Absolutely true. Lying, deception etc are as far from the true soul life as earth from the heaven. It is also true that all scriptures are subject to misuse and it requires a vast, subtle and plastic intelligence to understand the spirit behind it.
As to lying, what do we call as lie, a deliberate wrong statement made with the purpose of a personal gain. Lying of this kind generally stems from the desire self or the ego and is often used as a means to escape some undesirable consequences. In a world where each one understood the other, there would be no such need. In other words lie is the consequence of living in a world governed by ego and desire, driven by pleasures, especially forbidden pleasures that do not meet with social approval. Thus, for example, people don’t lie about going to parties and let their minds be filled with filth. But they lie if their thoughts were actually translated into actions. And if we go behind we shall see an intertwined complexity of life in which human beings are so entangled that they are hardly leading their true life. It is a perpetual hell in which our whole existence is full of hypocrisy and lying to oneself and the world, a whole world of artificiality, of the visible outer fact is considered as truth while all rest is hidden, unnoticed. Running from oneself one lives in a perpetual lie and calls it as truth! In fact our whole life is identified with falsehood because we think we are the body or desires or ideas and opinions which change with time. But Truth is a stable ground of being and the first necessity of man therefore is to find the truth, one’s own truth, then only the rest follows.
This truth of our own being is the secret soul within us. Whatever helps us in discovering it, in living by its light is therefore truth. Its sign is that it brings inner peace and felicity and strength to face life. But few are ready to understand it. Hence the best option left is to remain silent. This silence is itself a service to truth than saying half things which will be invariably misunderstood as they pass through the layers of falsehood in others.
Of course this does not mean one can speak lie and justify by saying I am in search of truth! The two don’t go together. There are provisional truths that are important and have their place in the evolutionary scheme of things. But they have to be left behind for the higher. That is the teaching of the Gita and something we see in the life of countless mystics like Meerabai, Vivekanand, Buddha, Sri Aurobindo and others. What is however to be remembered is that truth is a total seeing and bits and parts do not do justice to it. Hence silence is a better counsel than saying and sharing anything and everything in the name of honesty and integrity. Only the Divine can understand us fully and with Him we should hide nothing.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
