No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Mathew 6: 24
I am curious about my relationship with the Masters of Truth and Deception. I might refer to them as the Masters of True Perception and False Perception.
The themes of truth and falsehood, or true perception and false perception are key themes in almost all religious and spiritual traditions. They are important for the direction and quality of our lives are determined by them.
My Catholic upbringing still holds some attraction for me. I mean, I see no reason to throw out the baby with the bath water and indeed, there is much within the teachings of Christ that I have always found useful, like a light guiding me along some rather dark alleys.
Today, I am drawn to exploring the way truth and falsehood, or *right perception* and *wrong perception* as it is often referred to in Buddhism, determines the direction and quality of my life.
As a result of years of ongoing inquiry, I have come to some key understandings. One of them is that truth cannot be denied. It can be forgotten, suppressed, blocked, ignored, argued against, even banished but it simply cannot be denied. I say this because your very existence originates and is rooted in truth.
Meanwhile, as human beings, we have evolved with physical senses – touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. These physical senses evolved to serve us, to help us exist within and as our physical bodies.
But, as you know, we are not simply our physical bodies. There is a non-physical aspect of us that is often referred to as *spirit* or *mind* or *consciousness*. Our physical bodies, rather than being separate from our spirit or mind or consciousness, are in fact, forms or expressions of our non-physical nature.
Despite their best efforts, scientists have not been able to perceive this non-physical nature directly. It is not something that can be perceived with the physical senses. And this is where our problems begin.
Our evolutionary reliance on our physical senses causes us to doubt or deny what cannot be directly perceived by our senses. And yet, is there anyone among us who has not *sensed* what was not touched, smelled, heard, seen or tasted?
Have we not *sensed* an idea, an intuition, a thought, a feeling? Have we not *sensed* a connection with someone or something beyond their and our physical presence? Have we not *sensed* heartache, loneliness, fear, insecurity, hopelessness? And have we not *sensed* love, joy, peace, freedom and excitement?
Now, some scientists will attempt to explain this in terms of neural activity. But neural activity that happens to coincide with what we sense outside our physical senses does not explain anything. It merely suggests a possible correlation, not a causal relationship and certainly not an explanation of how we we are able to sense beyond our physical senses. Consequently, we are left with a quandary.
What do I trust? What do I accept as *true*?
Let me explore these questions through a concrete example.
If my bank account shows me that I have $20 in balance, something which my eyes see, I am likely to experience the feeling of ‘lack’. I am also likely to experience fear, anxiety and this can spiral downward into lack of confidence, self-worth, sense of failure and further downward into hopelessness, desperation and self-harm. Of course I am taking this to an extreme.
The question here is: What do I do about it?
My response will depend on what I perceive to be true and what I perceive to be false or untrue, both on a mundane, physical, sensorial level as well as on a metaphysical (beyond the physical) or spiritual level.
If I believe in *lack*, then the physical figure of a $20 balance will reinforce my belief in lack. It will convince me that *lack* is something real and that it is happening to me.
Now, I want to make a distinction between what I call *natural* and *normal*.
When I use the word *natural*, I am referring to a state or quality that is independent of human laws such as the universal laws (eg the Laws of Impermanence Cause and Effect) and and the qualities of source energy or Spirit (eg Love, Peace, Limitlessness).
‘Normal*, on the other hand, refers to something that is collectively agreed upon or assumed and is subject to human interests and interpretation, so that, for instance, whilst it is *normal* for women to vote today, it wasn’t so a few hundred years ago. Or, whilst it is normal to live in brick or wooden houses today, it wasn’t normal over 500,000 years ago. Or again, whilst i may be *normal* for people to spit in public in some cultures, it isn’t in others.
I usually steer away from contentious terms such as ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ but I realize it may be useful for some people to consider *natural* as referring to something objective and *normal* as referring to something more subjective. What I would like to assert, however, is that what is natural is always true and what is normal is not always true. This last statement will become clear in due course.
My intention here is to make the point that, in my worldview which is the result of an ongoing lifetime enquiry, both internal (self-observation) and external (i.e. through formal study, books, teachers etc), I believe that there are some natural principles or truths that deny the falsehood of many things that we consider *normal* or real. One of these is *lack*.
