by Natti Ronel
With time, sensitivity to the truth increases. It seems that the truth is hiding behind veils of lies that we learn to identify. Some of these veils are large and prominent; they hide the truth completely, and it’s impossible to ignore them. When we remove them, we find more delicate veils, the kind that we found it easier to ignore before sensitivity to the truth developed, until we reach the veils that are so delicate, they’re virtually transparent, as if they only besmirch the truth a little, but we can dispense with these as well.
Alongside emphasis on the truth, a fundamental point should be clarified. When we say, “truth only,” and our intention is to tell the truth in all circumstances, we don’t necessarily tell the whole truth, but we should ensure that everything we say and do will be the truth. What’s the difference? Telling the whole truth means telling everything, and it isn’t always appropriate or relevant to tell everything. For example, telling somebody the whole truth as it’s known to us isn’t always right or helpful. Telling a part of the truth suggests a knowledge of how to filter the information and decide what is appropriate and desirable, and what is not, but without misleading. If someone asks us a question that we don’t want to answer, it’s possible to give a partial answer, but of course, we should stress that the answer is partial, so as not to create the illusion of the whole truth. For example, somebody shows us a picture he or she has painted and wants to hear our opinion. We aren’t obliged to tell the would-be artist that the picture is ugly and shows no sign of talent or other negative comments. On the other hand, to tell him or her that this is a work of genius, testifying to a great talent, when in our opinion, it isn’t like that at all, is a lie we prefer to avoid. But there are other possibilities, for example -- telling somebody that we’re impressed by the hard work invested in the painting, or the color-scheme is outstanding (if indeed it is outstanding). Adherence to the truth is an opportunity to search and say something which is both positive and in keeping with the facts. Thus, the tools “Being Positive” and “Truth Only” are combined, and nobody is needlessly offended. But if the person insists on hearing our opinion of the quality of the work -- we could say we prefer not to answer or tell the truth tactfully, in a way that causes no offense. When we state our true opinion with consideration and sensitivity, it is less hurtful than we might think. In time, we see there is no reason to defend people by means of little falsehoods; we should show them consideration and courtesy which is faithful to the truth, and the results are not in our hands anyway. Thus, people begin to appreciate our sincerity, to rely on our word. And to accept it with respect even when it’s less pleasant.
Acting truthfully
What is the meaning of acting truthfully? Acting truthfully has many levels. It is easy to see activities that are clearly dishonest, such as cheating in business or signing deceitful contracts and more. A fairly widespread activity is not reporting all income or exaggerating expenses, to improve the state of the balance-sheet and to avoid paying full tax. Over the years, I’ve encountered too many such cases. For example, many service-providers are not exactly enthusiastic when they’re asked to present a bill for their services, because drawing up a bill obliges them to declare their earnings. During consultations and in self-work, it turns out that almost always we’re dealing with habits of lying and the truth, because adherence to the truth is a central tool on the way to our growth. Sometimes when I used to suggest the “Truth Only” tool to people, they thought I was crazy. Everyone cheats, don’t they? How is it possible to survive without cutting corners? -- as a shopkeeper said to me when he came to me for advice. If the money’s just lying there -- aren’t you going to bend down and pick it up? And why give it to the government, which takes too much anyway and won’t let us make a decent living? The temptation is great.
