“Lying is the sacrifice of honor to create a wrong impression. It is masquerading in misfit virtues. Truth can stand alone, for it needs no chaperone or escort. Lies are cowardly, fearsome things that must travel in battalions. They are like a lot of drunken men, one vainly seeking to support another. Lying is the partner and accomplice of all the other vices. It is the cancer of moral degeneracy in an individual life.” ~ William George Jordan

While truth is much more than simple honesty, you must first pass through the gates of honesty in your quest to know the truth. There are three steps that locks on the gate of honesty, namely, honesty with yourself, honesty with your Creator and honesty with others…and they must be unlocked in that order. You must learn to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with any other person or entity.

Dishonesty comes in many forms, yet at its root is an underlying orientation in fear or greed. Yesterday we considered the fact that what has your heart and fills your thoughts has you. Today I would add that to the degree that your center your heart on lack, that is, that which you do not have, that which you are not and so on, you will be inclined to form lies rather than speak the truth as a compensatory measure.

Generally speaking, people lie to get something or to make something look different than it really is. Remember Eddie Haskell, the sneaky and sycophantic character from Leave it to Beaver? Despite his neat appearance and proper language (especially in front of adults), he was deceptive to the core. Not only were his words deceitful, his very personality was corrupted, and was nothing more than a show to cover up the lack of true character.

The wonderful thing about the truth is that it does not change over time. It is not malleable, no matter how much human opinion or deception is thrown at it. The truth is eternal and changeless. The truth needs no defense and the truth is its own defense. Lies, however, require an increasingly elaborate framework to support their weight over time. They are a monster that must be fed lest they turn upon their master.

Virtues in a general sense are fascinating in that possession is nine-tenths of the law, but without the tenth-tenth, they are meaningless. The tenth-tenth, the final ten percent, is the wisdom to know which virtue is required when. Liars play fast and loose with virtues, pulling them out like cards in a deck to to generate a misleading appearance. They are the card player’s bluff in the game of life. They are not tethered in reality, even if they are founded on a collection of seeming virtues. Lying, as Mr. Jordan noted so well, “is masquerading in misfit virtues.”

Every lie you tell pulls you slightly more out of balance, mentally and eventually physically. They erode the fabric of your character, stain the lens of your personality and snip the ropes one-by-one that tether your visible expression to your inner perfection. To redress these imbalances you must: (1) stop moving in the wrong direction, (2) change your underlying orientation or perhaps better put have a “change of heart” and (3) move in the new direction long enough for the truth, that is, the revelation of the real you, to fill in the holes left by the departing lies.

When you are unified with the truth in all that you feel, think, say and do, you are made whole. The energy zapping cysts that form in your character and in your life will be expelled. The truth – once absorbed and not just held in theory – is invigorating, empowering and revitalizing.

This is such a simple matter, yet we, in our supposed wisdom, tend to complicate it overly. Move through the gate of honesty and you will be well on your way to knowing the truth, to its liberating presence and the world around you, in turn will be treated to the real you!