Now, to the extent that we, myself included, experience *lack*, it certainly feels real. It seems delusional to deny that *lack* exists. And yet, this is exactly the case! It is delusional. *Lack* may be normal but it is not natural and anything that is not natural is not true.
Abundance, on the other hand, is natural and true. So, assuming that in our spiritual evolution, we are committed to what is true, it is important and necessary that we accept the truth of abundance and that we live according to this truth.
You see, the alternative is to try to deny the truth of abundance, to doubt it, to fight it or suppress it which is sadly what many of us do. And while a healthy enquiry into anything and everything is critical for our spiritual evolution or awakening, denying or objecting to what we have found to be true isn’t useful and, is in fact, harmful to our wellbeing
Wellbeing is a quality of truth. So is abundance. Let me put it this way:
What is natural is Wellbeing, Abundance, Creativity, Love, Joy, Peace, Ease. What is unnatural but considered *normal* is illness, poverty or mediocrity, repetition, lack of joy, lack of peace or conflict, effort and struggle.
In the simplest terms, what feels good is natural. What doesn’t feel good is not.
Note, it is the FEELING that I am referring to, not the behaviour, actions, words or objects relating to the feeling.
Let me explain what I mean. If we happen to be having one of our favourite meals, we might be feeling very good. Does this mean that we should continue eating more of our favourite meal to feel good?
Feeling good is a natural state which we allow. Eating something is an action which may or may not allow us to experience this state of goodness. However, the thought of feeling good and the actual feeling of good is what will ensure that we continue to feel good because the thought and feeling of good are aligned with the truth of wellbeing.
Eating something may or may not be aligned with the truth of wellbeing. For instance, you can eat the same thing tomorrow but not feel good. Or you could keep eating more of the same thing now and feel less and less good.
So it is with anything else that is associated with feeling good. Sex with someone today may be aligned with feeling good, tomorrow it may not be aligned with feeling good. Offering a service today may be aligned with feeling good, tomorrow it may not be. The *fault* is never with the thing. As so many great thinkers including ‘Shakespeare’ (whoever he or they were), have understood:
Nothing is either good or bad, only thinking makes it so.
What is natural always feels good. Peace always feels good as does joy, creativity, abundance, health, love and freedom. On the other hand, what isn’t natural doesn’t. Fear, anxiety, sadness, poverty, illness, guilt, anger and so on never feel good.
So, I’d like to return to where I began – true perception and false perception and the serving of two masters.
You cannot serve both the masters of True Perception and False Perception. You cannot serve the truth of Abundance if you’re also serving the falsehood of Lack. You cannot serve the truth of Peace if you’re also serving the falsehood of war. You cannot serve the truth of Love if you’re also serving the falsehood of hate. You cannot serve the truth of Wellbeing or Health if you’re also serving the falsehood of Illness or Disease. You cannot serve the truth of Ease if you’re also serving the falsehood of Effort or Struggle.
You have to choose and commit to that choice 100 percent, wholly and completely. And while you do, you must DENY all the falsehoods that you perceive with your physical senses and instead rely on the Spiritual senses which are your feelings, always choosing the good feelings because only these are aligned with Truth.
I realize that most of us will object to the suggestion that we’re serving or trying to serve the Master of False Perception, yet it’s almost always the case that we do so unconsciously, without being aware. Every time we speak or think or feel lack, conflict, illness or anything that does not feel good, we are approaching the throne of the Master of False Perception. The more we dwell on these feelings and thoughts and act in accordance with them, we are effectively serving this Master.
In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say that as long as you’re not committed to the Master of True Perception, you’re by default committed to the Master of False Perception,
Finally, in case you were wondering about the quote from Mathew which says:
You cannot serve God and Wealth.
If you understand that *God* is truth and that wealth, like your favourite meal, is an object, then you will see how it is unhelpful to ‘serve wealth’.
However, it is also important to understand that abundance, which is a state of wellbeing, is part of the truth of *God* and that by serving God, you will naturally experience the truth of abundance.
I suppose a final clarification is needed. What do we mean by ‘serve’? I think it simply means to commit.
Committing wholeheartedly to truth and all its states of goodness!
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