No. 68 Clinging to the Truth

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Group Session Plan from FUSN (developed by Nancy Wrenn)

Opening Words
The word "Satya" (Truth) is derived from Sat, which means "being." Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God.

And where there is Truth, there also is knowledge which is true. What may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person. Where there is honest effort, it will be realized that what appear to be different truths are like the countless and apparently different leaves of the same tree. Hence there is nothing wrong in every man following Truth according to his lights.

The truth seeker realized that he who went on destroying others who create difficulties for him did not make headway but simply stayed where he was, while the man who suffered those who created difficulties marched ahead, and at times even took the others with him. He learned that Truth which was the object of his quest was not outside him but within. In fighting the imagined enemy without, he neglected the enemy within. Gandhi

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Topic
Many faiths talk about The Truth; nearly all emphasize some form of the Golden Rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Gandhi’s word, Satyagraha, captures that general principle, the fact that love is stronger than hate. It can also mean active resistance by a repressed group or a movement. Last, it can mean nonviolence or soul force.

What is your experience with Satyagraha, this notion of truth? Does it help you think about your relationship with others? In what way do you cling to one or all of these notions of truth?


Closing Words
Satyagraha literally means "clinging to truth," and that is how Gandhi understood it: clinging to the truth that we are all one under the skin, that there is no such thing as a ‘win/lose’ confrontation because all our important interests are really the same, consciously or not, every single person wants unity and peace with every other. Martin Luther King, Jr. would simply, and quite correctly, call it ‘love in action.’
Nancy Wrenn

"If non-violence has to prove its worth, it must cease to be the passive or even impotent instrument that it has come to be looked upon in certain quarters. Non-violence by its very nature must neutralize all outward obstruction . . . . I used to say, ‘Let me get control over the forces of violence.’ It is growing upon me now that it is only by setting the force of non-violence in motion that I can get those elements under control."
Gandhi (March 20, 1930)