My Experiments with Truth !!!

The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. . . . The ordinary objects of human endeavour — property, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.

Albert Einstein

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

Benjamin Disraeli

Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails

Clarence Darrow

The intuition of free will gives us the truth.
Corliss Lamont

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings.

Dorothy Thompson

Inspired from Mahatma Gandhiji’s Autobiography ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’, I decided to speak nothing but truth for a month and here is my experience.

I was highly inspired by Gandhiji’s autobiography. I didn’t know how the experiment would be, but I said ‘Heck, It would be fun to try it and see how far I can go.” I liked the part where I read it gives you immense power and accelerates your growth. What I was going to experience was something I never imagined.

What I decided to do?

I decide to be 100% honest; I actually mean 100% honesty! It may look easy but it’s not that easy. In this experience I found it very difficult to be completely honest, but somehow I did it. Anything that you honestly feel should be spoken. Any review or any part of your life is asked, you should honestly answer them. It also includes speaking about your most embarrassing movement’s or any truth even about your darkest life experience to be shared openly. Even when it’s asked in front of one or ten’s of people. No exceptions!

My Experience

It was one heck of an experience; my friends actually felt I finally went overboard with this experiment. Here’s how it started. Many of us have the habit of sharing one part of your life with one person and sharing the other part of your life with the other. The first feeling I had was being vulnerable. It’s strange that when we keep a certain piece of information with you or with very closed ones you have a sense of shield with you. It’s a shield which we create to protect us from other people’s judgment. We all have our good and bad deed’s, we also have reasons to justify our actions. Sometime’s it maybe a clear instance of our emotions taking our logic and we do things we don’t want to do. But no matter what, most of them hide to keep the social rep. I started feeling that my shield is going down, I am becoming more open and it’s definitely going to struck hard this time. I felt this experiment is definitely not as easy as I thought. I started being very honest about my opinions, this always lead to questions about my personal life and when I started saying them openly, the shield’s went down and I became open to the critics.

Here’s a small example. I have a belief that there is no such thing as being patriotic. I believe all humans whether they are from my country or not, all are humans. They all are equal. I believe in humanity more than the national border’s. I love my country and very proud of it. But I am proud about humanity as a whole than anything else. I know this belief contrast with many people out there. I was not able to understand, that if our soldier’s kill other soldier’s they are heroes and If other soldier’s kill our soldiers then they are enemies. I agree we need defense forces to protect us from terrorists and many other countries who may try to attack us. My belief is not just about my country but every country in the world. The concept of patriotism and national border’s has in many ways stopped us from being united all across the world. When we say ‘my country is greatest in the world’ we completely ignore the good in other countries. Thanks to the internet and globalization, the world is coming together. Now on the topic, I have friends who are very patriotic. When one of my opinions was asked, I completely pressed my opinion I believed in. Some were open for discussion while some were just ignorant. They told me stories about great heroes who died so we could live a better life. I genuinely agreed with them and salute those great heroes, but my point was about how the whole ‘my country’ & ‘your country’ concept were flawed. There are good and bad people in every country. There were many who didn’t like my view and many who told me they thought the same. I felt connected to those who shared my view and felt completely detached from those who didn’t. I got a feeling of ‘I care a damn’.

There were hundred’s of such controversial talks about personal views, relationships, achievements etc.

The second part of the experiment started here. The sense of being powerful and carefree. When you say things honestly, you polarize people. Some will come near and some go far. Those who you feel connected, the bond gets stronger. The good part about the experiment is that you eliminate most of the social fluff; you become more confident because you’re following nothing but truth. It makes you feel very connected to people. When you’re 100% honest to someone, even they become honest to you about their feelings and opinions. The shield’s go down! This builds great connections. It’s like once we had a class and when the professor explained a difficult calculus problem, the whole class was saying ‘yes, we understood’ after the class I said to a guy, ‘I didn’t understood anything’ and he said ‘Neither, do I. I just said ‘yes’ because everyone did!’ I remember that making connection with people become so easy, like its just 10 minutes you met someone and you start talking about the deepest issues like love, vision, purpose of life etc. Builds strong connections with people on the level of soul. It’s a wonderful experience. The other benefit is criticism; the more people criticize you about your habits or views, the more you think over them and improve. You started growing very fast, because now you cannot hide them, you have to improve or face criticism. The only easy option is growth. It’s a strange feeling like you had one set of parents earlier who teach you what is good and bad but now you have everyone out there giving hundred’s of opinion or offering criticism. If taken positively, it’s accelerated growth experience. It’s amazing how in this process we come face to face with exact fears we are not ready to face. Like say I give an opinion on improving finance, one would ask me where I am on financial level currently. I would answer honestly and it quickly turns my mind on improving my finance. Not to show someone, but for me to understand whether I am on the right path to gain financial abundance.

The best part is you feel complete freedom of thoughts; you don’t have anything to hide, so nothing worries you. The great connections you build and the accelerated growth are amazing.

It was wonderful, but I stopped the experiment. Here’s why?

There is a bad part about the experiment I found. You stop caring about people completely. You are so attached to the principle of truth that you don’t care about opinions of other. You stay open to new ideas and humbly accept your mistake, if there is one. But if you get no justification, you completely discard the person as ignorant or dishonest. The bad part surfaces when you get completely blunt, you may say some truth which hurt others. Say a friend comes to you in a bad mood and say’s he hates his life because his finance is not good. And you bluntly say to him it’s only his laziness and he’s a real looser because he has no motivation in life, or a purpose in life. You may even tell him that he completely emulates his dad and that’s the exact reason he is like that’ Boom! You spoke the truth, but what affect did the statement have on him? If he’s a person who take the statement positively, it’s a wonderful growth opportunity. But this rarely happens because people may either get defensive or depressed depending on their personality. Your statements may completely discourage them. It’s a feeling which takes you away from love. You feel completely disconnected to those who cannot take truth as it is.

The solution is to experiment truth with love. Always speak the truth; you will help the other person. But say it with a genuine attitude of helping the person and not just utter bluntness. Truth can be used for the good or the bad; it depends on how you say it, your intentions and in what conditions.

Just a small example:

A girl asks “Am I fat?”

Truth with bluntness: “You are a pig!”

Truth with love: “You’re a bit overweight, go for gym and read this book on healthy diet.”

Both the statement says the same, but has different intentions and effects.

Humans are not robots, they have feelings and words have deep impact either positively or negatively. This would also make you 99% honest, rather than 100% honest. But it’s a good place.

I finally stopped the experiment in a month, but would definitely try it sometimes with Truth and Love induced!

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

Blaise Pascal