SOME VERSION OF TRUTH
Recently I came across this quote by J.Krishnamurthy:
“We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear”.
Thinking of a corollary to that statement led me to pen this blog on a yet another human behavior.
If everything we know or think we know is second-hand information, it is also equally true that what we say generally to others or hear from others is only some version of truth that is understood, strictly, as “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth.”
The following conversation occurs in the movie Something’s Gotta Give, where Jack Nicholson and Diane
Keaton, in the autumn of their lives, fall in love.
Diane Keaton ( Erica) : I don’t trust you! You are always lying to me!
Jack Nicholson (Harry): I always told you some version of truth.
Diane Keaton ( Erica): I thought truth has only one version!
I am not sure if Erica said as much, but we all know that truth has only one version. Any attempt to tamper with it – altering the facts, the circumstances, the words – makes it a perjury within a legal context. The court of law demands us to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Thus the obligation to tell truth in a trial is a heavy-duty thing. It may not seem a burden when men and women, in their daily lives, always tend to offer only some version of the truth. And it is certainly no evil thing.
One spends life navigating many paths -with events and people from many walks of life. We deal in private, personal affairs as well as matters that are aloof and detached to our own attention and concern. What this means is that in our daily life we habitually act practical and deliberately avoid something disagreeable from the past – about episodes involving ourselves or others who mean a lot to us; at this point, there is no compulsion to speak of the whole truth, warts and all.
I once complimented a gentleman in India who passed the IAS examination. Later, I came to know he succeeded only in his third attempt – something he never revealed to me. Was that bad?
In 1986 I met a classmate of my high school days and spent a day with him in Berhampur. I asked him if he ever smoked. He said “Never!” but his wife told me later that he had been a smoker for many years and stopped only after a son was born.
These people were telling me some version of truth – and what is a big deal about it? Nothing.
I wonder if our ancients understood the human need to ‘sanitize’ things as of paramount importance to sustain on-going relationships. We have the following sloka from Vishnu Sahasranamam when we conclude the Stothram. A similar appeal to God seeking forgiveness for all our sins ( intentional or unintentional) figures in the mandatory Sandhi ritual as well – performed thrice a day. When invested with a sacred-thread, the youth entering the status of Brahmachari, gets a slightly different version of the sloka to confess his possible wayward behavior and seek redemption.
Amazing! Just imagine how broad-based and sophisticated is this plea for forgiveness!
Kaayenavacha Manasendryrva
Buddhyatmanava prakrithai svabhaavat
Karomi yadyat sakalam parasmai
Narayanayeti samarpayaami
Now, we are always encouraged to meditate on the meaning of each word while uttering it. But we know it is mostly rote learning we indulge in our prayer – we are talking about strict memorization – parroting without actually under-standing a word.
So it came as a welcome relief when I found a simple translation of this sloka in English:
A simple awareness that we are owing up things.
I offer all that I do,
Whatever I do with my body,
To Lord Narayana,
Whatever I do with my body,
Whatever I do with my mind,
Whatever I do with my brain,
Whatever I do with my soul,
And whatever I do with nature’s help.
