Soul's Truth

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free".
The Bible

Everyone can create perfection in their own life. This perfection is immediately attained at any moment in which they bring the truth of their own inner being fully and completely into material expression.
All of us can recall moments or periods of our lives when we experienced this perfection .... when we felt an immense depth of pleasure in our own existence accompanied by deep feelings of inner well-being, happiness and complete fulfilment. Although it may sometimes appear that such moments are the result of chance, good fortune or a gift of grace, the truth is that these moments are actually created by ourselves, by simply allowing our own inner truth to flow freely and fully outwards into our own life. And it is within the power of each of us to extend and add to such moments until we reach the point when we become able to feel like this at all times and in all situations.

Your truth is within you. It is what you are created to be. Each individual has a core of truth at the centre of their inner being. Some call this the soul or the spirit. I often call it the essence or the inner light form.

All living beings have a light form which precedes their physical manifestation. The lightform acts as a blueprint around which matter/energy coheres to create a material form which reflects that blueprint as closely as it can. This essence or light form is already perfect, as it is a direct expression of the universal creative energy which generates the perfection we see everywhere around us in nature. What we experience as beauty is anything whose material form is a direct and undistorted expression of this perfect inner light form. Thus beauty is simply the inner truth brought perfectly into full material expression.

The universal creative energy could be seen as an immense and endlessly expansive imagination, constantly conceiving form upon form of beauty and blending it all into wonderful harmony. Not only does it provide the basic patterns around which matter can collect itself to create the material forms we describe as 'physical reality', but it also constantly transmits a supply of its own energy to each individual light form which it has created. So our soul's truth can never be destroyed as it is always maintained in its original perfection by Love itself. However, humans have free will, so they do have the options of shutting off from their truth and of expressing something other than their truth ... and of experiencing the pain, frustration, loneliness, hatred, rage, jealousy, self disgust and despair which naturally occur (by way of friendly reminders!) whenever we separate ourselves from whatever it is we are created to be.

The freely given outward flow of your own truth will not only give you great pleasure and fulfilment, it will also bring you everything your heart desires. It will create beauty, both of your own person and of anything you do into which you freely transmit that truth. It will also ensure you complete freedom from any unpleasant or painful emotional states as well as freedom from all the diseases which grow out of these states. And it will always be responded to by love from others. Even if that love is sometimes streaked with the pain and hatred of jealousy, this is only because the greatest pain of all is that of unexpressed love and being in the presence of someone else who is expressing their love by the free giving out of their own truth is bound to stimulate this pain in anyone who is not. The love is still there, which is why jealousy is so painful, it is just that the jealous individual has not yet realised that their own pain could be fully relieved by the free giving of their own truth. If you understand this and simply continue to steadily give out your own truth in their presence, then their jealousy will have no power to marr the perfection of your own life and you may well be able to help them in their search for their own truth by the inspiration of your own commitment to the giving of yours.

However, despite the endless benefits and pleasures which naturally arise as a result of the free outpouring of essential truth, a brief glance at the environment around us will be sufficient to show anyone that whereas there are millions of beings in nature which are radiating their beauty directly out of their own inner light form, human beings in general are finding it a little tricky! There are a good many reasons for this .... reasons why we may loose sight of our own truth altogether, why we may choose to suppress it or why we may express something else in its place. However, I am not going to go into any detail here about these reasons or how to deal with them, as these things are described and explained in detail in other articles. So here we will just deal with the first step in the process of bringing the potential perfection of our own lives into full material reality, which is to know how to find our truth for ourselves. Only then will it be easy to commit ourselves to expressing it at all times and to deal effectively with whatever pressures or temptations within our environment seem to prefer or demand that we do otherwise.

First I am going to describe briefly how to tell truth from untruth and then give you some exercises you can use to know your own truth from within yourself, which is the only way that you can be really sure of it.

Discerning truth from untruth is basically very simple. Anything which gives you a pleasant feeling is a clear sign that you are getting warmer in your hunt for truth and anything which gives you an unpleasant feeling is an equally clear sign that you are getting colder! In other words, if there are things about what you call your 'self' which you don't like, or things you find yourself expressing, feeling or thinking which feel uncomfortable or unpleasant in any way, then you can be absolutely 100% sure that they are not part of your own inner truth. You can also be equally sure that the tendency to do, feel or think all these things can eventually be washed away by the free flow of this inner truth outwards into all areas of your life.

