The most common error made in regards to the two truths is to mistake relative truth for absolute truth. This frequently takes the form of mistaking the designations and indications for Absolute Truth as Absolute Truth itself and/or mistaking the methods (including the beliefs) for realizing Absolute Truth as Absolute Truth. This is known as Dogma. This also happens more subtly simply from a lack of recognition that there are Two Truths. It is a subtle habit of our minds to take all truth as Truth. We often fail recognize that any truth we can give words to is a relative truth. This habit of dogmatizing applies to all truths not just those concerned with Absolute Truth or truths concerning religion and spirituality, but with all relative truths.
The other most common mistake is to deny either Absolute Truth or relative truth all together. Some assert the idea that the the absolute reality is the only reality. The absolute reality is the only absolute reality but in the long run it not functional to deny the apparent relative existence or relative reality. ON the other end of the spectrum, because Absolute Truth is ineffable, indescribable immeasurable and beyond all contexts, some declare that “there is no Absolute Truth and all truth is relative”. This is common in certain academic and scientific circles. However they miss the obvious truth that the have asserted “”there is no Absolute Truth and all truth is relative” as an absolute truth.
Both the denial of relative truth and absolute truth lead to a third common mistake and that is to equalize all relative truth. To absolute absolutists all relative truth is equally false. To extreme absolute relativists all relative truths are equally relatively true.
However the “truth” is that within the domain of relative truth some truths are more true then others within specific contexts. In the domain of standard basic arithmetic 1+1=2 is more true then 1+1=4. However in Buckminster Fuller’s Synergetic Geometry which has been demonstrated to, at least in some cases, accurately model the synergy present in nature, 1+1=4 is more true then 1+1=2. (There are structures in organic chemistry called officially called fullerenes and nicknamed Bucky Balls because Fuller predicted their existence by his Synergetic Geometry before they where discovered. ) In each case one is more true then the other but in different contexts. Remember effectiveness or functionality is the measure of relative truth. Synergetic Geometry’s solution to 1+1 wont yield an functional answer if you are solving a word problem like “if I had one apple and mr smith gave me another apple how many apples will then have?” To answer that with “four” would be functionally false. So it is possible to establish something as functionally true if you specify the domain or context you try to establish functionality in.
Notice that I began the last paragraph with “the ‘truth’ is”. By saying that I am asserting that what follows those word is more functional in a specific context. The domain in the Functioning of the Two Truths within the domain of relative truth. The context is also alchemy. So I am asserting that relative truth in the way I have expressed is more functional for achieving the aims of alchemy then the other ones I have identified as erroneous.
Another common error is to make a mistake in identifying the contexts in which a relative truth functions. This most often occurs as a result of the dogmatizing habit of the first error. When we dogmatize truth as Truth, we assume that it applies in all contexts . Another source of this error is from the mistake of seeing all relative truths as equal. There is a common habit in New Age spirituality to pick and choose ideas, techniques beliefs etc. From various spiritual, transformational, healing systems and blend them together according to personal whims. This, more often then not, is ineffectually and can be potentially dangerous. That is not to say that insights and methods from one system can be applied to usefully in another system or context. They sometimes can, however the emphasis is ’sometimes’ and without functional understanding of all the components you are mixing you are likely to run into problems. I will explore this in greater detail in future posts both because it might appear that I myself am doing this (I do, in fact, do some mixing but from a functional understanding of what I am mixing and with a functional understanding of the Principle of Two Truth) and because it can be such a problematic error when done incorrectly.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:14 am
[...] Common Errors in Understanding the Two Truths. [...]