A bumper sticker on a car in front of me reads: In a world of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Truth heals. But how? And why? And what good does it do anyway? Plenty.

Telling the truth is about freedom. It is about joy and peace and health and living a life that is meaningful, powerful, connected, and loving. Ultimately, telling the truth is about feeling good in your own skin, unencumbered, free, and having the life that you want to live.

So why do lies so often seem nicer, tidier, easier? The truth is often uncomfortable – because so much shame and guilt are attached to it, because it has been suppressed and left unspoken for years.

On Christmas Eve, the king invited the prime minister to join him for their usual walk together. He enjoyed seeing the decorations in the streets, but since he didn’t want his subjects to spend too much money on these just to please him, the two men always disguised themselves as traders from some far distant land.

They walked through the center of the city, admiring the lights, the Christmas trees, the candles burning on the steps of the houses, the stalls selling gifts, and the men, women and children hurrying off to celebrate a family Christmas around a table laden with food.

“Love, compassion, and tolerance are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”

The essence of all religions is love, compassion, and tolerance. Kindness is my true religion. No matter whether you are learned or not, whether you believe in the next life or not, whether you believe in God or Buddha or some other religion or not, in day-to-day life you must be a kind person. When you are motivated by kindness, it doesn’t matter whether you are a practitioner, a lawyer, a politician, an administrator, a worker, or an engineer: whatever your profession or field, deep down you are a kind person.

The pace of modern life has become so fast and intense that it has created an epidemic in our society. This epidemic that affects the majority of us is stress. You have probably heard how stress affects the human body. It is not unusual for people to suffer all kinds of psychological and physical problems because they are afraid of dealing with the factors responsible for their stress.

What are these factors?
Believe it or not, our personal belief system greatly affects the quality of our everyday life, and it’s one of the main causes of stress in our lives. In our relationships with our partners, our children, our co-workers, our friends, we find a world of opinions. We become vulnerable to these opinions because the relationships are important to us. Think back to your early childhood, and you will realize that since the time you learned to talk people’s opinions have mattered to you.