Truth has certain clear characteristics which will help you to recognise its presence and its flow. These are: deep inner pleasure, fulfilment, a feeling of belonging and connectedness, beauty, inner relaxation, abundant energy, happiness and love.
Both the idea and the expression of truth produce feelings of deep inner pleasure. The free and complete expression of truth always brings fulfilment. The giving of your own truth outwards into life brings with it a feeling of oneness, of connectedness and belonging. Pouring your own truth wholeheartedly into what you are doing will produce visible and tangible beauty in whatever it is you produce and the consistent expression of your own truth through your own being will naturally generate a physical beauty in your own body which clearly reflects the inner beauty of your own light form. The open and direct expression of truth always produces a feeling of inner relaxation and well-being and dissolves all stress. (In fact the feelings we describe as 'stress' are actually due to any pulling strain between the natural desire to give free expression to the truth of our own soul and the beliefs we have acquired which persuade us that we should do otherwise.) The free flow of truth also always brings with it whatever energy is needed for its full expression. This means that you will find that you always have plenty of energy to do the things your heart really desires to do, even if you find yourself drained and exhausted by the completion of relatively small tasks for the doing of which you have no such desire. The feelings of pleasure, relaxation and well-being, together with the awareness that you are giving something beautiful to life and that what you are has its own right place in the whole, will combine to produce a state of happiness with your own existence. And, as I mentioned before, truth is always naturally responded to by the heart's love of others.

You may not believe some or all of these things. Many people are taught to believe that pleasure is bad .. or even 'sinful'! Many come to believe that truth separates them from others or that truth will be reacted to by hatred, judgement or jealousy. However, as the history of the human race shows us over and over again, the truth can only be found by a careful examination of what is, rather than in the passive acceptance of what is supposed or assumed by others. So the only way you can find out about truth for yourself is to look carefully at the reality of your own experiences.
To begin with, take a moment to make a general review of the evidence already provided by your own life.

First think about those times when you have felt a deep sense of pleasure well-being and fulfilment and look at what was flowing from deep inside you at those times. Measure for yourself how the degree of pleasure and fulfilment was related to the depth and quantity of expressed truth. (The sense of identity is located in the area of the solar plexus, so it is useful to focus your attention particularly on this area and then recall what it felt like to bring what you really felt from deep within this area and communicate it outwards. You will then remember the feelings of power, inner strength and security which always rise within you whenever you have that deep inner certainty that what you are communicating really is the truth.)
Next think carefully for a while about those moments when you have felt pure pleasure in and love for another being, or seen them as perfectly beautiful. You will see for yourself that the pleasure and love which you felt in others, and the sense of their physical beauty in those moments, was the direct result of the free outward flow of their inner truth at that particular time.

Now go back over the times when you have felt closest to others, when there seemed to be no barriers but only warmth between you, and you will see that those were the times when you relaxed into simply being yourself, nothing hidden, nothing faked .. just there, your truth and theirs.

We naturally love someone most when they are 'being themselves', both because they are a pleasure to be with at those times and also because it is then easier to relax into being ourselves. (If you ask people about why they like their best friends, most of them will include the reason that they can 'be themselves' in their company.) Truth relaxes, the stress and tension fall away, and as the guards and defences fall, warmth and love and a sense of immense physical well-being surge up from the inside and flood through our bodies and our feelings.

You can always know truth by the natural upsurge of your own love and warmth towards any being which openly expresses it, as each of us naturally and reflexly responds to the truth of others by a direct and spontaneous flow of love from the heart. This flow of heart's love contains within itself the recognition of the innate connectedness and brotherhood of all beings, since each individual's truth originates from the same source - from Love itself. Any being who gives out their own truth is thereby offering others a direct connecting line to Love .. and for this we are naturally grateful.

You can readily verify what I have just said about the heart's natural response to truth by simply taking the time to look back into your own life to those moments when you felt pure wholehearted love for another being and then consider what it was that those beings were doing in those moments. You will see that you will have felt the strongest natural upsurging of love when the individual who stimulated this love was not only being themselves but also allowing their own truth to flow freely from them, without limit or constraint. So you will see for yourself that the best way to give out truth is to radiate it directly from within throughout your whole being and thence outwards into life, as a tree does, or a human spiritual master. This free giving out of the self is what we are here to learn to do, and doing it will automatically bring us the rewards of everything our heart desires.

