The Power of Truth and Discernment

Hi everybody,

Today, if I were writing a book on health, on your well-being, on how you should understand yourself, and the nature of your power, I would start by explaining the nature of light and shadow, the nature of good and evil as the two fundamental ingredients that are always these active agents inside of us. They’re like the two fundamental ingredients, you could say, the universal ingredients of energy that we are always using.

And then we have to look at: What are we here to do? What’s the purpose of life? Surely it can’t be to get the world’s largest shopping cart and put a yacht in there, and 16 homes and all the other stuff you can buy. And then what? Surely, that is not the purpose of life – to become a stuffologist. No, no, no, no.

If you have done any work at all, any reading, anything about purpose, about the great spiritual teachings in all traditions, they all point toward the need for human beings to pursue truth. Buddha would say, to get through your illusions, because it is your illusions that cause you to suffer. There will always be pain, but suffering is the optional part.

In a book on health today, I absolutely would begin with: The core of health is your relationship to truth. Without a doubt, it is your capacity to be truthful with yourself, to have faith in yourself, and to be able to trust yourself. Because from that comes your relationship to your inner sense of self, or what’s been labeled self-esteem. But I’m talking about the capacity to actually esteem yourself, to actually have reverence for the power that is your life, and to realize this is a power that you have to manage with great discernment.

With love,
Caroline