One of the things that has divided men, both spiritually and physically, is the fight for truth."It is always best to think first for ourselves on any subject, and then to others for the correction or improvement of our own sentiments. The quantity of knowledge thus gained may be less, but the quality will be superior. Truth received on authority, or acquired without labor, makes but a feeble impression." - William Ellery ChanningThese people are simply looking for excuses to carry on in the manner they have become accustomed to. The idea of what is good and what is evil has been confused with what is true and what is false. What is felt to be good for one may not be good for another. What one may feel is evil may not feel evil to another. This does not change truth, truth remains. A truth: God has granted each one of us life - the greatest gift ever given. A truth: It is wrong to take life for anything other than sustenance. You kill it, you eat it. A truth: As long as I live the Sun will shine. I have faith that each of these truths are absolute. A truth: Knowledge can not be evil. Knowledge points the way to reality. And reality points to God. I stand in awe of God. I feel God within me. I see the immense power of God which stands before me in the existence of creation. What is the truth?"I asked my grandfather once if he could tell me what truth was."I don't think I've lived long enough to know that," he said, "all I know is that without truth Iktomi, the Trickster, would be the most powerful being on Earth. And that's the truth."Having lived more than half a century, I think I'm just beginning to gain some insight into my grandfather's reply. Truth is often difficult to distinguish. Truth can be a gift or a burden; it can be kind or cruel. Truth frequently eludes our grasp and we find it difficult to describe. Truth can at times hide so well that we can't find it to save ourselves, or it disguises itself so skillfully that we walk all over it without knowing. And in the next instance it becomes plain as day, whether we want it to or not. In the end we learn we can't live without truth. "Truth is the marker along the roads we travel in life," my grandfather did say. The Red Road has many markers. If you choose the Black Road, there is only the illusion of truth. We can be influenced by truth or by illusion. Two chieftains met on a plain while their two armies waited. "I have ten thousand warriors, every one skilled with weapons and seasoned by battle. Victory will be mine," said the first chieftain. "What do you have?" "Only the truth," replied the second chieftain. "This war has decimated my people so I face you now with an army of a thousand children. This truth will either destroy you or glorify you." The first chieftain returned to his camp, where his army of ten thousand stood ready for battle. He ordered his army to put aside their weapons while he went into seclusion to ponder the truth his enemy had spoken. With the new dawn he sent his chief aide with gifts of food and an offer of peace to the army of a thousand children. The first chieftain then returned to his homeland and stood to be judged before his countrymen, fully expecting to be dishonored for his weakness. He was, instead made a king. Sometimes truth is like the wind. You can't see it, but you can see the effect it has. Truth is also like sunrise and sunset. We see the sun come up over the eastern horizon in the morning and then disappear behind the western horizon in the evening. From the perspective of our existence on a spinning sphere, the sun appears to "rise" and "set." In reality the sun does neither. Reality is what is, first and foremost, on Earth. Lakota reality is, for example, that the four seasons cycle in precisely the same order year after year. Reality is that lakes and rivers freeze in winter and thaw in the spring, that all living things die, that change is inevitable. Truth is the result of the trials and errors of life, the lessons we learned such as "Without evil, goodness would be harder to recognize," or "The first casualty of war is truth," or " A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Some lessons rise out of the illusions we have acquired: for example, "Good will always prevail over evil." Truth is subjective. Truth is also subject to change, as in "Man was not intended to fly." If there is a universal human weakness, it is that we want to believe there is truth because we want clear answers rather than illusions, and therefore we are vulnerable to anything that seems to be the truth. Truth consists of two parts: that which is given and that which is accepted. We Lakota have heard Iktomi sing several times. At the Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851, as thousands upon thousands of white emigrants made their way along the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon and passed through Lakota territory, the United States peace commissioners told us, "They are only passing through and need only as much room as the width of their wagon wheels." The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 established the Great Sioux Reservation - the entire western half of the current state of South Dakota - for "as long as the sun shall rise, as long as the rivers shall flow, as long as the grasses shall grow." The truth is sometimes painful, but without, it there is only illusion. The truth is we Lakota still walk the face of the Earth. The truth is we survived traumatic change and are wiser and stronger because of it. The illusion is that we were defeated by a stronger, better, more moral people with more God given rights than we had. The truth is we were overwhelmed by numbers: more people with more guns needing more and more of what we had. The illusion, is that we are a conquered people. The truth is that we are survivors; we took on the worst that our "conquerors" could throw at us and we are still standing. The illusion is that we are part of the past - something to be studied, analyzed, measured, dissected, and ultimately judged. The truth is we are still a viable culture with traditions, customs, and values that have stood the severest tests. We all have our truths, some easier to accept than others. The L train is always late; prairie gumbo is bottomless after a hard rain; one brother-in-law is a geek and the other believes he's a saint; commuting sucks; my parents hate me because I'm sixteen; my sixteen-year-old hates me because she's sixteen; a one sided love affair is the pits; the Minnesota Vikings broke my heart - again; I can't live without my wife. When all is said and done there is only one truth that is unwavering. This one truth has endured and will always endured because it will stand unabashedly and without apology. That truth is death, and it is the one that is avoided and most feared by American society. The truth of death should be the standard for truth against which all others are measured. We will find that nothing can compare with its honesty and faithfulness. Death is a taboo subject, generally speaking, consistently referred to euphemistically as the Grim Reaper, the cold night, or the wages of sin: There is rarely casual conversation among non-Indians about death or dying. Any references to death are made in hushed and apprehensive tones. A visit to any mortuary or cemetery is a confirmation of the general state of denial about