The only contact we can have is contact with truth (the thing-in-itself of which Kant spoke). In other words, there is no true contact with the people and material things that surround us, which is why we will never achieve happiness with the kind of life we have now. Of course, we do have glimpses of intense joy, fleeting glances of the extraordinary happiness that can be ours if we re-establish our lost unity with truth.
It is extremely interesting to ponder the fact that although the human being has rejected the reality of creation and set up his own theater in which to act, at the same time he still thinks he is a guinea pig in the hands of the Creator.
Man believes that if his house of entertainment is torn down, he too will be completely destroyed, for he does not want to renounce the idea of his being the designer of truth. As a result, disagreeable symptoms appear (anguish, phobias, physical illness, and social disasters), reminding him that he is off the true path. We are not beings floating free in space, drifting along like gas-filled balloons. We are linked to an incredible reality that, even when denied by our will, continues to exist, determine and direct everything.
Is there any advantage in allying oneself to truth? To begin with, we have to admit that no real contact is possible with what does not exist. After a time in fantasy, the individual sinks into anguished displeasure, from which he would like to be free without having to commit himself to reality. That is the reason for his nervousness.
No person directs his existence by reason alone, but we never fail to use reason for our own convenience. On one hand we have contact with truth, which we attempt to use according to our will; on the other we create our world of ideas, according to which we try to live believing it the best there is.
We think that truth is totally uninteresting, for its only aim is reality and since the human being acts almost exclusively out of self-interest, he obviously has no interest in it. And yet the moment he realizes what truth is, he will never again abandon it.
From: KEPPE, Norberto da Rocha. Liberation. São Paulo: Proton Publishing House, 2016.
Reflection:
Do you realize that we are experiencing a moment of decision: shall we choose truth, or remain in illusion?
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