The Idea of Truth
The
three worded (or some may argue, for it being two worded) mantra from Mundaka
Upnisada, ‘Satymeva jayate’, the eternal ‘truth’ is accepted by the mankind
with utmost faith and belief. India also hails the sacred mantra with it inscribed
in the base of its National emblem. The idea of truth being invincible hides
several questions worth pondering upon though. The bold statement says that
‘truth’ is ever victorious. That ‘truth’ shall ultimately win. Why then is it
so that falsehood exists? What is the nature of ‘truth’ and what is so
intrinsic in its nature that gives it an eternal standing? Can the ‘Idea of
truth’ and the ‘Idea of God’ be used interchangeably? Are they one and the same?
If so, then a man devoted to God A, and a man devoted to God B should not use
same Mathematical, Physical, Medicinal truth for solving their problems, but
should look for their ‘truth’ which depends on their respective God. For, that
would be wise. If, there cannot be two different truths about a particular
scientific question, then there must be only one supreme God. And if that
cannot happen, and mankind is meant to be divided then, truth must be beyond
the idea of God.
Mahatma
Gandhi once said, ‘God is, even though the whole world denies him. Truth stands, even
if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.’ He said something about
God and then hastily ran into highlighting the idea imbedded in ‘Satyameva
Jayate’. The philosophers who have dwelled over the questions of morality,
ethics and freedom have found it necessary to stop at some point and dwell over
the idea of God. Voltaire is famously known to have said, ‘If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him’. The necessity of creating a
God comes from the fact that all the moral philosophies, religious views,
higher truths in various fields of sciences and every single known and unknown
well formed belief or researches in progress would lose their lustre and longevity
in the absence of a creator who did everything with a purpose. A purpose that
can justify all the pain mankind endures during its lifetime. A man lives and
dies without knowing, many a times, the purpose of his life. Throughout his
life he sticks to some set of belief or unbelief (which again is a kind of
belief, a belief of the general belief of mankind being wrong). Amidst all
this, few great souls go on to present their rigorous understanding about life
and try to make the pieces of facts, convictions and observations fit to come
up with meaningful picture (if we can say so, in general for all the
philosophies presented to us in different ways). The philosophies of great
philosophers cannot stand on firm ground, if the idea of God is taken away (if
we agree with Voltaire), can truth stand alone? Is it truly ‘self-sustained’
(as Mahatma Gandhi believed)?
If there is some precondition
for truth to be truly ‘self-sustained’ then it becomes a Mathematical
contradiction that translates into the fact that truth can be self-sustained
only if something else is present. Absurd! Wait, is it? Alas! What is
Mathematics, Mathematical contradiction and absurdity, if not something
somewhere found on the bases of ‘truth’ earlier? How can a convict in the court
room, be the judge, the advocate and the audience as well? Are we sufficiently
equipped to answer these questions?
Let us assume that we are (lest
we forget that the assumption itself has a seed of truth), the next question is
what is it that we seek to reach at and what is it that we seek to clarify.
For, it’s always wise to leave for a voyage with chart and compass, so that we
do not get lost. To start with, let’s consider following four inter-related
questions:-
1. Is ‘truth’ self-sustained
2. If not, what is it that is
required as a precondition for it to be so
3. If there is a precondition, does
not the ‘truth’ of the first question loses its self-sustained nature
4. What is the nature of ‘truth’
then
Try speaking a false statement,
while knowing the truth to someone you value. You will surely see that a false
statement, while it travel from your conscience an reaches the lips after
having travelled through the jungle of facts of your brain, leaves a trail of
guilt. Why is it so? Is it in human nature to be truthful and feel guilty about
the inability of being so at times? Many a times, worst of the worst men, who
had been atrocious, foul and mean during their lifetimes, are found muttering
views of repentance at their death bed. There’s something that makes a dying
man realise that he did not put truthful effort in his deeds, or he did things
his heart and soul warned him not to do. Scriptures define holy souls as the
ones which leave their bodies with no repentance and probably with joy. Such is
the nature of truth, that it can make a person’s life blissful if practiced
truly, without deceit. But is it self-sustained?
Let’s, come out of human
perimeters and think about flowers. A seed of a rose flower, for instance, hold
the truth about the kind of flower it will grow into if provided with proper
environmental conditions. When the seed in sown a seedling peeps out from the
earth’s crust in few days. It grows into a plant with thorns and characteristic
leaves. Anyone can tell that it is a rose plant even when no flower or bud
appears. The truth shows its universal nature. No matter in which part of the
world the rose seed is sown, it gives birth to the same rose plant. Days pass
and the flower blossoms. It fragrance, its colour, its petals fill our heart
with joy. We appreciate the beauty of the flower. The seed did not cheat
itself. It grew into what it was meant to be. It did not worship any God. It
did not need to know that there was a God.
From the above two wanderings
in the domains of human and plant life respectively, we could bring out one
thing and that is, it is truth that manifests itself in any form of life (we
leave the dead world untouched, for the time being). Its manifestation is such
that, it goes on and on, not through one single form of life but through innumerable.
It keeps taking different forms. It discontinues a form of life if the form
stops serving the purpose of truth - manifestation. Dianasours for example,
have become extinct as they could not cope up with the climatic conditions and
could not evolve considerably to adapt to new conditions (some theories say
their might have been natural calamity or catastrophe resulting in the
extinction of the species but we are not too much bothered about the actual
cause at the moment).
Truth stands on few axioms
which can be left unchallenged. If they are challenged, their anti statements
become the new bases of truth. And in both the ways truth becomes eternal and
(as it might seem) self-sustained. Absence of truth, is a kind of truth in itself
and so there cannot be any situation where the mantra ‘satyameva jayate’ does
not holds good.
The meditation on the nature of
these axioms can take one from one level of understanding to another and this
process of refining of knowledge can be said to be a step towards mokhsa, knowing
the truth in its most basic form. A form that does not stands on the grounds of
any other assumption. It is this level ground, where the philosophers find the
creation God crucial. Truth stands on the axioms that ‘God exists’. Those who
do not agree with it, have their axiom as ‘There is no God’. Both ways truth
comes to existence. The beauty is that it takes the same form in various
fields. For example, the gravitational force with which two heavenly pull each
other follows the same laws. The electron in the first orbit of any Carbon
atom, behaves in the same way irrespective of where it is and in what era of
time. The photosynthesis in plants obey the same universal laws.
God or no God is equally good
for truth to exist in the way it does. Then why does Volatire said, that God
must be created if He was not their? Well, as soon as one says that there isn’t
any God, he instantaneously creates the very same. By saying that there is no
all powerful, merciful and benevolent God, the idea gets created. The idea has
all the potentials as the actually presence of such a God can have. (I used the
word ‘actual’ with a lot of pain the preceding line to present the thought, we
are still lingering over the question of what is ‘actual’ and what is
‘virtual’). The thought is that there is no way that we can escape the idea of
God, whether we believe in it or not. So to conclude I can say that truth is
based on the idea of God. And mankind cannot escape the idea of God. For the
non-living (and other creatures other than man) truth must have some other
nature.
