Everyone wears different hats sometimes. Even the president of a powerful nation, who may sometimes command the entire military might of the land, will return home from the cabinet or battle field, and remove the military attire to associate with his or her beloved family. S/he may even crawl around on the floor like a horse, while the small infant grandchildren ride on their back, playing in sweet innocent joy.
Still, it’s the same person in a different role according to the relationship involved. Similarly everyone is searching for the absolute truth, the source, the original causeless cause of all causes. However, we are searching in our own different ways and according to the differing various paths or teachings we have been given by the elders we respect or find valid.
Yet the source is one, like the shining sun. The source of all light in our solar system is our sun globe, around whom we all circumnavigate. There is also only one absolute truth, yet it appears in different guises at different times in history and to different cultures or civilizations through time. That is that it means to be absolute. It does not change in quality, time does not change it, nor the whims of humanity or society.
Laws may change, and morals may be engineered by government leaders to shape society according to their desired ends, shifting the goal posts or the norm from one generation to another. What was true and right today may be quite different from what was considered true by our parents or grandparents. This is relative truth and morality.
However, the absolute truth has never changed and is constant, like the sun at the center of our solar system. It was and always will be the fixed center upon whom we all depend. This is merely an analogy, and analogies are useful only up to a point. The actual point here is that even if thousands of years go by, there is an underlying eternal absolute truth, whether we can relate to it according to our relative point in history or not.
In fact we may be quite removed from the absolute truth by generations of civilization shifts. A gradual deviation may appear minuscule at first, but given enough time will end up extremely far from the point.
And yet we all can do little other than to approach the truth, like creepers climbing upward toward the sun. We are hard-wired that way. And sometimes we find what we believe is the truth. It may resonate with what we have been taught in this lifetime, based on education and experience. Strangely though our truth may differ from another person’s. We can only ever perceive our relative perception of that one absolute truth, as long as we are have our limited material bodies and minds.
Ultimately the absolute truth is beyond our comprehension, like the concept of god, or divinity. We can only really talk about it, or refer to it indirectly. No one can claim to be or know god or divinity in full, or on the absolute platform. We simply don’t have the tools to perceive it. Just like we don’t have the senses to perceive the full spectrum of frequency, whether infra-red or ultra-violet. Yet the vast range of light exists, well beyond our limited senses.
Again this is merely an analogy, but the point is concise and accurate. And indeed, we do all have the ability to glimpse our understanding of the absolute truth, and that absolute truth may well reveal itself to us – according to our capacity to perceive it, as well as according to our desire and focus.
For example in the ancient Sanskrit text on the absolute truth, known as Bhagavad Gita, written down over 5000 years ago, Krishna says to Arjuna:
ये यथा मां प्रपद्यन्ते तांस्तथैव भजाम्यहम् ।
मम वर्त्मानुवर्तन्ते मनुष्याः पार्थ सर्वशः ॥ ११ ॥
ye yathā māṁ prapadyante
tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham
mama vartmānuvartante
manuṣyāḥ pārtha sarvaśaḥ
“As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly. Everyone follows My path in all respects, O son of Pṛithā.”
Bhagavad Gita As It Is Ch4:11, translated by Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta
Everyone is approaching the absolute truth, the source, god or divinity (all terms for the same thing) and according to our level of realization or our personal inclination, the absolute truth is revealed to us all individually. Some may aspire for liberation from matter, some may aspire for absorption in the apparent opulence of matter, and some may have no desire at all. And yet all of us can achieve our desires. And all of these desires are but different aspects of the one original source, the causeless cause of all causes.
In Sanskrit the term “sarva karana karanam” translates as “cause of all causes”. This is a term to describe the source, who is also labelled “the absolute truth”. These are ancient concepts going back thousands of years, and they still apply today – due to the fact that they are absolute, and not relative. And amazingly Krishna, the speaker of the Gita states clearly that whatever approach you make toward the source, or your goal, or the absolute truth, you are rewarded according to your angle of approach. Yes, in the end all these goals are coming from the one original cause of all causes.
Despite the differences of approach or philosophical understanding and interpretation, we are all approaching the same one goal. For example, there are various philosophical schools of thought, and various religious doctrines, based on teachers and prophets and avatars throughout history, yet they all originate from the one source.
I’m not saying they all lead to the same goal, or are as good as the other. There is still relative difference for us relatively limited beings at this point. You can’t head off north and expect to arrive at the goal in the south. You can’t post a letter addressed to gmail and expect it to arrive at a yahoo address. You will attain your desired destination or result according to your trajectory of approach. Yet according to Krishna’s very words here in the Gita, he is the source of them all, in all their varieties and permutations...and limitations.
By all means fulfil your desires for liberation into the brahman, free from form or personality. By all means pursue your desires for gold and soft pillows in this material world. By all means approach the absolute truth as the original personality of godhead in love. You can have whatever you desire, according to your perception of the goal, but the goal itself is provided by the original “cause of all causes”, the “one without a second” the “absolute truth”.
That is the message revealed in this text here today, and we are all searching for that ultimate fulfilment, and there is only one who can satiate the desires that appear ceaseless, like waves lapping on the shore. Once you tap in to that source, you are forever whole, you have found perfection, you are back home in your original constitutional position, regardless of your outer physical persona in this lifetime. Being in heaven, fulfilled, complete and whole, is a state of consciousness. It is the original quality of the self, the eternal spirit soul, described as “sat chit ananda” (eternally full in knowledge, consciousness and bliss). If your goal and truth gives you that, then by all means embrace it. There is nothing else anyway.
(image pixabay)