When people want to make progress in the way of the spirit, adherence to truth is a basic and critical tool for progress, but it won’t be the first tool to offer to anyone who is liable to run away if the suggestion is made too early. Emily is a remarkable woman who set up a small-scale factory. At a certain stage during the conversations between us she said she couldn’t declare all her income and expenses to the tax authorities, because most of the suppliers she dealt with were doing the same thing she was doing -- not giving receipts. If she couldn’t claim for all her expenses, it obviously wasn’t in her interests to declare all her income. In addition to this, she was concerned about her business and was afraid that full disclosure to the authorities would lead to higher tax liabilities, to the point where the factory would no longer be economically viable. Of course, the calculations about her life were hers, and the decisions were hers. But the question arose -- what was her most important aspiration in life -- profit? Financial security? Or something else, deeper and more fundamental? It became clear to Emily that truth was important to her. Very much so. I advised her to change the suppliers serving her business, advice which she decided to follow. What emerges here is a rather gloomy picture of our society, because after making her decision, it took her a long time before she succeeded in finding suppliers who traded only in a straight and honest fashion. After a lot of effort, she found what she was looking for, and began trading on a totally honest and legitimate basis -- and declared all her income. Grace is usually a pleasant surprise. The calm that came to Emily after a long period of perseverance astonished her. What astonished her even more was the sense of economic security, which came with the knowledge that all her profits would now be legal, open and consistent with the facts. There’s a popular saying, according to which there is no blessing in a profit that isn’t fair and reasonable. When Emily started working in a totally legal way, without regard for the economic results, but believing in the importance of the “Truth Only” principle, she ran her small-scale business more efficiently. Her business grew, slowly but surely -- perhaps because of the change in management style, perhaps on account of the good “karma” of fair trade, perhaps for other reasons. She found blessing, and her profits only expanded. These results definitely pleased Emily and encouraged her. After a few months of acclimatizing, the possibility of cheating no longer existed from her point of view, and in the opinion of both of us, this was the most important outcome.
There’s another interesting story about adherence to truth. Gary was employed as a laborer and he had additional income from independent consulting work, income which he declared only partially, thus avoiding paying tax in full. Sally, his wife, wanted him to declare everything and wasn’t interested in profits earned on an illicit basis. But Gary was worried by their financial situation and by the need to support their young family, so he refused to declare all his income. The difference in their outlook led to friction and quarrels between them. At a certain stage, Sally decided on a different approach -- she asked him to open a separate bank account, in addition to their joint account, and transfer all his undeclared earnings into the new account, from which no money would be taken for household expenses. The money in the new account would be his own. This was an elegant and creative combination of “Truth Only” with “what’s mine -- is mine; what’s theirs -- is theirs.” Gary agreed, hostilities were terminated, and very soon he also stopped hiding his income.
As we have said, there are various levels of veils that attempt to hide the truth, and business fraud requires a prominent veil. This applies to theft and dishonesty in general -- a deceitful act which camouflages the truth crudely. A subtler level of veils applies to various forms of manipulation, emotional manipulation and other varieties, which we practice in order to get results that seem desirable to us. There are widespread social strategies -- the accepted politics of personal relationships -- in which manipulative lies are considered acceptable. We see this in official relationships -- for example, in the workplace, also in very intimate relationships, conjugal and familial. It’s a shame. There’s no grace in it, no light and no hope, just increasing dependence on results which pass very quickly. There are cases in whi
ch a manipulative lie is particularly destructive, especially in intimate relationships. Every deceitful act in relationships like this establishes a situation of distance, even if we tell ourselves and others a different story. As I said -- it’s a shame. Sometimes there’s a more sophisticated form of camouflage which expresses itself in body-language, manner of speech, or something similar. For example, you can meet people whose tone of voice, in certain moments, changes in an attempt at manipulation that they’re not even aware of themselves. I’m reminded of someone whose tone of voice sometimes became tearful and plaintive when he was looking for sympathy and a positive reaction. The slightly tearful tone was a deceitful tone that this person had grown accustomed to using, in the hope of achieving desirable results. After we made him aware of his tone of voice, and he saw himself from the side in these moments, he was quite shocked, because the plaintive style had been involuntary, adopted without any conscious choice on his part. Acting truthfully means identifying these social manipulations and being liberated from them; it brings us back to non-dependence and serenity, whatever the results may be.
