Whatever is true

 
Suppose you are standing on a pillar.
All this time you have believed the pillar rises from deep in the earth.
Today, suddenly, you discover
everything you knew was utterly false, utterly wrong.


Suppose today you suddenly learn
that pillar is actually floating in the void, and
any stormy wind could blow it away at any moment.
Then, in that very instant, would you still
want to...keep standing on that pillar?
Or even if you wanted to, could you still stand
on such a rootless tree with your former courage?


Suppose from childhood your parents, or someone like them,
forced you to accept, or follow,
certain false notions about your Creator.
Growing up, when your judgment developed somewhat,
you realized that all those things they made you
accept or follow as absolutes—
even if you didn't follow them all exactly,
your Creator would not be displeased with you;
or that their idea of the Creator
is not what the Creator is really like.


Perhaps you were already scattered by events that had happened,
perhaps listening to them over time,
somehow bitter resentment and disgust toward your Creator took root,
perhaps you decided, 'If the Creator is like this,
if cruelty and displays of power are the Creator's work,
if forcing the burden of worship is the Creator's work,
then I'll do only what I must out of obligation.'


You thought further, 'Not out of devotion or reverence, only duty—
I'll spend this life just like this;
or let me not be a believer, let me not worship,
let me lie crushed under gloom, let me accept nothing more—
the Creator will punish anyway,
the Creator sent us here only to punish,
the Creator is always thinking about us,
wondering just how much punishment can be increased,
and thinking these thoughts, enjoying it inwardly!'
...Suppose all your ideas about the Creator formed this way,
forcibly imposed by everyone around you,
or you were compelled to think this way;
or suppose all your closest people
together convinced you there is actually no Creator at all,
and you too understood through logic and argument:
'True enough, there really is no Creator!';
or suppose you asked yourself curiously,
'If there is only one Creator,
why then are there so many religions?'
...The mind will raise such questions then!
But does that mean you should accept
there is no Creator at all?


If you don't accept truth,
if you don't accept death,
will all truth become falsehood?
Will you escape death and live?
If you don't accept the Creator,
will the Creator cease to exist?
---It's not like that at all...in no way!


Then why do you ask false questions?
Just as some answers contain questions,
some questions are their own answers!
Perhaps we don't accept,
perhaps we haven't seen,
perhaps we don't know,
or we have suffered greatly;
after everything...still
truth is eternal, imperishable.