Truth Quote - John Reseck

"Begin by believing with all your heart that belief is true so that it will work for you, but then face the possibility that it is really false so that you can accept the consequences of the belief."

- John Reseck

The quotation by John Reseck encourages you to be open minded and at the same time have enough faith in your ideals. This quote works on the same concept that my belief could be truth for me but at the same time can not be truth for you. It goes one step further if it can be justified and that would be knowledge. However there comes a debate wherein knowledge can also be personal, in the sense you can justify it when someone else can not. For example, if I were to experience a miracle, for me miracles can occur would be knowledge because my experiencing it would be the justification and result in knowledge. Because someone else may have a contrasting belief and because it is not justified, the fact that miracles happen would not be knowledge to them.

Another aspect Reseck covers is the faith we have in ourself to believe what we say can be true. We should not assert our beliefs or impose them on anyone, however we do need to have opinions and at the same time be open to varying ideologies. Reseck then goes on to say that we must be ready to face the possibilities that the belief is false. I, in fact, do not agree with the fact that a belief can possibly be false as the verity of something varies from individual to individual and there is no universal law that tells us which beliefs are right and wrong. As belief is very subjective, we have to dismiss the possibility it can be wrong and hence this quote does not hold. If I do believe in something, I do have justifications for my belief and universally i may be told it is wrong. But it is wrong on the basis of the parameters set by others and as soon as that happens it seizes to be personal. Of course, We do need to be open to various beliefs and integrate it with our own if possible, but there is no such thing as a false belief. If we take Plato into consideration, there may be such a thing as a true belief which is empirically determined i.e. justified but this true belief holds because it appeals to a mass. Just because a belief doesn’t have a universal appeal, does not allow anyone to label it as false.

Truth Quotes

“Begin by believing with all your heart that your belief is true so that it will work for you. But then face the possibility that it is really false, so that you can accept the consequences of the belief.”- John Reseck

A belief is what you see as being true. Your entire body collaborates as a system to believe what you feel is true. Your soul, heart and mind look at the truth in such a way that you believe it to be true. At the end of the day, it becomes intuitively obvious to you that it is true.

Let me tell you a story about and aunt of mine who believed with all her heart that her belief is true. She was is my grandmothers sister.

Since she was very young she was told that she was to believe in Lord Krishna. With time, she learned more about him and became his ultimate devotee. She used to tell me tales of him as I grew up. She had his pictures all over her house. Once, while telling about his butter eating habits, she told me that she could feel his spiritual presence around her bedroom. According to her, he had come to bless her and thank her for her devotion. I could feel the hair on my arms rise. She suddenly leaped out of bed and started chanting a mysterious song. She was 84 years old back then and was physically impaired. She could not walk without a walker- and there, right in front of me- she jumped out of bed! I ran and hid in the bathroom, my 7 year old brain telling me that it was safe territory. She called out my name several times but I did not yield. I heard my mother’s reassuring voice and sprang into her arms not looking even once at my aunt.
Only last year I heard another incident.
When she was sleeping at night, she felt his presence again. This time she did not get up from her bed but claimed to see Lord Krishna. According to her, he went to a portrait of his near her bed and imprinted a red ‘Om’ on it. He went to her and touched her forehead and then vanished. She thought it was a dream. But when she woke up, she saw the symbol on the portrait and was stunned. The next day she told her neighbourhood and my grandparents about it.
When I heard, I told them that it was all a hoax to mentally harass an old lady. I was sure her servants had done this to her to play the fool. But she believed in it so strongly that she went everywhere saying that she was blessed. Today she is 94 and still living a healthy life. According to her, she was supposed to die early, but because she prayed to Lord Krishna, he blessed her a long life. She visited many doctors who could not help her situation. She called them ‘rakshas’, who did not believe in god and were jealous of her being blessed.

This is an example of a woman who believed with all her heart that her belief was true. But she could not accept the possibility of it being false. She was titled mentally retarded by even her close relatives. One could tell that it disturbed her greatly. She stopped talking to anyone in my family as we looked at the situation more rationally, obviously our point of view.
But her belief worked for her, and she always felt uplifted. She could not accept the consequences of the belief being false.