Part 8 from Avikal’s series, Reporting from the Great Doubt
During the past couple of years, I have made many changes in my personal and professional life which made me look more deeply into the question of friendship, collaboration, sharing of our life-journey.
At times it has been very challenging and intense due to misunderstandings, ruptures, strong projections and transference, lousy communication; but there have also been great moments of contact, where we grew in shared clarity and intention, affection and beauty.
Everything is in movement and continuous transformation, of course, as is this life. And with this simple recognition arises a more compassionate way to go through whatever is happening.
A few nights ago, during meditation, I realized that there is – in my experience of friendship – a specific aspect that needs more of my attention and courage to align with my friends past and future.
The question here is: What is the most fundamental base of our friendship? Is it affection and shared experience? Is it specific values and direction in life? Is it the belonging to a particular community? Is it the sharing of actions, endeavors, work, interests, etc.? Is it nationality, religion, ideology, location? Or is it the way we create meaning in our lives and our perspective on what we call reality?
In different moments in my life, I would have answered by choosing one or more of those options, and probably added a few more (like sharing a holiday, a joint, a house…). However, it is very clear now that nearly all of them have some sort of merit to make me consider someone a friend. Being a Sicilian I definitely also want to add a tricky one: loyalty.
As I was sitting, deeply involved in the moment and my question, I reconnected with something that started taking shape more than twenty-five years ago. It happened with three of my closest friends, the moment we recognized, declared and shared this: We would, under any circumstances, tell each other the truth about how and what we were experiencing in relation to the other.
To be able to do that we first have to recognize that the truth we experience is a relative truth, not an absolute truth; and then follow Four Steps (and find the courage to do so):
- Telling the truth about myself to myself.
- Telling the truth about myself to the other.
- Telling the truth about the other to myself.
- Telling the truth about the other to the other.
Always remember: whatsoever we know and whatsoever we can ever know is bound to remain relative. To remember it will give you compassion. To remember it will make you liberal. To remember it will make you more humane. To remember it will help you to understand other viewpoints.
Truth is vast – simple but vast, as vast as the sky. The whole universe contains it, and the universe is unlimited, infinite. How can you conceive of the whole truth? How can you have the absolute truth in your hands? But that is how the ego functions.
The ego is very tricky. The moment you start feeling something true, the ego immediately jumps in and says, “Yes, this is the absolute truth.” It has closed your mind; now no more truth will be available. And the moment you assert, “This is absolute,” you have falsified it.
A man of truth is always relative.Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3, Ch 2, Q 2
At this point, the most fundamental base of friendship has to do with how I recognize, handle and share the Truth. How Love and Awareness give me the passion, courage, intention, and integrity to look into the eyes of my friend and communicate.
And, even more difficult, how do I sustain and support my friend as he/she is telling me the truth of his/her experience of me. All the rest: values, morality, habits, differences, similarities, belonging etc., of course do not disappear, and still play a significant role in closeness or distance. However, they are no longer fundamental as they will go on changing.
Love for truth Is.
Related articles
- Follow the whole series: Reporting from the Great Doubt
Featured image: photo by the author
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