“Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

I’ve always been an early riser naturally, without any alarm. It must be a deeply ingrained pattern from lifetimes of being either a monk, nun, baker, or farmer. Shortly after I wake up, I have developed a pattern of flipping on the news while I answer emails and drink my tea. I often find myself waking up with a strange urge to find out if the world is still there – and in what condition.

As I take in the array of images and updates, it seems we are drifting farther and farther away from a shared reality that values truth. It’s almost as if we are caught in the archetypal story of the “Emperor’s New Clothes”:

A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two weavers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is either unfit for his position or ‘hopelessly stupid.’ The Emperor’s ministers cannot see the clothes themselves, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions, and the Emperor does the same. Finally, the weavers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him, and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk play along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all, and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor suspects the assertion is true but continues the procession.
~ from Wikipedia

The Greek word parrhesia appeared in Greek literature around 500 BC. It means, literally, to speak everything, and signifies a kind of internal compulsion to speak the truth for the sake of the greater good, even at the cost of personal risk or danger. In our terms, it means a kind of transparency that is wholehearted, courageous, and full.

In our current culture of personal process, people reveal their truth by divulging inner feelings, thoughts, and subjective experiences. Parrhesia is distinct from that kind of speaking everything. It’s a way of knowing the truth through direct contact and experience. In our work in the Evolutionary Collective, our capacity as a group of people to live inside transparency and openness is becoming stable. The awakened consciousness we share depends on our passion to stay close to reality together, to be intimate with whatever is present. Our approach is driven by the shared commitment to becoming a collective of ‘parrhesiastes’ – those willing to know and express truth, even when it’s challenging.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.  
~ Desmond

A parrhesiastes knows what is true through their direct experience – the emperor is not wearing any clothes. It’s simple, clear, and undeniable. And even though it’s often inconvenient (at least in our current world) to know truth and feel the need to express it, as a parrhesiastes, you speak regardless. Though it might be risky, a parresiastes finds it more painful to live inside a world of lies. An inner pressure drives a parrhesiastes to speak truth to authority or to a larger organization or institution, even at a personal cost. What makes someone a parrhesiastes is that their power is sourced from truth itself, not from a position or situation of authority in the outside world.

We live in a global culture that, by and large, puts a very low premium on truth. Our survival-based priorities take precedence every day. What’s truth got to do with it, after all?  We trade our allegiance to truth for safety, comfort, to reinforce our self-images, to make ourselves look good, to gain approval, acceptance, love, to be successful, and to have power, among other things. All of these are infinite variations on attempting to get what we believe we want and hold on to what we think we need… Much like the emperor’s subjects, who were unwilling to speak the truth of what they saw because they believed that they would appear stupid or unfit for their positions. We share a world where we are encouraged to compromise, live on the surface, and deny the deeper truths that would allow us to come together in ways that honor one another and life itself.

Every day, we are confronted with disregard for and distortion of truth. The resulting chaos and frustration this causes in our world is becoming extreme and undeniable.  Alternative facts, blatant lies, and reversals have become daily fare. We are being called, as never before, to reclaim and establish a world where truth, goodness, and beauty can flourish once again.

Within the Evolutionary Collective, we are collectively taking on our human resistance to loving and living from the truth. My hope is that many of us will be ignited into our parrhesiatic nature and, like the child in the story, we will cry out and awaken those around us with the truth. We will unite and enter into reality together – the only place from which we can be orchestrated to create a new world.