Precept 7, Seek to Live With the Truth
7. SEEK TO LIVE WITH THE TRUTH.1
False data can cause one to make stupid mistakes. It can even block one from absorbing true data.
One can solve the problems of existence only when he has true data.
If those around one lie to him or her, one is led into making errors and his survival potential is reduced.
False data can come from many sources: academic, social, professional.
Many want you to believe things just to suit their own ends.
What is true is what is true for you.
No one has any right to force data off on you and command you to believe it or else. If it is not true for you, it isn’t true.
Think your own way through things, accept what is true for you, discard the rest. There is nothing unhappier than one who tries to live in a chaos of lies.
7-1. Do not tell harmful lies. 2
Harmful lies are the product of fear, malice and envy. They can drive people to acts of desperation. They can ruin lives. They create a kind of trap into which the teller and the target can both fall. Interpersonal and social chaos can result. Many wars began because of harmful lies.
One should learn to detect them and reject them.
7-2. Do not bear false witness.
There are considerable penalties connected with swearing or testifying to untrue “facts”; it is called “perjury”: it has heavy penalties.
The way to happiness
lies along the road to truth.
- 1. truth: that which agrees with the facts and observations; logical answers resulting from looking over all the facts and data; a conclusion based on evidence uninfluenced by desire, authority or prejudice; an inevitable (unavoidable) fact no matter how arrived at.
- 2. lies: false statements or pieces of information deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood; anything meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.