood, it's not up to you to decide.

One always wants truth, but he isn't always going to the right places to get it. In the big picture one is always on the right path.

[Leo Gura]

Yes, you can want truth. It's actually very important in this work. But you must be extremely careful not to confuse your egoic wants for want of truth. Wanting actual truth is very rare. Mostly when people say they want truth they are lying to themselves. They have confused egoic ideas of truth with actual truth.

The problem with wanting truth is, since you don't actually know what the truth is or means, how can you really know want it?

Even so, it is possible to want truth simply for truth's sake. But that means stomaching the costs to one's ego.

If the truth would kill you, would you still want it?

If not, then you don't really want truth, you want a fantasy of truth (AKA, you want falsehood).

[Girzo]

I don't want the truth. I want happiness, that's the only reason why I am on the path. To be happy and peaceful all the time.

Is that a hindrance? I don't know yet. It all boils down to how skillfully you navigate those desires and wants, I think.

[Leo Gura]

@Girzo Usually that will be a hindrance because the ego will get you chasing pleasure or positive states -- which always creates suffering.

True happiness isn't what you think it is. True happiness is Truth.

See? Without Truth you do not know how to distinguish between true vs false happiness. Without Truth, you literally have no idea what you are doing. So of course tragedy and catastrophe follows. Which is why really wise people value Truth above all else.

[Shin]

39 minutes ago, Girzo said:

I don't want the truth. I want happiness, that's the only reason why I am on the path. To be happy and peaceful all the time.

Is that a hindrance? I don't know yet. It all boils down to how skillfully you navigate those desires and wants, I think.

If you don't want truth you can't be truly happy, because happiness is what you are essentially.

So unless you discover and embody the truth, you'll never be happy for long, because your happiness will always stays dependable of external situations.

Edited January 27, 2019 by Shin

[Girzo]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

True happiness is Truth.

The problem with truth is that it's an almost empty word for me. I don't really know where it points to.

On the other hand, I know exactly what happiness means. When I recall a mystical experience my body shivers from the reminiscence of the sweetest sweetness there is. Happiness is that sweetness. I want to go full monty and overflow with it every minute, every hour.

That's why I do yoga. If the action taken is the same as if I was pursuing Truth, then I don't see a problem.

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by Girzo

[Joseph Maynor]

What is is that wants truth?

[RichardY]

 

[WelcometoReality]

7 hours ago, RichardY said:

You can't handle the Truth!

I want the truth!

10 hours ago, ivory said:

My question is, can you want to know the truth and still get it? I hear so much about wanting truth being a hinderance to truth on the path? What is really true about this?

Wanting truth might lead you to search externally for truth and that can be a hindrance. You are truth itself so it is not about searching for it as much as a complete stopping the search and seeing through the illusion of the seeker/search.

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Girzo said:

The problem with truth is that it's an almost empty word for me. I don't really know where it points to.

Yeah, that is quite a problem.

Then again, Truth is very simple: it's whatever is the case.

[alankrillin]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Yeah, that is quite a problem.

Then again, Truth is very simple: it's whatever is the case.

Yes.  Each time you are fully present the snapshot of the moment is complete, there is nothing missing. Only the ego can convince you that is it not perfect. 

A lot of unhappiness happens because we compare ourselves to others and other situations and want to have similar things. 

Well the truth is you can't be others, you can only be yourself, your own unique perspective of existence. 

[now is forever]

1 hour ago, alankrillin said:

Well the truth is you can't be others, you can only be yourself, your own unique perspective of existence. 

yes and because you can work on this perspective you can always change the truth of your perspective if you stay open enough and remember the truth in the truth - it’s all about this one perspective we are eager to hold on to forever integrating truth until truth is only what we make of it.

[alankrillin]

1 hour ago, now is forever said:

yes and because you can work on this perspective you can always change the truth of your perspective if you stay open enough and remember the truth in the truth - it’s all about this one perspective we are eager to hold on to forever integrating truth until truth is only what we make of it.

Ego putting a spin on truth is not what I was talking about.

[now is forever]

21 minutes ago, alankrillin said:

Ego putting a spin on truth is not what I was talking about.

you can read it from different perspectives.

[Highest]

A desire for Truth is always good, what's better is to have a strong desire to know what you are. For there is nowhere else but in yourself that one discovers Truth, for Truth is not a thing, it is Existence itself, Be-ing. There is no way to realize the Truth without self-inquiry and meditation, from sleep to awakening is a long process. The most important thing is to realize non-duality, the other stuff matters little no matter how wonderful the experiences are. One can become God - become infinite - but if it is not realized that God is the individual awareness and consciousness, and the ego and the mind, then infinity has not been seen. You are God in all states of awareness and consciousness, no matter how much ''you'' are in sleep. But of course that's just a myth, no one is in sleep, no one is separate, no one exists.