(An I instrumental defect not a virtue or vice)
How many times have I not heard the words: 'Something or the other is an excusable lie’; 'Lying is a moral defect - and speaking truth is a public virtue’,and so on.
What is a lie? I ask myself. It is neither a virtue nor a vice. Man, by some inherent illusion, thinks
he is above the laws of nature and mechanics. When I examine a car or computer, I do not say it is speaking lies when the speedometer of a car shows 30 instead of the 100 kmh it is actually running, then it is reporting inaccurately, and will lead to disaster to the driver and others, and to the machine.
The same holds good for my body. Each time I permit my body, nay, train it to record, report or utter inaccuracies, I am ruining the accuracy and sensitivity of my body.
Lies are inaccuracies. If I wish to increase the sensibility and sensitivity of this most wonderful machine, called my body, I should be careful about this matter, about my dealings with the outside world. Many small and big lies are cultivated to meet the so called exigencies of social situations. Children are systematically brainwashed to develop lying of one kind or another, euphemistically called social graces. Now, if in complex machines, one system is repeatedly reinforced to be inaccurate, the deeper systems of the machine also go wrong sooner or later.
If I allow various degrees of inaccuracies or lies to meet daily external social interactions, very soon the heart speaks lies to the lungs, and the liver receives false reports from the stomach, and in such a society it is a wonder persons live even to fifty or sixty years. This, of course, gives ample opportunities for the development of special sciences like psychosomatics and so on.
It appears to me that a lie arises from the ego’s need to defend or protect its personal security or image and importance - and one lie needs another to bolster it up.
Each time I tell a simple lie or for example make a child say to someone that I am not at home, when indeed I am at home, I am laying the foundations for the
Devil.
I have to decide for myself, whether I will let this beautiful machine of mine become more and more inaccurate, and treat with less care than I give my car or radio; or make it what it should be.
However, note the difference between not lying and uttering truth.
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