In honor of Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, I thought it would be apt to write about the role of truth in our lives today. Of all of his ideas, Gandhiji had truth as the basis for everything — so much so that he titled his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Given that so many of us look up to him as an example of a modern-day saint, it is important to analyze how much we actually believe in and act upon his main ideal.
How do we define truth? For most of us, there seems to be a spectrum — from things we know are definitely the truth, to a murky gray in between, to things we know are definitely lies. In my opinion, it is this gray area that is more important to analyze.
Gandhi’s words, and the various other Hindu philosophy books I have had the chance to read, seem to suggest that this gray area doesn’t actually exist — that is to say that we should never be in confusion about what is the truth and what is a lie; it should be apparent. And more than that, they seem to believe that telling the truth is ALWAYS the right thing to do.
Was Gandhi oblivious to the realm of white lies, lies of omission, misleading, exaggeration and noble lies? In our society, this supposed grey area is so vast that the Wikipedia page on lies has an entire section that lists the types of lies! And quite honestly, do you agree that all of these “lies” are really bad? Is it lying to embellish a little when telling a funny story? If a friend is in trouble but swears you to secrecy, is it really amoral to break your word and tell others in order to help that friend? Is it wrong to omit certain facts when telling someone a story if you know omission of the facts won’t hurt anyone, but telling them may harm them (or may harm you)? Is it lying to act differently in different places and situations? Does following Gandhi’s philosophy mean that we should never hide anything from anyone?
Gandhiji is famous for saying that his life was an open book; does it makes sense for us to put that idea into practice in our own lives?
Ideally, I agree with Gandhiji — to be able to live an open, 100% honest life is an incredible feat; it is the ideal way to live, in my opinion. But in order to do that, an incredible amount of strength is needed — it is nearly impossible to be able to live without worrying what others think, or without worrying about how others will react to what we say or do, or without feeling ashamed about some of our thoughts and actions. But perhaps this is the point — by constantly living truthfully, and avoiding that long list of lies as much as possible, we will eventually make ourselves strong enough to be able to live completely honestly, without having to create the comfort of a ‘gray area’ for ourselves.
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3 Comments
This is a very thought provoking post, Sonali.
I don’t know about Gandhiji’s belief in truth, but I disagree with this notion that we should always be completely transparent and honest.
I don’t think constantly telling the whole truth is a matter of strength (but constantly lying probably IS an indicator of the lack thereof!). Rather, the end can justify the means, and whether you should be less than truthful should hinge on the potential outcomes of the situation.
You mention some good examples in the fourth paragraph of situations where some omission or white lie may be desirable. To add another, consider the following thought experiment: Suppose some innocent cow is running from its would-be murderer, and the cow seeks refuge in Gandhiji’s home. When the butcher comes looking, and asks Gandhi where the cow is, what should he say? Surely he wouldn’t simply tell the butcher where the cow is!
I find that the purpose of honesty is to maintain my own conviction and confidence that what I am saying is internally consistent and true. On the other hand, lies force me to maintain a contradiction — and maintaining both sides of a contradiction will eventually break my confidence when an internal inconsistency arises.
Dear AK,
Gandhi-ji’s response to your quandary would be to tell the would-be butcher the truth about the cow in your house, and to non-violently but resolutely defend the cow’s life.
I don’t know if I would have the (physical and moral) courage to do what a Mahatma would do under those conditions (and I think my use of the word ‘Mahatma’ answers my doubt), but I do think there is something of tremendous value in adhering to Truth.
Now if only, contra Gandhi-ji and contra scriptures, one could actually be sure of what Truth is!
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