Where to Find Truth?

[bmcnicho]

Since I was young, I've been very distrusting of authority and culture.  Everyone around me seemed way too conformist, like they were blindly accepting the ideas of other people and acting only in the ways that were expected of them.  Therefore it seemed like I couldn't find truth from any outside source and decided to rely exclusively on my own judgement.

As a result I was very selfish, rebellious, and angry as a child.  Of course that kind of egotism didn't work out well for me, and I gradually learned discipline and self control.  By the time I was about 12 years old, I was also very distrustful of myself, seeing the potential of self deception in my emotions and impulses.  And yet I also understood even more clearly the problems of the collective.  If I couldn't receive truth from others, and I couldn't find truth within myself, then where was it to be found?

That's when I decided I wanted to become a scientist.  I saw science as the only valid source of truth, because I viewed it as separate from all human bias.  It was only when I arrived at university that I started to see the problems with academia and institutions.  I began to contemplate the potentially dangerous technologies that science was leading to, and that corporate interests distort it from being a pure pursuit of the truth.

Leo's talked a lot about epistemology and he's talked a lot about the Absolute and awakenings.  His teachings have been incredibly valuable, but what I'm still wondering is where is a valid source of conceptual relative truth?  It seems like everything out in the world is clouded by collective ego, and my own thoughts and feeling are clouded by my individual ego.

[pluto]

In the Silence, you hear everything.

In the Stillness, you see everything.

In between, you are everything.

Dissolve into the centerness of life and Truth is eternally present <3