Also, by seeing for yourself that when another being gives out his or her truth simply as a gift to life, you cannot help but love them, from this you will know that others will as naturally love you at any time in which you give out your truth in this same way.

Finally, look back for yourself over those times when you have knowingly concealed truth from others, or they from you, and how it felt when this was happening and then compare that with how it felt to eventually tell the truth or have it told to you. Everyone knows the feeling of relief and relaxation which always follows when the truth is finally revealed . The greater the extent and length of time of the concealment, the greater the relief and letting go of stress when the truth is allowed to go free. So often, when someone finally talks about something they have concealed for years, they weep with relief and then, after they have told everything there is to tell, they feel light, as if free from a burden ... why else would people want to confess to crimes which they could otherwise have got away with?

And to add a little more to what I have just said, here a list consisting of all the feelings which were described by one particular group of fifteen people when they did some exercises to ascertain their own truth.

Elation, exhilaration, happiness, joy, relaxation, ease, "no more is required than the easy being of yourself", "everything falls into place effortlessly', unselfconscious, "when the trying stops", "feeling of inner ease and relaxation no matter how vigorous the external actions may be" and the feeling of inner rightness.

Now here a few exercises which will help you to have a clearer picture of your own inner truth and also direct you back to those parts of it which you may no longer realise belong to you.
It generally works better to do the listed exercises before reading on to the explanation which follows them, however, I know you will do as you please, so go ahead! (I always checked novels for the happy ending half way through if I couldn't stand the thought that things may not work out ... however, in this instance I can assure you from the very beginning that there is a (very!) happy ending .. your truth is not your worst inner nightmare, it is your deepest desire. The nightmare, if that is what you expect to see when looking for your truth, is only there because your truth has been blocked, polluted or over-ridden, and, as I said earlier, the soul's truth/ the inner light form can never be destroyed as it is constantly nurtured by Creation. And it is always possible to set it free.)

Exercises to reveal your own soul's truth

1) Make a list of everything you already really like, appreciate and enjoy about yourself.

2) Think of the three happiest and most fulfilling moments of your own life and describe what feelings and qualities of being you were radiating at the time.

3) Make a list of everything you long to be or to have now, and another list of everything you dreamed of being or having when you were a child. Then write down what you think you would feel like if those dreams were to be fulfilled. Again, try to note down distinct qualities of being, rather than just writing general feelings like 'happiness'. (For example, I always used to think I would love to have a Rolls Royce with a chauffeur. The way I imagined it was that I could go anywhere I wanted in peace and complete security, insulated and protected from noise and general aggravation, with beautiful music and a comfortable space around me. The way I then imagined I would have felt was calm, relaxed, safe and unharrassed by the aggravations of the world around me. So it is the 'calm, safe etc.' bit which is relevant to this exercise...not the Rolls Royce!

4) Make a list of your favourite characters.... these can be in real life or in fiction ... and describe what it is you particularly like about them. Again, it is useful to include your childhood favourites, as children are still very close to their own truth and will naturally pick out sources of inspiration to help them to hold onto that truth or feel some kind of companionship with others who share similar qualities of being. Describe the qualities of being you most appreciate in each of these characters. For example, I would put down Smiffy of the Beano's Bash Street Kids because he is always so happy, with a delightful lack of concern for the fact that he cannot even add one and one to make two and also has a complete freedom from any feelings of guilt over the consequences of the apparent minor disasters which regularly occur around him as a result of his doing things according to his own way of seeing things. So my answer to this part of the exercise would be 'happy to see life as full of pleasure, interest and delight and having absolutely no desire to stuff his brain anything which has no natural appeal to him, even if other people seem to consider those things to be important.'

5) Make a list of anyone you feel even remotely jealous of and then write down as precisely as you can exactly what it is that makes you jealous and how you imagine you would feel if you had whatever it is you are jealous of in them.

