The most fundamental religious question is not what we believe but what guides our choices. If power determines our choices we end up as psychopaths. If pleasure rules our choices we become hedonists. If mere sentiment moves our choices, we become weak and ineffectual. All of these are different kinds of a self-created hell. Of course, people of goodwill choose love as their life’s compass. But what differentiates love from emotion, superficial agreeableness, or codependency? Jesus gives us the answer in today’s Gospel from John 18:37: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Love always serves the highest good of the other person and ourselves. Love makes us bigger and better and moves us toward higher and higher states of consciousness. Love makes us God-like. However, there is no love without truth. Truth is what guides the momentum, energy, and spirit of love. Truth tells us how to love. Truth is the substance of love. Truth is neither a proposition nor a concept. It is a vibratory force that mirrors Reality, and God and Reality are one and the same. When we try to bend Reality to serve our own selfish ends, we create hell in our lives and in the lives of others. Hellish experiences are always grounded in a lie. By contrast, to the extent we are guided by truth, we are aligned with Reality. Then and only then will we experience what religious people call heaven. Heaven is not a place, but a state of consciousness.
The good news is that we are capable of hearing the voice of truth and allowing it to guide us. Hearing the truth begins with the acknowledgment that what we don’t know is far greater and more important than what we do know. Such an acknowledgment creates a level of humility which acts as a portal for hearing the voice of truth. Then, we nurture a sense of interior silence through meditation. Remember, silence is the language of God and everything else is a poor translation. Finally, we began to act in accordance with the light of the truth that has been given to us. The more we align with truth, the more loving, creative, and fruitful we become. Contemplate Yogananda’s words,
“Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived. Any erroneous thought of man is a result of an imperfection, large or small, in his discernment. The goal of yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the Inner Voice.”
Divine God and Guru,
May I want the Truth
So I may grow in love.
Gospel Truth and Yogananda’s Wisdom
