Truth - A Suicidal Philosophy?

Even in one's earliest memories , one can remember how they were instructed to be truthful. Parents teach the children to tell the truth due to many reasons, telling truth about eating , sleeping , playing etc all constitute to a better and easier parenting. As the consciousness evolves further, so does the curiosity and whole bunch of questions. The how's, why's , what's become rather annoying aspect of childhood when compared to the prior cuteness and obedience.

         Soon even a child's mind is occupied by the obvious yet the unknown. Where does the life comes from? What's beyond the stars in the sky? Why did the pet cat die? What happens after people die? These array of questions which has pondered the human mind since the beginning of the conscious thoughts. But how can an elder answer these queries , something they still think of when they alone in the realms of darkness. Can they explain the scientific theory of evolution to a four year old? Something they themselves doubt to this day, or resort to the concept of a supreme being , mathematically an unknown variable in the equation whose value cannot be determined yet can be used to solve all that is unsolvable?

          The fear of God or the fear of an invisible entity is then consistently used to teach a child to do the good deeds or what is socially regarded as the right thing to do. Soon the mind begins to  learn the difference between the right and the wrong. As his powers of reasoning develops further, he learns how to justify his actions according to the norms of the environment around him. 

          The Art of Justification is the minds way of adaptation or in simple terms , a way of surviving. But what is the base of this whole system of justification , un doubtfully  it has to be the initial tautologies or fallacies that are either taught or picked up from a child's immense power of observation. In either case the thought process is more likely to converge with that of current existing human knowledge. Since human knowledge evolves with time or simply is transient in it's nature , then the truth also has to be relative to the time. What was true yesterday isn't today, what is true today may not be tomorrow.

        Similarly concept of truth for one individual may not be true for another. Then what is the absolute Truth? A truth which is not transient , doesn't depends on various factors like place , religion , society etc. Throughout the eternity , there have always been few thinkers that have pondered on this and probably spent a life time in search of the same. Even today the scientific community is unconsciously trying to solve this puzzle , maybe after an infinite time all this knowledge may converge into the answer. Religious community has for long shut it's door by disbelieving the very existence of unknown.

 But why is it that most of us don't want to believe the limitation of our knowledge? One simple reason may lie in how we train our senses, our instincts , our faith or our subconscious mind. An individual always tries to justify his actions , somehow he needs a self assurance to know that he is o.k. , that he hasn't strayed from the norms. Repeated justification of a particular action results in the subconscious part of the mind to accept it as a tautology for the future matching of a similar actions. 

On next occurrence of a similar action , he need not think because it is now a truth for him. A very practical analogy is learning to drive a vehicle , with experience the driver already has predetermined reactions to a lot of  road situations. All of the above observations signifies a lot of factors influencing development of our individual faiths and beliefs.

      Till now a reader must be wondering what all this has to do with the topic of this article , what has all these obvious facts have to do with it? It is hard to put more into words because few things are better felt than said. So the rest is more in form of an exercise , a self exploration of one's own mind , since most of the reasons lie buried within our minds and it would be futile to search for them outside. But I must warn , no one can tell what hidden underneath our own mind!

         The whole exercise is based on determining truthfully , without any prejudices answer to just one question - Who am I? The process is to break one's own individuality recursively till one can do no more. Ask thyself the following questions, each time you crack one question , follow it again by another.

1. Why I am what I am?

2. Why do I think this is right or wrong?

3. If I learnt it from someone or something , how did he arrive at that conclusion?

4. What if he could be wrong?

The above process is breakdown of self , very soon it leaves to a point of frustration or disbelief , or simply leaves one into emptiness or unknown space. Majority aborts this process after few steps itself since their self or their individuality is on the verge of getting diminished in their own mind. It is like dying within one's own mind , so the natures survival skills immediately brings him out of such thought process. Since any sort of continuation will make him face the fact that he has been a slave of his own self and maybe his whole individuality is merely a farce.

     But blessed are those few who can take this journey further without getting intimidated by the unknown yet familiar that gets unfolded before their own eyes. Because after the end , begins the new process of picking up all the pieces of the self and putting them together again. As one builds his own identity , he realizes an affinity with everything around him , since now he can build anything or at least can feel their existence like never before. Then there is a feeling of peace and freedom ; and you aren't afraid of yourself again since you have faced it's nakedness.

      What happens if one reaches that unknown and then feels the worthlessness of existence , since all that meant so much is merely a transient form of the unknown? Is it an excuse for renunciation , is it an excuse for escapism?  Is it an excuse for committing a crime?