An Approximate Truth

What follows is our “story” about What Is.  Your story will be probably be different – in some respects or many respects.  We offer this as just one way of looking at the world.  Even as we put these words down, we know that it changes month by month, and tomorrow or next month the words would be different because this is an evolving story.  It seems to take some time at each level of understanding to allow the thinking habits of a lifetime to be moved aside just enough to let new concepts settle in.

Not only does the story evolve, but it seems that we inevitably end up trying to describe the infinite with finite brains and finite language. So it will always be what we are calling an “Approximate Truth”.

Part of our Approximate Truth is that all beliefs are valid – that all “Approximate Truths” are equally true.  You might ask “How can this be so?”, since some beliefs seem diametrically opposite to others.  As you’ll see from what follows here, this is not only logical but part of the inherent fabric of What Is.

What’s the point of formulating an Approximate Truth?  Well we all have one.  It is our ideas about (our model of) the way the world works and how we can best survive and thrive.  It may be very simple or very complex.  But consciously or unconsciously, we use it to navigate our existence, to maximize our enjoyment of life – whatever that looks like.  It could look like serving others, making money, serving God, having fun, saving the world, conquering the world … whatever seems to best put us on the positive end of our personal emotional scale.

So OK perhaps we all have one, but what’s the point of thinking about it – surfacing it and looking at it – particularly as it’s an approximation?  The point is, in terms of predicting the way everything works, it may be a sufficiently accurate model that, by knowing it and using it, we can make better choices and create more of what we want in our lives.

If we look at the self-help industry, it’s huge.  Visit any bookstore.  Much of it is within the boundaries of “real” world thinking – particularly when it’s aimed at the business market where of course it’s not yet kosher to talk of things metaphysical.  But either way, it speaks to a huge desire on the part of us humans to find a better way.

Some of these Approximate Truths encompass spiritual things.  Now why would anyone want to believe there’s anything beyond what we can normally experience – physically touch and see?  I submit that there are two reasons.

Firstly, because most of us at some point or other start to ponder some big questions like -
1. Who are we and why are we here?
2. Who am I and why am I here?
In other words, what’s the point to all of this, and when we get to that inquiry, we inevitably start to speculate about things beyond our physical space/time boundary.

Secondly, beyond that intellectual speculation, there’s a huge number of apparently sensible and coherent people who claim to have extra-sensory experiences that seem as real to them as the physical world – a personal experience of God, a near death experience, an out-of-body experience, a sense of déjà vu, entities speaking through a channel, and so on and so on. In fact, the history of humankind seems to suggest we have some inherent ability to experience things supernatural.

You might say that since the Age Of The Hobbit, we have entered the Age Of Reason and Science, and if something happens right now that we can’t explain, it’s just a matter of waiting for the science to catch up and everything will be clear.  And just as we settle into that, along comes Quantum Physics and we start to hear language that we would formerly characterize as very unscientific – things move into and out of existence, the observer affects the result, and there are probable multiple versions of reality.  So even science is now declaring that there is far more complexity to it all than we previously thought.

Your Approximate Truth may be very simple and it may or may not contain things spiritual.  But if you’ve got to the point where you’re looking for a better model, then we offer the contents of these pages.  As always, take what feels good and discard the rest, because, ultimately logic cannot prevail in this exercise.  As we learn in sales school, we all buy on emotion (how we feel) and justify on logic.  So it will be here, and so it should be.

See also Beliefs And Absolutes