To what extent is a person truly aware of "The Truth" as it relates to reality? It’s a profound question, one that keeps resurfacing for me—especially as I observe the current state of affairs in the USA and beyond. "Truth" is a word that gets thrown around constantly, yet when I try to pin it down, it slips through my fingers.
Let’s start with the dictionary: Truth – the quality of being true, genuine, actual, or factual. But that’s barely helpful. It amounts to saying something is true if it is… true. It’s circular, tautological—resting on unexamined assumptions. This vague definition opens the door to all manner of self-proclaimed truths, each jostling for supremacy in public discourse.
Why does this matter? Because so much of what we think we know—what we believe—isn’t based on direct knowledge or personal understanding. It’s based on what we’ve been told. Accepted truths often stem not from inquiry or experience, but from repetition. We’re taught to believe certain things and discouraged, subtly or not, from asking too many questions.
Indoctrination and Brainwashing: Two Faces of the Same Coin
Here we arrive at a crucial distinction: indoctrination vs. brainwashing.
Indoctrination is the gentle, pervasive process by which a person internalizes beliefs, values, and norms—usually from a young age. It happens at home, in school, through culture and media. It says: This is how things are because this is how they’ve always been. It’s rarely questioned, and when it is, the challenger is often met with confusion, derision, or hostility.
Take religion, for example. Why do we have so many religions, especially among those who all claim allegiance to one God? If there is indeed only one God, why must the expression of that belief diverge so radically based on geography or heritage? A child born in Riyadh becomes a Muslim, while one born in Rome becomes a Catholic. The deity might be the same in essence—an unknowable divine reality—but the structures built around that essence are often exclusive and contradictory.
That’s indoctrination: the transmission of "truth" as a package deal you don’t get to inspect.
Brainwashing, on the other hand, is more coercive. It involves pressure—sometimes subtle, often brutal—until the subject surrenders to the preferred worldview. Think of cults, authoritarian regimes, military boot camps, or even abusive families. In brainwashing, deviation from the prescribed truth invites punishment, exile, or worse. While indoctrination depends on emotional attachment and repetition, brainwashing uses fear.
But in the end, both lead to the same place: accepting beliefs without real understanding. The danger is not just that we adopt these "truths," but that we defend them as if they were self-evident, even when the evidence is missing or contradictory.
The Politics of Truth in the USA
Which brings me to the United States and the political mess unfolding there. We are witnessing a public battle between competing versions of truth, none of which seem grounded in much more than ideology or raw self-interest.
Take Donald Trump. A man whose educational credentials may be polished on paper—a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania—but whose public statements reveal a striking ignorance of history, science, and basic civics. More concerning is his apparent belief, passed on from his father, that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. This is not speculation. It’s well-documented behaviour. His repeated falsehoods—from the size of his inauguration crowd to the integrity of the 2020 election—have not only gone largely unchallenged within his base but have been embraced.
Why? Because people want to believe them. Trump offers a return to an imagined past—“Make America Great Again”—a seductive idea for those disillusioned by modern complexities. But this golden age never really existed. It's a fantasy, a nostalgic mirage of simpler, more stable times—often for white, male, Christian Americans—while ignoring the reality of inequality, racism, and injustice.
And this is not unique to the USA. Right-wing populists across the world—from Viktor Orbán in Hungary to Narendra Modi in India—have capitalized on similar strategies: redefine truth to suit the narrative, and make the past seem glorious, even if it wasn’t.
The Legacy of Short-termism
So how has this worked? Why has it worked?
Because politicians everywhere have become obsessed with short-term goals—winning the next election, delivering the next economic bump, surviving the next scandal. Meanwhile, long-term issues like climate change, social cohesion, and the mental health epidemic are swept aside. The price of this short-termism is staggering. Forests are cleared, oceans are poisoned, and societies grow more fractured by the year.
We are seeing the results in real time: devastating weather events, increasing nationalism, collapsing trust in institutions, and a growing sense that society is unraveling.
It is no longer a hypothetical concern. For many, hell is already here.
The Weaponisation of Religion
Religion, meanwhile, has not escaped this trend—it has been weaponized in countless conflicts. Take Zionism, for instance. Not Judaism, not the Jewish people, but political Zionism—the movement that has, in its more extreme forms, sought to justify mass violence and occupation through a divine claim to land.
Or consider the way militant Islam has been manipulated by warlords and extremist clerics to inspire suicide bombers and justify the murder of innocents. In both cases, spiritual truth has been co-opted by political agendas.
And it’s not just the big, headline-grabbing religions. Even within so-called peaceful nations, Christianity is being used to enforce ideologies that deny others dignity, rights, or inclusion. It’s no longer about spiritual insight—it’s about power.
Truth, If It Exists, Must Be Lived
So, again: what is truth?
It cannot simply be what we are told. It cannot be the loudest voice or the most repeated slogan. Truth, if it is to have meaning, must arise from direct experience, from critical thought, from quiet introspection. It must be discovered, not delivered.
This is why I resonate so deeply with spiritual teachers like Prem Rawat, who focuses not on belief but on experience. He does not ask you to believe in a system, a dogma, or a saviour. He asks you to go within—to find peace, to find clarity, to find your own inner knowing. Not the truth, but your truth—free from the noise, free from fear.
Because in the end, perhaps the real battle isn’t between competing ideologies, but between inner clarity and outer confusion. The clearer we become inside, the more resilient we are to manipulation, fearmongering, and deception.
A Final Thought
This planet is astonishing—perhaps unique in the universe. And yet we are ravaging it in our pursuit of illusions, driven by greed and fear. The lies we tell ourselves, and each other, are not just words. They have consequences. Species die. Oceans rise. Societies fall.
The truth—whatever it is—matters. But it must be uncovered, not inherited. Lived, not legislated.
Let that be the challenge for each of us.
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