death in American society. Funeral directors sell coffins that will "protect your loved one for ages to come." Stone or cement crypts and mausoleums are used for the same reason: to deny death as long as possible. Logically, we are at least apprehensive about anything we don't know. Most people fear death because they don't know it, or they know the wrong things about death. No matter how much we deny it or try to avoid it, death touches us sooner or later when a friend or a loved one dies. After we mourn and grieve the loss, many of us become angry at death as if it were an interloper, a thief in the night, a villain, or a killer. Death does not kill. Disease, accidents, rage, old age, stupidity, among others, are killers. Death is only part of the process of life. The truth about death is simple. It will happen. Nothing is more inevitable, no matter how vigorously we deny it or fight it. Death will come for us regardless of how powerful, famous, rich, beautiful, influential, irreverent, or lowly we are. There is no way to fight death. We can fight to live, but we will always lose the fight against death. Thinking of death in those terms creates the illusion that death is an enemy, but death isn't our enemy; it is, when all is said and done, our truest friend. The most profound and reassuring truth about death is that it is a part of life. Life begins with birth and ends with death. With no other journey you travel can you know how it will end. We begin dying the moment we are born, which means living well is dying well. That is the truest measure of any being. The final - and perhaps the greatest - truth about death is that it is the great equalizer; it connects all living beings to its truth. Every form of life shares with us the same journey that begins with birth and ends with death. No one being or species, not the most powerful, nor the most arrogant, nor the wisest will ever alter that truth. There are many certainties and even more illusions masquerading as truth, nothing short of living and learning will enable us to know the difference. The first chieftain accepted the truth he heard and reacted to it with the truth of his own character, and was rewarded. Iktomi, on the other hand, presents illusion as truth, and always will. Beware of Iktomi." - Joseph M. Marshall, Native American Sioux, Lakota tribe. Those who set their mind in harmony become free
from the bonds of death. |
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A tree hugger holds truth close to the heart.
"Mother Nature long ago provided us with free devices that remove carbon dioxide from our air using natural solar power: trees and forests. One fast-growing tree can sequester many tons of carbon. In addition to curtailing carbon emissions, let's get back to basics. How about planting trees?" - Elan Glasser
I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE
OAK GROWING
I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing,
All alone
stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any
companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green,
And its look, rude,
unbending, lusty, made me think of
myself,
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves
standing alone there without its friend near,
for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it and
twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed
it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear
friends,
(For I believe lately I
think of little else than of them,)
Yet it
remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of
manly love;
For all that, and though the live
oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat
space,
Uttering joyous
leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
Walt
Whitman
trust
custody; care.
certainty based on past experience.
one in which confidence is placed.
to commit, as to one's care; to entrust.
to give credence to; to believe; to credit.
To place confidence in; to rely on, to confide, or repose faith in.
to show confidence in an individual by entrusting (him) with some thing.
firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of an individual or thing.
assured anticipation; dependence upon some thing future or contingent, as if present or actual; hope; belief.
oxytocin
The essence of trust, a catalyst of all friendship, cooperation and democracy, is a neurochemical that can be distilled into a nasal spray and used to ease the natural suspicion of strangers. This neurochemical is a hormone called oxytocin which aids in mating among fish, breast feeding among mammals and also promotes trust between human beings.
“Some of our sexuality has evolved to stimulate that same oxytocin system to create female-male bonds.” - Larry Young
See God's Law
See Natural Law or the Law of God
This web site is not a commercial web site and is presented for educational purposes only.
| This website defines a new religious
ideology to which its author adheres. The author feels that the falsification
of reality outside personal experience has created a populace unable to discern
propaganda from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an
international corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt
version of reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any
group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due
to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of the religion
aptly named The Truth of the Way of Life - a rational religion based on reason
which requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no
church buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to
develop a personal relation with God through the pursuit of the knowledge of
reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the
human spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of Life are spelled out in
detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to
their religious beliefs in America is considered a “hate
crime.” This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already controls the world central banking system, mass media worldwide, the industrial military complex of America and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the point of a gun. American social mores and values have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general through mass media by pressing emotional buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior mass media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that further consolidates their power and which further their purposes. All views and opinions presented on this web site are the views and opinions of individual human men and women that, through their writings, showed the capacity for intelligent, reasonable, rational, insightful and unpopular thought. All factual information presented on this web site is believed to be true and accurate and is presented as originally presented in print media which may or may not have originally presented the facts truthfully. Opinion and thoughts have been adapted, edited, corrected, redacted, combined, added to, re-edited and re-corrected as nearly all opinion and thought has been throughout time but has been done so in the spirit of the original writer with the intent of making his or her thoughts and opinions clearer and relevant to the reader in the present time. |
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