The Grasshopper gave me this conundrum: “A truth lies inside a lie and a lie lies inside a truth.” What does that mean?

I haven’t a clue, so let’s explore.

It seems that “truth” has to be defined as that which has no opposite and is whole, like the whole truth. A “lie” is defined as that which has infinite opposites and is fragmented.

So how do so many opposites lie inside that which has none and vice-versa?

Lies are fragments of the truth, meaning the truth can be represented by infinite pieces of fragmentation, each containing a representation of truth – sort of like a hologram.

But truth is not an amalgam of those pieces. Each piece is just a reflection of the whole, not actually a part of it.

So when you see yourself in a full-length mirror, you are not really seeing a part of you, only a reflection of you. What you are seeing is a lie, and depending on how many angles you view it from, you are seeing lots of lies.

The you you are seeing is a lie. The real you is whole. It’s the truth.

Your reflection is the lie inside the truth. The truth inside the lie is the wholeness the reflection seeks. Yes, that last line made my eyes glaze over too.

Each of our outer manifestations purports to be us. That’s a lie. We attempt to define our whole self by a collection of labels or behaviors (lies). “I am a (fill in a label)” is what we claim. “I am my (fill in a behavior}” is what we hold up as the truth.

Our whole self can never be defined by a label or fragmented piece of behavior. It’s like Lao Tzu said thousands of years ago, “The name which can be named is not the eternal name.”

Each time we claim to be anything other than the whole, we are lying, which, sadly, is most of the time.

What happens when we stop holding on to a shiny fragment and claiming it’s the whole? It’s then we find the truth inside the lie.

All the best,

John