{"id":986,"date":"2017-05-03T13:27:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T20:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.michaelmirdad.com\/?p=986"},"modified":"2021-09-02T15:43:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T22:43:28","slug":"truth-or-dare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/truth-or-dare\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth or Dare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within the spirituality movement, there is a lot of talk about \u201cliving our truth.\u201d And there are a lot of people who think that simply by making this statement, they are actually accomplishing it. But\u00a0how can people live their truth if they know not what truth is?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three Levels of Truth<\/strong><\/h4>\n

So let\u2019s clear this up. First of all,\u00a0there are basically three levels of truth: God\u2019s Truth, our truth, and human fact (<\/strong>that we often assume are\u00a0truth but usually are\u00a0not).<\/p>\n

Ideally, it\u2019s great when we can get all three truths to align\u2014meaning to have the Truth of God anchored into us, and into the details of our lives. But this is rare indeed. Instead,\u00a0most of the time,\u00a0God\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Truth is completely forgotten and\u00a0our<\/em>\u00a0truth is tainted by incorrect or inaccurate facts\u2014human facts<\/strong>. And somehow, most people are okay with that.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Dare to Live the Truth<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The old saying, \u201ctruth or dare,\u201d needs to be changed to \u201cdare to live the Truth.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>And it\u2019s true that it takes daring or courage to do so, because it\u2019s simply not the way the rest of the world operates.<\/p>\n

We have to accept some uncomfortable realities about the truth, and one of them is that the opposite of the \u201ctruth\u201d is a \u201clie\u201d<\/strong>\u2014at least in standard vocabulary. And although a lot of \u201cspiritual\u201d people find the word, \u201clie,\u201d to ruffle their auras, it\u2019s the word that represents the opposite of the truth. If this is correct, it means that\u00a0when we are not living the\u00a0truth<\/em>, we are living a\u00a0lie<\/em><\/strong>. It\u2019s not that we need to beat ourselves up for it, but it helps to accept this. And it doesn\u2019t help (nor go over well) if we walk around calling anyone a liar. But it does help if\u00a0we can catch ourselves living out of alignment with truth and call it what it is.<\/p>\n

Another term for living out of alignment with the truth is \u201chypocrisy.\u201d And, as we know,\u00a0Jesus was not a big fan of hypocrisy<\/strong>. It\u2019s not that he was being harsh on the actual people who were hypocrites as much as he was pointing out that it murders our soul when we live outside of truth.<\/p>\n

Although human versions of \u201cthe truth\u201d are often merely our ego\u2019s truth,\u00a0we can rise to a level of consciousness wherein our human truth is a reflection of God\u2019s Greater Truth<\/strong>. When this happens, we live a life of love and inspiration.<\/p>\n

All too often, however, we live a life of lies and hypocrisy, and allow others around us to do the same. Some of the most tragic examples of this are\u00a0found within churches and spiritual teachers\u2013of every kind\u2014from guru to televangelist to New Age teachers.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Hypocrisy in the Form of Gossip<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Most people don\u2019t know that\u00a0it was neither the Romans nor the Jews that killed Jesus. It was hypocrisy\u2014in the form of gossip (which is usually founded on lies or variations of un-truth)\u2014that brought about his death<\/strong>. And it was the so-called religious leaders of the region that spoke the lies, thus making them hypocrites. This is what Jesus called them and they obviously didn\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

Most people think that we can only kill someone with weapons such as guns and knives. But, the reality is that gossip also kills. It murders the soul\u2014the soul of the person doing it. And with it comes terrible karma.\u00a0Gossip comes from evil minds committing evil actions<\/strong>. Of course those who gossip aren\u2019t truly evil, but their behaviors are. They, themselves, are merely insecure and\u00a0try\u00a0to compensate by trying to knock others down.<\/p>\n

When we commit the act of hypocrisy in the form of gossip,\u00a0we are always trying to lower someone else in an attempt to raise ourselves up. But it never works<\/strong>\u2014even when it looks like it does.<\/p>\n<\/div>

What To Do When Encountering Gossip<\/strong><\/h4>\n

What\u2019s really tragic, is that when we\u00a0listen to gossip, we tend to absorb it, and then spread it. We may see ourselves, simply as \u201cpassive participants.\u201d But really,\u00a0when we allow ourselves to listen to gossip, we are enabling and contributing to the gossip. This means we are also contributing to hate, which means we are also contributing to evil<\/strong>. And this means that we too are then part of that evil.<\/p>\n

And, although it hurts,\u00a0when others (family, so-called friends, etc.) gossip about us, it\u2019s important to remember that\u00a0Jesus warned us that when we hold the light, it tends to disturb those who live in the dark<\/strong>. So it behooves us to not see ourselves as victims and instead, we should see this as a means of building our muscles so that we can hold that light a bit longer and higher.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to remind ourselves to not assume that just because people gossip about us, it means they are terrible and we are perfect. Instead, we should still look for any lessons we might learn from the experience. Also,\u00a0their comments might help us do some soul-searching and personal inventory to make sure we are as clean as possible<\/strong>\u00a0of anything of the things we are accused of.<\/p>\n

Lastly, we need not only remember how to conduct ourselves when people are gossiping about us (or others), we also need to develop a lot more courage when it comes to \u201ccalling people on it.\u201d But it\u2019s very simple, really:\u00a0if we hear someone gossiping, we need not wrong them or shame them. Instead, we can tactfully redirect the topic or add some light to it<\/strong>. But if they persist, OR\u00a0if what they are saying is extreme or has a dark tone to it, we need to consider asking them why\u2014if what they\u2019re saying is not true or loving\u2014are they saying it.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It really has a great shocking effect to ask\u00a0questions that make someone have to look at themselves with more honesty and truth. It also lets the person know that\u00a0we refuse to live in the darkness of hate and lies, and instead, insist on living in the light of truth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}