6) Make two columns on your paper and use one column to write down (In full gory detail!) exactly how you feel when you are at your very worst. Now, in the other column, write the opposite, or your own particular neutraliser, to everything you have written in the first column. e.g. in my first column I may say 'taking everything very seriously'. What might first come to mind as the opposite could be 'taking things lightly' but that doesn't feel sufficient to me to neutralise the intensity of the truly 'deadly' seriousness with which I sometimes view life. So I would say here 'seeing the funny side of things ... and make a little note beside ' Monty Python style', as the ability to see the humour in my own intense seriousness neutralises it far better than trying to shift myself into a light and carefree state.

Now review what you have written with the following interpretation:

1) These qualities are all parts of your truth which you do allow to flow freely through you.

2) These represent times when your truth has been free of blocks and you have let the full power of your own available life force flow through you.

3) The underlying basis for all longing for something outside yourself is the desire to reconnect with suppressed or denied aspects of your own truth. So the way you imagine yourself being if you had what you long for is actually already part of your truth but for some reason you have ended up seeking it outside yourself instead of inside.

4) The qualities you see and feel a heart's resonance with in these others are all natural qualities of your own inner being which have not yet developed to their full potential and/or whose flow is liable to be readily blocked by certain adverse influences in your environment.

5) The ways you imagine yourself feeling if only you had whatever it is you see these others having are all also part of your own truth. However, they are now suppressed within yourself with strong blocks. These blocks generally arise as a result of childhood experiences of freely and openly expressing these qualities and then receiving some very negative reaction from someone/others in your immediate environment. These reactions were strong enough to produce what I call an 'aura shock'. After this type of very severe shock, it is natural for the aura to completely withdraw that aspect of truth from open expression in order to be sure of avoiding all possibility of a recurrence of another such shock. However, these aspects of truth can still be restored to free and open expression once you understand that they belong to you and that there are other ways of dealing with the environmental negativity besides withdrawal of the apparently offending aspect of your own inner being.

6) The qualities of being in the second column are all part of your truth. The negative state you have described is only a consequence of the complete withdrawal of those particular aspects of your own truth from any form of expression. This withdrawal can be due to the previous experience of an aura shock or it can be done for other reasons, particularly sacrificial love. These qualities can also be restored to full flow and committing to that flow will completely neutralise the negative emotional state you have described.

The next step is to allow yourself to acknowledge that all these qualities of being do actually already belong to you, and that any problems you may be experiencing within your life are not because you do not have what it takes but because you are not making full use of all that you do already have. Then spend a few minutes once or twice a day running through all those qualities and actually letting yourself feel them flow through you. You can reinforce the effect of this by saying to yourself "I am ...." and stating each one in order. When you do this try to feel it as well as just saying it and try to say it with a feeling of pleasure (and relief!) that you already have inside yourself those things you have been longing for when you have seen them outside yourself. It is also useful to think of something which symbolises the more blocked aspects of your truth or helps you to relax into them. Then use that something like a talisman to remind you of your truth at times when you are finding it difficult to hold onto it. For example, at one time when I was working on restoring the clarity of my own inner vision, I used to carry a very clear and beautifully sparkling crystal around everywhere in my pocket and hold it for reassurance whenever I began to feel confused. For another long period I wore a gold pendant round my neck which someone who loved me had once given me and its presence used to restore my trust that 'Love is always there'. You can also use images .. the image of someone you truly love and appreciate is always helpful and so are images from nature. For a long time simply turning my mind towards William Shakespeare was enough to fill me with the desire to give life everything I could of myself and helped me to neutralise revengeful thoughts like "Why should I be doing all these things when other people don't bother giving anything of themselves?" These days I often think of the vision of masses of pink cherry blossom against a clear blue sky because that always fills me with inner happiness to be alive so that I can see such things. I also take a drop or two of the remedy I made from flowering cherry trees to strengthen and reinforce that feeling of inner happiness whenever things around me seem to be driving me towards a state of gloom. I find talismans like this really useful. Or you may prefer affirmations. Or you may have already mastered the ability to shift yourself from one state of feeling to another simply by the application of your own will and desire. No matter how you go about it, committing yourself to giving energy and attention to your own truth ( and thus effectively withdrawing energy and attention it from flowing through untruth) will do much to increase your own happiness, well-being and pleasure in existence.