To ask what is the truth is really a difficult question to answer. Truth is either objective or subjective in nature. Objectively, it is not affected by personal feelings or prejudices. This is the truth, and there is no other. So it exists without thought, opinion or imagination. Subjectively, truth relies on one’s thoughts and feelings. It exists in the mind and relies upon one’s feelings rather than upon reason itself. Both are valid ends to what the truth is, but arriving at it is different.
The piece that is missing is that for truth to exist at all, there must be a change. As with everything else, truth is an evolutionary being that will change over time. That which does not change loses the ability to survive. I recently watched the movie Fiddler on the Roof. In it Teyve, the main character, has three daughters of marrying age. His faith and Jewish tradition are challenged when his daughters desire to marry by personal choice and not by the father’s choosing the groom. His first daughter goes against him, she loves someone else. He allows it to occur. The second daughter chooses someone to marry by herself, Teyve reluctantly agrees. The third chooses outside the faith and Teyve rejects this union. In fact, he rejects his daughter because of it. Here Teyve is faced with religious and personal truths and has to make choices. His life is beginning to change, and new truths (traditions ) are taking place.
Within every culture there are certain inalienable truths, but over time these truths (values), will change.This will be due to new leadership, or conquest. It will be done through religious leadership or new religious ideas. Even within the area of spiritual truth, there is a changing of the guard, where it has been said by great spiritual teachers this is the truth, it is the only way. We find change in that there are many truths and they have a common goal or end. Many ancient paths or truths no longer exist. They have been absorbed into other groups or were lost through cultural change. Some great spiritual paths were selective and only for the elite. Today’s spiritual truth is more inconclusive. There is no longer only one path, but many that lead to the one or oneness. So how do we define what is really the truth? Lets look at this idea a little further.
The idea of TRUTH, eternal or other, is limited in that as humans we can only define it with our limited finite understanding. Whether we are speaking of a spiritual truth or a secular truth we must realize with six billion people in the world today there may well be multiples of six billion truths. Your truth and my truth may well be different in understanding, but we can agree on the common goal. We can agree to disagree and still fulfill our goals.
So what is really the truth? It is ever changing, it is personal, but by its nature brings everyone to the same end. As we have said, it is evolutionary and will bring everyone to the same end. All truth is valid, both mine and yours.