A deeper level of acting truthfully is doing what we do to the very best of our ability in every situation. Doing our best may sound simple and obvious, but, in fact, when we try to do our best, we often fail. On the other hand, there’s something to aspire towards and it’s worth keeping up with the effort to do our best despite our occasional lapses. The endeavor to do one’s best expresses truth in action, and an action which isn’t our best has something rather ambivalent about it -- almost doing the right thing but, in practice, slacking. The emphasis is on the manner of action -- focusing on the way in which we act, which is the “how” -- and that’s where we look for the best, as opposed to perfectionism, which is an act that sacrifices the manner of action out of dependency on a perfect result. The result, what we achieve through our action, is certainly dependent on many other factors. Doing our best liberates us from dependence on the result and is focused on the right process.
Doing our best also relates to doing more precisely -- for example, if we have committed ourselves to finish something by a certain date, we’ll do all that we can to accomplish what is required and stand by the commitment. We’ll act cheerfully and tenderly, without rigidity, but we’ll keep to the commitment. Working with an aspiration towards precision respects us and others and the truth. In other words -- starting things at the time stipulated, finishing at the time determined, arriving at a meeting on the right time, and so on. Let’s stress this -- it should be done gently, without rigidity, with joy and grace, and without pettiness.
Doing our best introduces a new order of things, a new perspective -- acting by choice in a manner that reflects the truth and the grace that we want to encounter, not out of a sense of compulsion to finish a job or avoid it, or even to get results. That’s the way to encounter grace, through action.
Let’s remember to keep up with the daily check-up of truth as against the errors in our lives. Let’s examine ourselves every day in speech and in action. Perseverance improves our awareness and helps us to distinguish better between facts and to find in ourselves what exists. It also infuses serenity, even when the external results are less heartening, as can happen. But the most important result -- the revelation of truth -- is always heartening.
TOOL 9
Choosing in Advance
Doing what needs to be done -- this is a basic choice.
Let’s start with a moment of silence and go deep into it. … Let’s summon up into our minds the day that has passed, from the moment it began, and look at all the things we have done. We’ll see moments in which we dithered, others in which we were over-hasty, times when we did as we’d planned, and also times when we got carried away to somewhere else. We ask ourselves with a backward glance, when did we act as we would have wanted, and in keeping with what we want of ourselves; maybe we even behaved with grace, or did we do otherwise, with self-centeredness dominating us with full intensity? Let’s get a little closer to moments of stress, if there have been such moments, a sense of “not enough” or something similar, or moments when we were surprised and found ourselves behaving in a way that was unplanned and out of habit. Let’s go back to the agreeable silence, in which there is nothing but itself. … Thank you.
What is choice? There are some who claim that choice is expressed in doing “whatever comes into my head” at a given moment, without external limitations. For example, I had the idea of travelling to another country -- boarding the plane and flying away. If I want to be idle -- I’ll be idle, if I want to have fun -- I’ll have fun, doing whatever is nice for me. Abstaining from anything unpleasant, of course, and avoiding anything that doesn’t interest me, even when it’s a task that really needs doing. Apparently doing what I want at a given moment. A quasi-free choice, but only quasi. There is a serious confusion here between the almost uncompromising pursuit of things that we like and free choice.
Ralph is a good-natured man, an architect with a very successful business in Tel Aviv, a loving father, a seemingly loyal husband, and an occasional user of alcohol and cocaine. In the course of treatment, following an effective program of self-change, and with help from AA, Ralph definitely reduced his alcohol intake and his consumption of cocaine. He even stopped cheating on his wife with call-girls and gave up looking at porn. Almost a saint… Ralph is a very nice man, kind-hearted in his own opinion and in the opinion of others, accustomed to helping other people and asking for nothing in return, happy, and full of zest for life. As an expression of this zest, he very much enjoys running a line or two of cocaine (“snorting” in popular parlance) every few days. Apparently, his occasional consumption of cocaine is his choice, because he isn’t an active addict. Once every few days, on an irregular basis, in relatively small quantities, for his personal enjoyment. Isn’t this a choice?
