Austerity of speech consists in speaking truthfully and beneficially and in avoiding speech that offends. One should also recite the Vedas regularly.
—Bhagavad Gita 17.15From truthfulness so many other virtues flow. Indeed, it is the root of all virtue. It encompasses self-control—for it is a discipline; austerity, for it is the greatest austerity of all. It is genuine purification of one’s existence. It is the verbal form of nonviolence, but only if the speech does not offend others. How often have we been insulted by someone and then been handed the karmic waiver, “Well, it’s true!”
Unfortunately truthfulness has been going the way of the dinosaurs for some time. Let’s compare the traditional, modern and postmodern paradigms.
- Tradition - based on scriptural truth that is timeless. Whether it is based on the Ten Commandments or the Yamas and Niyamas of yoga, the ethics and morality are designed to elevate the practitioners to a higher level of being, keeping them safe from material degradation.
- Modern - advocates or promotes a departure from traditional styles or values. Although it is a fact that times change and with them their demands, instead of adapting new applications of tradition, too often tradition is rejected in the name of modernity. Thus deviance or bending the rules becomes trendy and society takes a downward turn.
- Postmodern - emphasizes subjective experience as truth. It promotes the idea of “my-truth,” that there is no such thing as objective truth and that all worldly experience is subjective. If you believe in an objective truth, described in traditional scripture, you are bigoted; judgment and discrimination—the actual functions of intelligence— are deprecated, if not outright vilified. Here we have perversion, which leads to societal chaos.
In postmodernism “inclusiveness” is encouraged (demanded) when what it really means is no one is allowed to reject or criticize my chosen activities. Words no longer used include right and wrong, punishment, sin; persons with what was formerly described as demonic mentality are referred to as Liberals or the Left and, in the name of equality, are given a seat at the table for crafting international policies. In the New World of moral relativeness, right and wrong has evolved to become right and left, rather like two options at a buffet; the fact that one leads to elevation and the other to degradation is deliberately ignored.
Mendacity and lying are so cheap and easy in postmodern society that we have become totally callous to the existence of untruth. Plato said “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.” This infers that of worldly things there can only be opinion, not knowledge. Too many among us (especially the media and politicians) gladly welcome the grayness of this information wasteland between fact and fantasy. Being truthful then becomes a kind of masochistic martyrdom, for Plato also said, “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” If it is so inconvenient, why bother?
Here is where the austerity comes in. “The voluntary acceptance of discomfort for the purpose of purification.”
Satyam [Truthfulness]. This word means that one should not distort the truth for some personal interest. In Vedic literature there are some difficult passages, but the meaning or the purpose should be learned from a bona fide spiritual master. That is the process for understanding Vedas.
—BG 16.1-3 purport
(An excerpt from Sravaniya’s upcoming book entitled
Extraordinary Character coming out in 2021.)
