Principle 85
The Principle of Trust & Honesty
We put these two together because they are interdependent. You can’t have trust without honesty, for a verification of honesty creates trust. Trust is an outgrowth of a consistent presentation of that which is true.
This principle can be summed up as follows: To be honest means that every word that you speak is true to the best of your ability. To be trusted means that you can be relied upon to speak the truth or act in accordance with it.
These two things represent a principle because they open the door to greater knowledge and not applying them closes the door.
The key to higher knowledge is your soul or Higher Self which is founded upon truth and is the only thing in which we can totally place our trust. The door to establishing that link is to focus on the soul energy which circulates between the individual and the High Self which is linked to God. When the seeker focuses on honestly communicating that which is true then the soul energy flows unimpeded and the seeker will in time draw closer to his soul until he and his soul are as one unit. On the other hand, when the person knowingly lies, deceives and distorts the truth his focus is then directed downward toward material energies which form a dark cloud blotting out the inner sun, which is the soul.
Many people think that telling a lie now and then is a good thing, but consider this. Let us suppose that you were chosen to be a prophet like Moses and you had the privilege of talking with some higher being such as Jehovah, Jesus or an archangel. Now let us suppose that this Being told you that your life would be protected if you did what he asked, but he asked you to do some very difficult and dangerous things such as Jehovah asked of Moses.
What would be the main reason that would cause you to cooperate with this Being?
The answer: Trust.
And why would you trust him?
Because you would think that God or His representative would be telling you the truth and never lie to you.
And what were the instructions of Jesus to the disciples?
“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matt 5:48
In other words, we are supposed to follow the same path that God pursues and above all else that path is based on representing that which is true.
On the other hand when talking about the adversary Jesus said to his accusers, “the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” John 8:44
So, God represents truth and that which comes from Him can be trusted whereas adversaries of God will lie, distort and deceive to achieve their goals.
It is true that a lie can achieve a temporary advantage, but in the end truth always wins out because he who represents truth can be trusted and will magnetically draw the enlightened to him. Deception represents darkness and he who represents darkness will draw darkened souls to himself that eventually creates a black hole with no light of the spirit in it.
A problem with always seeking to tell the truth is that it may seem that telling a lie is sometimes the right thing to do.
Let us suppose are in Nazi Germany and the SS knock on your door and want your son. You know that if they get their hands on him he will be tortured and killed. You have him hidden in a secret hide-a-way in the basement. Do you lie to save his life?
If you do, is there anything wrong with doing so?
To understand the repercussions we must look at the result of the two decisions.
Decision One: If you tell the truth and your child is killed then you are partially responsible for his death and suffering.
Is being an accomplice to murder wrong? Yes, very wrong.
Decision Two: You tell a convincing lie and the SS leave. You have saved your son’s life. Was it worth it? Yes, of course. Anyone with an ounce of humanity would do this and more to save his child. Most would be willing to face the jaws of hell and risk their own soul rather than be a part to such harm to a loved one.
Does this mean that no harm was caused by the lie?
Let me put it this way. If one man endures a cut to his finger and another has a whole leg whacked off do both afflictions cause harm to the body?
Yes.
Are both painful?
Yes.
Is the pain equal?
No.
Would it be worth it to endure the cut finger to save the leg?
Yes, of course.
Would it make sense to lose the leg to save a cut finger?
Of course not.
Since the right thing to do is so easy to see in this case then why is it so difficult to see in the circumstance where the Nazis knock on the door? The lie is the cut finger and the loss of the child is the lost leg.
The point is that both the lie and the murder would be wrong but the lie is the lesser evil. When faced with two evils the key of judgment must be used to choose the lesser of the two.
Some may ask. Does a lie create harm even in this extreme circumstance?
Does the cut finger still have some pain, even though it saved the leg? Yes, it still smarts, but was indeed worth the sacrifice.
Every lie knowingly told adds to the cloud between consciousness and soul. If the person can live his life in complete honesty, to his highest understanding, the clouds will disperse and the barrier between himself and the soul will be removed making him a soul infused personality.
So how does the disciple achieve such honesty? After all, do we not have circumstances come up now and then where we feel we have to lie?
Yes, just about all do.
Does not every person who is human have his limits? In other words, is there not some circumstance that would create enough pressure to force any person to tell a lie or intentionally deceive?
Yes, we all have our limits. Some may think they do not, but they do.
Then how is complete honesty possible?
It is possible when the disciple decides to take control of his life and make his own reality structured according to his own desired creation. If he desires complete honesty he must do three things.
Understand the liberation that honesty will bring and make a decision to pursue this path.
Assess himself and his own limitations. He must realize where his breaking point is or what would have to occur to force him to break his rule of honesty and lie.
He must then look into the future and mold it so that breaking circumstance will never occur. If such a disciple had lived in Nazi Germany as Hitler was coming to power he would have been contemplating the future and taken his family out of the country before the real trouble began thus avoiding the circumstance forcing him to lie. Einstein, for instance, was one of those wise enough to smell the coffee and leave Germany and thus never had to lie to the SS troops.
As fledgling disciples it is our duty to commit ourselves to total honesty, but to assess our limitations and seek to control our lives to the extent that the truth can always be revealed.
If the disciple can look over his past ten years and see that he has been more honest than in the pervious ten then he can take this as a sign he is progressing toward liberation from material forces on the path to life eternal.
“He who has not a good memory should never take upon himself the trade of lying.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592)
Copyright 2016 by J J Dewey
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