Does it make sense to replace the concept of the ultimate unknown by a concept Caroline Myss calls 'the Truth'?

Of the many, ever increasing, spiritual teachers (also calling themselves 'light-workers') that populate your inbox these days, I have found Caroline Myss’s teachings to be amongst the more edifying and beneficial. An important feature of her teaching is that she directs her clients’ focus on their responsibility for their own emotional well being and spiritual growth. In an age when psychologists have a field day pointing to factors outside one's psyche – your mother, father, the gold fish, school teacher and school mates, she provides refreshing insights into managing and correcting one's own deconstructive emotions and spiritual emergencies. To this end Caroline fearlessly asks direct and pertinent questions, driving her perceptive thoughts home with confidence and intellectual acuity.

Being a catalyst to confront one with him/herself via a series of questions is fine as long as you don't need to provide answers in sage-like sound bites. However, when it is a matter of reaching a conclusion about something that is as elusive as a wisp of mosquito breath, then considerable verbal gymnastics and conjecture needs to be brought into play. Sometime ago, 22 July 2011, Caroline Myss sent a newsletter to subscribers entitled, TRUTH AS THE PULSE OF GOD, and which is quoted below:

"How will you come to me, Lord? How will I know you? How will I recognize You? I know you will come for me. You will slip into my being, perhaps in the middle of the night while I sleep. Maybe You will come for me when I am not looking for You, when I am distracted, staring into an oncoming storm, fearing my immortality.
Or maybe You will come to me in the midst of a lie that pours out of my mouth effortlessly. You will let me know You are listening as I listen to myself say something that is not true as easily as if I were giving the time of day. I tell myself that my lies are insignificant, that they don’t matter. How do I know what matters, what is significant? What if I am being tested? Observed? Did you know I put my conscience to sleep years ago? Maybe that’s how You will come to me – You will awaken my conscience like a sleeping dragon, one day, when I am weakened by disease, or fear, or loneliness, and I will be forced to face the truth that I fear You. I fear Truth. You are Truth itself, and I feel that power rumble like an earthquake through my being each time my eyes look into the eyes of another human being.
One word of Truth exchanged through the eyes of another is enough to bond two human beings for eternity, the power of a sacred . No wonder we fear Truth. No wonder we fear You. How will you come to me, Lord? You will come through Truth. You will make me need You and I will come searching. You will make me shed my skin, my illusions, my weaknesses, like boils ready to burst on my burning flesh. And then, when I am broken, too weak to deceive even myself, there You will be, already resurrecting my soul. Somehow, Lord, I found this Truth already lodged in my heart. You’ve already come for me." Caroline Myss, Newsletter, 22 July 2011.

• This profound and earnest appeal for clarification and disclosure addressed to some super deity (I suppose of private comprehension, called 'the Lord'), is another confirmation for me that the old Lord’s Prayer- as well as all the sentiments that are attached to it - is no longer adequate for the spiritual needs of many of earth’s dwellers. The Lord's Prayer assumes that one knows who or what is on the receiving end of the discourse. Although, there may still be many who are convinced that their old-school prayers will arrive at an intended target, there are now many who no longer believe that such appeals has any listening ear at all. In fact, Caroline’s prayer is a reflection of the despair with many of our world; the search for spiritual identity, meaning, purpose and direction. But the prayer goes further – it firmly implies that that which we are so desperately looking for, is to be found within ourselves - thereby implying that the Lord is oneself, a thought that I'm rather partial to myself. In the prayer and in her further newsletterish elucidation she calls that which we are so feverishly trying find, the ‘truth.’

But, is it useful to call that which we ultimately want to achieve/know/experience in our knowing, in our being, the 'Truth?' Is it a helpful answer to those who wander through life searching and craving for meaning? I wonder - no, I actually doubt it.

Looking up the word 'truth' on the internet, results in an avalanche of information, which, for the purpose of this discussion, need not be repeated here – most of has a gut understanding of the common meaning of the word. Myss causes some obfuscation though, by befuddling various connotations of the word 'truth' in a discussion of a single aim: finding the answer to the question(s) about our existence, reality, awareness and other mysteries. In some of her discussion there is the matter of lie versus truth telling (i.e. 'I tell myself that my lies are insignificant'), while elsewhere in the  prayer is the mention that we fear 'truth': (i.e. 'and I will be forced to face the truth that I fear You. I fear Truth.') Thus there are at least two subtle differences in which the word 'truth' is used. The simplest of the two is the plain truth telling versus lying. The other context really refers to the ultimate answer in our questioning of life and its meanings, and man finding it difficult to grasp, attain and embrace it.

It is true that, as we travel through life, we encounter the 'ultimate answer' to our existential questions repeatedly, only to be dumbfounded by another ultimate answer just around the next corner, turn of the page, dream, reflection, observation or discussion. It may then be correct to say that what I previously considered as 'truth' is not (totally) correct. But is only correct in the context of my newly found answer and not in an all inclusive universal sense. Of course, when we discover yet another answer, we excitedly exclaim once more: 'I have found the truth!' However, does that again imply that my previous 'truth' was a falsehood. Not necessarily so. I wonder if, while walking this path we do not merely stack up one answer upon another – all being part of the ultimate comprehensive answer – but in our excitement of having discovered a new answer (truth?) we tend to be blinded to the collective of the previous, and now underlying answers.

The saying 'the truth shall set you free,' sounds very profound and since we tend to strive towards what we consider to be freedom, we are programmed to find the 'truth.' Yes, if you have committed a serious social crime and wish to liberate your conscience from guilt, telling the truth may help somewhat – let's face it, you know exactly what the truth is and what you have done. However, to transpose the same idea to life's mysteries seems, to me, to be disingenuous and semantically manipulative. Unless one actually knows what the ultimate answer is, and you deny yourself that answer, there cannot be a lie nor a truth and why would one fear a truth of which one is totally ignorant? Our modern churches have made much of 'the truth shall set you free' and effectively use it to blackmail non-believers and believers alike to adopt, or persistently adhere to their teachings which, they maintain, is the 'truth.' In their perceptions, everything else is of course a lie. But then there is a distinction between a truth and an ultimate answer or solution. Confusing these concepts is nothing but a manipulative ploy to make those who fail to subscribe to specific structure of thought, seem somehow inferior and inadequate.

Of course, we fear. We fear not finding - not being united with the ultimate answer(s) – the loneliness of not knowing, not being with the answer; of not being the answer. Truths are merely mechanisms and acknowledgements that are instrumental in reaching the elusive singularity of the ultimate answer. Instead we should fear the lie – that which we with eagerness and resolution regard as the ultimate answer and which it may not be, leaving us in yet with another illusion.

As I mentioned, I like Caroline Myss and her philosophy a lot. However, as far as the ultimate answer(s) to life is concerned, she has done little more than add to the labyrinth of verbal patter around a concept or topic which is as elusive as wet ice. She has merely affirmed that the ultimate answer or, to use her own words, 'the Truth' about our existence and purpose is unknown and to a large extent delusional.