I am led to believe that the world and my existence are complicated, unfathomable things. I am led to believe that there are brilliant men and women pursuing this truth every day, and who know more about my own life than even I do. I am supposed to sit around and wait for all these smarter people to figure it out. Yet all these people speak of an elusive truth we may never know, content in being part of an army of scientists, philosophers, and spiritualists slowly uncovering some giant mystery. They say they do not know the truth, but they do. They all believe one truth, unconditionally: we do not know the truth.
When I listen to these people, I become one of the “we” in their truth. I am a member of their group who does not know the truth. And when I join that group, I accept that I do not know the truth.
I have always sought a truth, but I have rejected every one I found. I long accepted this idea that I do not know, but that there is something to know, and that the people of the world, past, present, and future, are trying to figure it out. But it never ends. The discoveries never stop. The theories keep piling up, being refined to ever finer points. The synthesis of old and new is ongoing. But the ignorance never ends. No matter how clever or how cogent, we never know.
I realized that before there is a truth, there is a decision: I either know the truth, or I do not know the truth. And when I look out at the wider world and the team I have been part of as long as I remember, I can clearly see that they will never know. They are permanently searching, always finding, but never concluding. They will never know because they have decided they will never know. The decision precedes the truth they are seeking. They have it backwards.
It is not the truth I search for; it is the decision. The decision is the truth. In both the truth that I do or do not know, there is a decision. But the opposite is not true. My decision contains both, but both do not contain my decision. What I am looking for is the decision, and I decide that I know the truth.
And if I know the truth, then I must look around and discard anything I do not know. Starting with the idea that there is anything to know that I do not already know. I decide that I know, and therefore I am already in possession of the truth. The truth is right here, right now. It is not around the corner, in the sky, under the water, or in the heads of people I will never know or books I will never read. That is not where the truth is. The truth is right here, in this very moment.
What is preventing me from seeing it? The decision that it is anywhere other than in this very moment. But that infection runs very deep; the delusion is strong. That decision is embedded in the way I think, speak, and behave. When I speak of a “we” I am speaking of things I can only imagine and never know. When I talk about the past, I am speaking of a time I can only imagine and never know. The same goes for the future; the future is intrinsically unknowable, so I must
Knowing the truth is a decision, and the state of mind that descends therefrom. It is right here, right now, in my moment. The totality of existence is what I experience directly through my inner conceptual and outer perceptual fields. There exists nothing beyond the horizon of my perceptual and conceptual fields. That something does exist beyond these horizons is a choice, not a fact. The ultimate starting point of truth is my direct experience, originating at a small point of awareness within my head. The further I move away from that, into the past, the future, and into the heads and works of people I can only imagine, the further away from my moment, and the truth, I will float.
Before there is truth there is discretion: I can believe whatever I want to believe. And with that one decision, I either can know, do know, or will never know.
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