On Love and Truth

Transcript:

All of reality is made up of two things, love and truth. At the deepest level, these things are inseparable. But at the temporal day to day level, they present themselves as two distinct and related realities. Human life transpires in the pursuit of both of these, to know and give both ever more perfectly, ever more abundantly, evermore boundlessly, and to know, perceive, and live in truth. Similarly, to seek ever finer and more refined grasp of precisely the nature of truth.

So, this being the core definition of all of what we do, all of our waking and sleeping, all of our, all of our eating and playing, all of our working and striving, all of it is related only just to these two matters, love and to truth. Truth is often perceived as learning, studying, observing, note taking, a remote and distant observational type of taking in. And with that, we come to know truth ever more deeply, we come to know exactly as things are to know the true nature of them. But love, on the other hand, is not really perceived or appreciated as something observational that we studied from afar. Rather we jump in, we dive in, we feel loved, we give love, we do things that are loving. It is conceived more of as an action oriented part of life.

What I want to recommend is that the assumption about this as the nature of truth is actually not not accurate. Truth, just like love, is attained by action, it is an action oriented reality. Because the only thing that one knows as true is what one has gained by acting upon what we’ve read or heard to be true. Everything else we simply presume to be the case, if we do not act on it, to test it. But really, that remains something we’ve heard and perhaps “trust” to be true. So truth that becomes our own, is always experienced and is always the result of action. So that’s one way in which love and truth are conflated or made a single thing, in that they both require action to be called ours. If we're only simply observing from afar, we know about it, but we do not know “it.”

The other thing about the relationship between love and truth is that truth is not a free standing reality that is fun in and of itself. Truth is actually the conduit or vehicle or passage through which love passes. Knowledge of how things really are, exists only just to make love possible. They don't exist for any other reason. Truth is formed by the nature love. That's why it is as it is, it serves love, it's the face is the face of love. It's the rails of love, the edifice of love, it's everything that's true, everything that has the essential reality is there only so that love abound. For example, you love your plant. You need to know how often it can be watered. Plants love water, but surely they don't love too much water. And so, knowledge of what's true, this is simply scientific knowledge, the nature of this plant and how much water it can take, or how much water is optimal for itself. So you know the reality and the nature of this plant. That's just true, but the only reason why we know  is so that they can be loved, so that you don't drown, or starve it by thirst.

Similarly with other human beings. People try to make studies of this, they talk about love languages, right? So you get to know a human being well enough. So that acts that are meant to be acts of love, if they're inconsistent with the truth of the matter they don’t end up as love. Same as with a plant. Say you’re making your wife a beautiful brunch in bed and serving it at 3am in the morning. Somehow love is not happening right there. All you're doing is disturbing someone from their sleep. So getting to know the truth of a person's situation, if they're a person that gets up at 3am that might be the most perfect, the most incredible form of love you can give. You're getting up four hours earlier than you ordinarily do just to make her breakfast. For a person who's trying to make a life for a particular reason is up to three and has their fears pursued at that time.

So this simple word, or these couple of words this morning, only have to do with the suggestion or recommendation of two things which might be novel or interesting, or at least posited for consideration. One is that love and truth are not as distinct or different from one another as they are perceived and approached and treated. In our day to day lives they have a different feel to them. But in fact, they are intimately and integrally integrated so that truth only exists so that love can happen. That's the only reason why it should be pursued, is so that love can happen. And then the other thing I want to posit for consideration, is to shed or abandon this notion that truth is something that is studied from afar, or reading lots of books or taking notes or listening. These are ways to help us get at the truth, but the only things we know as true, just like love require action. It's acting upon our suspicions about the nature of reality, which puts us into a deep and perfect, intimate relationship with the truth, with the matter of the actual reality in which we seek to move and carry out our affairs.

Thanks a lot for listening.