Love of Truth – Manly P. Hall “Truth alone can lead man to perfection. And this perfection he has to earn by giving his own life to truth.”
Boethius was told by this radiant vision that she had been with him since the beginning, the moment he dedicated his life to truth she was with him, and she would be with him until the end of the days and be with all others under the same conditions. Because no one walks through life entirely alone, and those who give themselves to unselfish service to others will walk constantly with the radiant presence beside them.
Something that is going to guard them and protect them because they have deserved it, because they have earned the peace of inner life, they will have it regardless of what happens in the outer world. Truth is alive and walks with those that serve it. Truth is a being, a power, a quality. Truth is the most dynamic way that leads to reality.
What is truth to us? How do we understand truth? We understand that by little efforts to grow. We try to be a little better today than we were yesterday, and we continue to grow a little everyday. But the first step we take towards reality, brings us this contact, that walks with us the rest of the way.
Buddha brings us to same point, he says that the journey to truth begins with a single step. The single step in the Greek system was the first absolutely unselfish dedicated effort to serve. The one moment in life when we strip ourselves, when we are bigger than ourselves, and place a common good above our personal advantage. If we can rise out of the ignorance with which we have locked ourselves, we can begin to see over the edge to things beyond.
When we do that, we will grow a little. As we grow a little, the problems will become less. Everything that tries is rewarded for trying. Why and how? No one tries, nothing tries, unless it has a vision of something better. It may not know how to attain that something better, but if it is willing to try it means it grasps the possibility of improvement.
The moment the individual grasps this moment of realization that improvement is possible, they begin to grow. Nature gives us the rules, and when we do not keep the rules, nature gives us the example of the broken rule.
One of the most beautiful and wonderful displays we have today is this great tapestry of broken rules. Everyone is worried about these broken rules because they are a danger to us. But we have not worried enough yet to correct it. We are still trying to play hooky in the school of life. We are still convinced we are here to have fun, wealth, influence, fame. As long as we do that, the great genius of truth will not be with us.
When any ambition is false, it is not sanctified and is not fulfilled by the laws of life. He must train this body to serve him, or else he must relinquish his leadership and let the body take over. If the body takes over he is in trouble, but he doesn’t know he’s in trouble because if the body is gratified than the rest of them goes to sleep.
The real fact of the matter is that the body has to be brought into harmony, it has to be disciplined. When the body has grown into discipline, it is said to be healthy. When the soul is brought into discipline, it is said to be healthy. When the infinite in man is brought into discipline, then the universal being is healthy.
We know from every experience of living that we can and do have the power to change things, to make them what they should be, to accomplish that which is necessary for the common good and our own. But before we settle down to the processes of changing the world which we are most interested in at the moment, we should give thought to changing ourselves. We find this world is very hard to change and become more and more disillusioned as we see nation a nation, country after country exploiting other countries.
If we look down from the heights of those things into private relationships, we find people and groups out to destroy each other. We find exploitation. We find the effort to dishonorably exploit at the expense of others. We find the broken home, heart and body. We find that the great changes necessary we have not even been able to make in ourselves. There are ways that health can be improved. Improving our health is always a discipline.
We have to do some things differently. We have to sacrifice excess in order to achieve moderation. We have to do something right in order to nullify something wrong. So, we discover that only through discipline can we bring ourselves back into harmony.