Originally Posted by
SanathanaDharma
Dear Friend,
What is truth and where is truth?
The answer to this question needs a simple example
Once there lived a "rishi"[or a saint] in a forest. He, right from his childhood had never lied at all.
The main principle of his life was to always tell the truth.
One day a merchant was travelling in the
forest where this rishi was staying. As this merchant was walking alone, he happened to notice a few robbers following him silently.
In order to save his life and the money he had, he started to run. Looking at the merchant run, the robbers
started to chase him. The merchant after running for some time happened to see this rishi near his hermitage, in the forest.
He was extremely happy to have spotted the rishi and went to him and requested him saying "some robbers are chasing me, please
allow me to hide in your hermitage." He also requested the rishi not to tell those robbers anything and him. He then hid in
the hermitage.
The robbers came chasing and also saw the rishi sitting in front of his hermitage. The robbers questioned the
rishi "if he saw any person coming in this direction"...now the rishi, who had never ever told a lie in his life,
wanted to stick to his principle and answered the robbers saying "yes, I saw a person who came running to me"...now the robbers
were delighted and asked him "do you know where he is now?"..again the rishi who never told lies said "yes, he is hiding in my hermitage"
The robbers went into the hermitage, killed the merchant, robbed his money and left.
Now after the rishi had spent the rest of his life, when he finally gave up his life, he was first seen in the abode of YamaDharma Raja.
The rishi, who was shocked to find himself there, instead of heaven, question YamaDharma Raja saying "I have told truth all thru my life, never ever told a lie or committed a sin...why am I brought here?" to which Yama Dharma raja said "O learned rishi, truth is defined based on the term "dharma[being righteous]"...anything you say(even if its a lie) which does not conflict with dharma is always truth and anything you say even if true but against dharma is a lie...when the merchant who was innocent, seeked your help, it was your dharma to protect him against the robbers who were against dharma...instead of doing your dharma by not telling anything to those robbers you told a statement which was actually helping adharma..and hence even though you think you told truth you were not and hence you are here"
The point of the story is "Truth is defined based on the term called dharma or righteous...truth is always encapsulated within dharma
any statement which is against dharma can never be called as truth..." Truth is dharma and dharma is truth anything else is adharma or lies.
The robbers were "non righteous" in their act because they were trying to steal something that belonged to someone else. If the "rishi" had told the robbers that he did not see anyone coming, he would have actually acted "righteously" as in avoiding the robbers to steal something that does not belong to them, thus not helping un-righteousness...where as, just for the sake of saying truth, the rishi by his action actually help the robbers, thus helping adharma and hence, he became a adharmi too because one cannot co-exist in dharma and adharma. By helping something that is not righteous, even if you think you are correct, you never are, because the definition of truth itself is righteousness personified.
If you need more information on what is dharma then we can discuss a lot on that.
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