“Truth is the oldest of all the virtues; it antedated man, it lived before there was man to perceive it or to accept it. It is the unchangeable, the constant. Law is the eternal truth of Nature—the unity that always produces identical results under identical conditions. When a man discovers a great truth in Nature he has the key to the understanding of a million phenomena; when he grasps a great truth in morals he has in it the key to his spiritual re-creation. For the individual, there is no such thing as theoretic truth; a great truth that is not absorbed by our whole mind and life, and has not become an inseparable part of our living, is not a real truth to us. If we know the truth and do not live it our life is—a lie.” ~ William George Jordan

Beware of those others and those parts of you that are willing to settle for an awareness of theoretic truth rather than crossing into a state of truly knowing the truth, where truth becomes not just a possession, but an actual part of you. Many people have fooled themselves into thinking that they knew the truth when they merely accepted on the word of another whom they trusted and esteemed or perhaps less nobly, from someone they sought to please.

The truth does not play favorites, neither does it come to those who seek to “get it.” The truth is always at hand, yet human beings have convinced themselves that they are somehow bigger than it, that is, above the law. They try desperately to find shortcuts, ways around the laws of Nature, yet no man succeeds in this for the truth is the immovable object.

If you desire a deeper acquaintance with the truth, consider this next passage carefully. It was penned roughly a century ago by the remarkable Mr. William George Jordan:

“In speech, the man who makes Truth his watchword is careful in his words, he seeks to be accurate, neither understating nor over-coloring. He never states as a fact that of which he is not sure. What he says has the ring of sincerity, the hallmark of pure gold. If he praises you, you accept his statement as “net,” you do not have to work out a problem in mental arithmetic on the side to see what discount you ought to make before you accept his judgment. His promise counts for something, you accept it as being as good as his bond, you know that no matter how much it may cost him to verify and fulfill his word by his deed, he will do it. His honesty is not policy. The man who is honest merely because it is “the best policy,” is not really honest, he is only politic. Usually such a man would forsake his seeming loyalty to truth and would work overtime for the devil—if he could get better terms.”

To know the truth and to be liberated permanently by it, you must come to the point where the acquisition of truth is no longer a business proposition to you, a way to get ahead. To know the truth you must be willing to have all of your prejudices, beliefs and opinions scrutinized in its light. You cannot sit on idols to hide them from the light, you must be sufficiently honest and earnest to let every aspect of your being be brought into question, called up short and redirected according to the pattern of truth.

Neither church nor state own the truth. They hint at it but they cannot lay claim to the body of truth which is so much larger than the mind or the body of humanity, let alone that of a single individual. The truth can be found everywhere, and wonderfully, is present within you. In fact, all the truth you need is already resident with you. You simply have to find the way to let it express clearly through you, without the distortions of the hall of mirrors that you may have in your mind and heart at the moment.

Remember always: you are what you express.