The Power of Truth | Motivational Podcasts

Podcast Transcript: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast, brought to you in part by Book of Zen, makers of wearable inspiration for a better world. Today’s podcast has been edited and adapted from the book “The Power of Truth” by William George Jordan, published in 1902.

Truth is the rock foundation of every great character. It is loyalty to what is right, as we see it. It is the courageous living of our lives in harmony with our ideals. It is always — power. Truth ever defies a full definition. Like electricity, it can only be explained by noting its manifestation. It is the compass of the soul, the guardian of conscience, the final touchstone of right. Truth is the revelation of an ideal; but it is also an inspiration to REALIZE that ideal, a constant impulse to live it.

Lying is one of the oldest vices in the world — it made its debut in the story of the Garden of Eden. Lying is the sacrifice of honor to create a wrong impression. It is masquerading in misfit virtues. Truth can stand alone, for it needs no chaperone or escort. However, lies are cowardly, fearsome things that must travel in crowds. They are like a parade of drunken men, one vainly seeking to support another.

Lying is the partner and accomplice of all the other vices—while truth is the oldest of all the virtues. It pre-dates human beings; it lived before there was anyone to perceive it or to accept it. It is the unchangeable, the constant — the unity that always produces identical results under identical conditions. When a great truth in Nature is discovered, we hold the key to the understanding of a million phenomena; when a great moral truth is grasped, we possess the key to our spiritual re-creation.

For the individual, there is no such thing as theoretical truth. A great truth that is not absorbed by our whole mind and life, and has not become an inseparable part of our living, is not a real truth to us. If we know the truth and do not live it, our life is — a lie.

In speech, the person who makes Truth their watchword is careful in their words. They seek to be accurate, neither understating nor over-coloring. They never state as a fact that of which they are not sure. What they say thus has the ring of sincerity, the hall-mark of pure gold. If they praise you, you accept their statement without question or hesitation. Their promise counts for something, you accept it as being as good as their bond; you know that no matter how much it may cost them to verify and fulfill their word by deeds, they will do it. Their honesty is not policy.

The individual who is honest merely because it IS “the best policy,*’ is not really honest; they are only politic. Usually such a person would forsake their seeming loyalty to truth and would work overtime for the devil — if they could get better terms. Truth means “that which one believes.” It is living simply and squarely by our belief; it is the externalizing of a faith in a series of actions.

Truth is ever strong, courageous, virile, and calm. There is a vital difference between error and untruthfulness. Some individuals may be in error and yet live bravely by it; others who are untruthful in their lives, may know the truth but deny it. The first are loyal to what they believe; the second are traitors to what they know.

”What is Truth?” That was Pilate’s great question, asked of Christ, which has echoed unanswered through the ages. Though revelations and glimpses may come, we never get a complete, final definition. However, if we but live up to the truth that we know, and seek ever to know more, we put ourselves into the spiritual attitude of receptiveness to know the Truth in the fullness of its power…..

Read The Entire Essay in Evergreen: 50 Inspirational Life Lessons

Motivational Books

You can also gain access to this essay and full transcript by becoming a patron of the Inspirational Living podcast. For more information, please visit: https://www.patreon.com/inspirationalpodcasts.



The Living Hour