Is there in truth no beauty?

Disclaimer:
Today I want to start a new 3 part blog post on the nature of truth. Mind you, I am not referring to the subjective truth that we all feel from time to time, but rather the objective truth, the fact, the reality. This post shall also reveal things that one might find offensive and or objectionable, but after all, that is the nature of truth.

Is there in truth no beauty?

Ever since I was a small child I have always been asking questions. I have always been interested in the reasons behind things, the truth of the matter if you will. This of course led to some rather uncomfortable confrontations in catholic school. Inevitably this evolved to the usual curiosity that most children have, although I suspect most children didn’t try to disassemble a television. In college I had the good fortune to attend several classes on Western History. Please forgive me, I do not remember the professors name, but if you can imagine a class being taught by an atheist jesus you get the picture. One of the most valuable thing he or anyone for that matter has ever taught me was that there was a truth to history, to people, that was quite different to the popular view. For example the events attributed to Paul Revere and his famous ride, was a fiction, created by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and detailed the account of three different riders. I became fascinated with this.

As a society we tend to glorify individuals, to raise them on a pedestal or deify them. In a very real sense we remove their accomplishments from the realm of the possible. An analogy would be saying that the pyramids were built by Aliens. This implies that humans are incapable of building them on their own. To illustrate this point I will need three volunteers……. Ok, you in the first row The Dahli Lama, and you next to him, Gandhi, and what about you in the back with the blue scarf, Mother Theresa.

When we think of all three of these people we get this mental image of great peace keepers or incredible humanitarians. I’m not here to dispute that claim, but did you know that one of these people was a vocal racist against blacks? That one of these people accepted millions of dollars from the CIA to fund guerrilla warfare in his former country? Or that one of these created a cult of suffering and denied basic health care to those that she professed to help all the while traveling and collecting millions of dollars to open more “hospitals”. Don’t believe me? Look it up, the record is clear.

The Dalai Lama admitted that he received 1.7 million dollars a year from the U.S. Government to fund guerrilla operations against the Chinese. The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA’s payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $180,000 a year. In addition, the Tibet that he wants to go back to was a horribly unequal social situation where the peasant class comprising 95% of the population lived in abject poverty so that the remaining 5%, the priest class could live in opulent wealth. The Dalai Lama is widely considered one of the greatest humanitarians alive today.

Gandhi not only spoke out against blacks while he was in South Africa he wrote about it quite extensively in the local newspaper “ The Indian Opinion “. Gandhi’s desire for Indians to be segregated from blacks was so strong that he went to Johannesburg in late August of 1904 to protest the placing of blacks in the Indian section of the city. Gandhi was elevated to the status of Mahatma, a title reserved for the greatest of thinkers, analogous to the western “saint” and one Gandhi himself denied.

Mother Theresa and the Missionaries of Charity took in millions from whatever source they could including the family of Papa Doc, The “butcher” of Haiti. There are many accounts from prior nuns, who left the order in disgust, after seeing how the money was being squandered instead of going to the poor as promised. In addition she believed that suffering was important for the soul and denied those she sought to help basic health care. Mother Theresa has been venerated and is well on her way to Sainthood in the Catholic Church.

So what is the point of this? Why should we remember these people as they were and not as society perceives them? Well it is precisely because they have done amazing things that I want this. The Dalai Lama is the premiere humanitarian alive today. He has done untold good in the world. Gandhi started the non violent resistance movement that freed India from colonial rule and ultimately lead to the civil rights movement in the United States. And Mother Theresa went on a public awareness campaign that raised awareness for the horrible conditions and desperate poverty worldwide. She opened our eyes.

When we raise people up to the level of Sainthood, when we deify them, and create an idealized version of who they are, we set them out of reach. They become unattainable. But when we accept them as human beings, on the same level as us, with the same flaws, and fears as us, all of a sudden their great accomplishments enter the realm of the possible.

We all have the capacity for compassion that the Dalai Lama has or the strength of Gandhi or the compassion the Mother Theresa had. We all have these abilities in ourselves. We are capable of these things and so much more if we only learn to listen to ourselves, and the truth.