People look at new phenomena, new ideas, new situations, and unless they’re very aware of what they’re doing, they’re going to try to categorize everything to resonate with their current ideas or assumptions. They’re going to look for validation, basically. And that is not what we’re talking about here.
Marshall speaks on how great truths are realized step by step, gradually over time and how we need to embark on a journey that takes us beyond our beliefs and assumptions, if we want to discover, realize and express the great truths of our life.
This is an excerpt from a live broadcast, Living in the COVID19 Pandemic: How to Get Centered in Uncertain Times, April 18, 2020.
People look at new phenomena, new ideas, new situations, and unless they’re very aware of what they’re doing, they’re going to try to categorize everything to resonate with their current ideas or assumptions. They’re going to look for validation, basically. And that is not what we’re talking about here. It’s better to throw everything up into confusion and begin to look anew and to begin to allow things to be uncertain, to allow things to be fuzzy. Because I tell you, great truth doesn’t come immediately.
It comes gradually as you develop a relationship with it and the ability to see it. There’s immediate truths about what you need to do or not do. That’s in the moment, and that’s an everyday experience if you can be with it. But the greater truths of life—Who am I? Why am I here? What’s really important? What do I have to give? What do I have to serve? How can I serve people? How can I forgive people? How can I understand what’s going on around me?—those are bigger questions, and the truths that they will lead to are things that come in time.
You will have to go there step by step. People just want an idea, a definition. So they go on the internet and they get an idea and a definition from someone who’s very persuasive or somebody they think is an expert and they call that the truth, the answer, the solution. That is not what we’re talking about here. Those things amount to nothing. They’re just assumptions, and people live on assumptions. And when something like a pandemic comes along, what happens? It blows up their assumptions. It blows up their idea of themselves. Everything they’ve built their life upon that’s built upon ideas and assumptions now becomes threatened or undermined by a tremendous act of nature. And the pandemic is a tremendous act of nature.
So this is really important to know the difference between your ideas and your own inner experience because we’re collecting ideas from the world around us, even unconsciously. But what is within us is the thing that’s really pure and uncorrupted. And you can feel that at times when you have a deep feeling about something that comes without explanation. It’s not something you would normally think. It’s not something that you like to think about. It’s not something you’re familiar with—a deep sense to do something, not to do something, or be aware of this situation, be careful with that person. These are the kind of things you really want to pay attention to because there’s a way out of the jungle. But it’s not a superhighway that everybody’s on. It’s a small pathway through the jungle. And the stepping stones are there, but you need to find them and you need to take those steps.
So great truth comes later and is the product of a real exploration. Immediate truths can come in the moment if you can respond to them and act upon them. So the truth is something that people love to talk about, but very few people have any real sense of what it is and what it means.
