We used to have a puja and havan every year. The practice, as most people are aware, dates back to the Vedic era. A pandit rattles off chants in Sanskrit while the participants are expected to repeat a couple of words every now and then. At intermittent intervals saturated fats etc. are offered in a small fire that burns in a special vessel called a kund. It is an age-old ritual believed to purify the environment. It’s also a time for people to come together and set aside their routine pursuits for the purpose of perpetuating a tradition. It was during one such puja that our Panditji received a call. Mobile phones had just been introduced, and mid chant he whipped it out from under the folds of his dhoti and announced to the caller that he was on his way, stuck in traffic. After the call he flashed a smile at us and explained the reason for his white lie. “Bijness,” he said in English.  We were amused and secretly pleased at the glimpse of his candid misconduct. Well, in his defence, it was his business and he had to do his best to keep his clients pleased.

We like to say things like, ‘Love makes the world go around’ and ‘Family is everything,’ but we must acknowledge the fact that over and above all these ideas of love and unity we have one unshakeable primary instinct, which is to survive. It is not always possible to make one’s way through life by voicing the truth. A word called ‘duniyadaari’ in Hindi or ‘worldly,’ in English makes it easy to segregate the two lives we lead; the worldly and the spiritual. Sometimes, these lines blur. We feel a spiritual connection to a person, thing or place. Yet, we cannot hold on to either love, land or objects without guile. What a difficult world it would be if we all just went about trying to achieve a spiritual high by expressing exactly what we feel. Yet, the reason for speaking the truth, besides its obvious ethical one, has been explained by Swami Chinmayananda in his translation of the Prashnopanishad.

In his words, he writes, “Personally, I have myself discussed this idea of truthfulness with some thousands of people whom I know intimately at close quarters. Eighty percent of them admit the glory of honesty, but they complain their incapacity to put it into practice either because of some obvious mental inability or some imagined pressure of circumstances. If only these people would understand the mental losses of such a habit. To tell a lie is to express differently from what you actually feel. The two sets of thinking mutually negate each other and produce what is psychologically called a self-cancellation-of-thoughts. This impoverishes the mental power from willing efficiently. For, even, when you deliberately think such a thought as, ‘I must win,’ the habit of the mind to entertain self-cancelling thoughts at once produces an irresistible flow of negative thoughts, which negate your own determination. Irresistibly the thoughts such as “I will never succeed,” or, “I will never win,” rise up in your mind to sabotage your own previous strength of will. This is the simple reason why spiritualists insist that honesty must be pursued.’ This paragraph endorses something we already know; that our minds follow a pattern of thinking, one that becomes a habit. By constantly lying, even about inconsequential matters, we create a confusing thought process for ourselves. Even modern spiritual thinkers urge people to focus on wiring the brain correctly to succeed.

Of course, as much as we desire honesty, social and economic ties hold us back. It would make it easier for us to tell the truth on every instance if people were willing to hear it. We lie to skip a day at work for a personal reason but if we were to say “I’m afraid I can’t make it,” without providing an excuse, the employer would be furious. Hence, we think up a lie that makes it easy to take the leave. Sometimes, we are simply not sure if our viewpoint on a particular subject is an expert one, so we evade clear answers to questions like, “Will my business succeed?” and lie even if we think otherwise. Some of us lie to make another person happy. We say, “It will be all right,” even if we aren’t sure. Or, “It will all work out,” even if our intuition says otherwise. After all, we don’t know what will happen in the future, so we keep our opinions (albeit, wisely) to ourselves. Perhaps, it is better to keep quiet than to lie. In these times of hyper communication, we are living in an artificial environment. Media posts are scattered with over-the-top remarks and comments, many of which may be exaggerated or untrue. The psychological benefit of pursuing a steadier thought process is needed more than ever. Besides, it is also nice to know that truth is not about morality alone. It’s about creating a pure space, much like heaven, in your own head.