Of course there is a choice here, but actually, it’s quite different from the one that Ralph thinks he has. The basic choice that exists is what is important to us and how we want to live our lives. Ralph, for example, has an internal fire of passion, but what is he doing with it? Does he choose what to do with it, or does it choose for him? His occasional consumption of cocaine expresses for him a first choice of hedonism as a way of life. Ralph lives as if life is a means of adding to his enjoyment in every way. But such enjoyment doesn’t last, and when people want more, and aren’t content with what they have, and search for novelties, there’s a danger of emotional collapse. This is what happened to him, and it can be expected to go on happening if he tries to carry on with his occasional use of cocaine and alcohol. Passionate pleasure is by nature temporary. Its great promise melts away quickly, and what is left behind? A good memory, sometimes, and sometimes an urge for more of it, an urge that leads to the beginning of collapse. Collapses of this kind happened to Ralph several times, and they ended in a way that was far from pleasant. When we study the process more closely, we see that the basic choice of pleasure as an essential consideration creates a trajectory in which the faculty of choice is diminished. As we have said, it is the cocaine that chooses Ralph once every few days, and not he who chooses the cocaine. It’s the yearning for cocaine that runs the game. When we talked about choice, Ralph admitted that he has an almost daily struggle with the temptation to “run a line.” Usually, he succeeded in this struggle, but once in every few days the lure of cocaine was stronger than he was, and it was clear that the reduction in consumption wasn’t going to last much longer, and Ralph was liable to fall again into the depths that he feared.
So, what is choice? We can agree that thinking free choice consists of doing whatever occurs to us at a given moment is a somewhat superficial view, although it’s very widespread and almost all of us think it sometimes and even act accordingly. But what comes into our minds is influenced by all kinds of strange and different things, and we’re only aware of a very small proportion of them, so how is it possible to choose when we d
on’t even know what’s influencing us? This is the most interesting question in my opinion -- how is it possible to choose when we have a tendency to distort things according to changeable thoughts and emotions? The tool, “Choosing in Advance” can help us to put our choice into practice despite the many influences that are liable to distract us. Choosing to use the tool is a choice that helps us to contend with the various influences affecting us, and the tool constitutes an effective defensive wall against them. Choosing to use it is like going back to the tool of abstinence, with its division into clear tasks, just for today, which make change possible, despite all the obstacles, the conscious ones and especially the unconscious ones.
Choosing a daily action-plan
Dorothy, a woman in her thirties who lived with her little dog in her own apartment, told me she really wanted to find work; she wanted to be liberated from economic and emotional dependence on her parents who were supporting her, although their economic situation was more than excellent. I tried to understand why she was out of work, and what she was doing during the day. I asked her to describe a typical day in detail, from waking up through to bedtime. Interesting things come to light in innocent descriptions, which only examine the progress of the day and what the person is doing in the course of it. In her case, when we dwelled on the description of all activities, we succeeded in identifying the patterns that were damaging her, which reflected compulsive behavior and obsessive thinking (OCD). For example, compulsive hand-washing several times a day, every day, and every time for more than half an hour. Her condition was so serious, it seemed in all probability that she would never succeed in finding regular work, perhaps only in a relatively protected environment. Anyway, it seemed that she resisted the idea of a protected environment because she was afraid of notification of her mental state reaching the authorities. For this reason, she was receiving no psychiatric treatment and refused to hear of it, despite my cautious recommendations. She was partially aware of her compulsions and was unwilling to talk about them, but the detailed description of the order of the day exposed her compulsions in a way that couldn’t be avoided. This also enabled us to take the order of her day, a large part of which was devoted to compulsive behavior, and to start curtailing this behavior. A form of abstinence, combined with other tools, such as, for example, the “Distinguishing of Facts.” Over a few months, she kept to the abstinence well, despite her almost constant fear. At a certain stage, she tired of the struggle and stopped coming to meetings.