"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Exodus 20:16).
The fabric of any society is composed of the interlacing of human relations. The preservation of that fabric calls for certain self-evident ethical standards that are implied in the ninth commandment. Don't tell lies about people . . . Don't exaggerate . . . Don't engage in excessive criticism. It is said, "A man's word is his bond." If we cannot count on the word of our neighbor, then the ties that bind us together as a society are perilously loosened.
In its first layer of meaning the ninth commandment sets forth the principle of the sacredness of the judicial system. The word bear means "to answer." In court, whether as plaintiff, defendant, or witness, a person must speak "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" in a charge involving his neighbor. A lie is a false witness, whether told to help or to convict someone.
In a courtroom today, the testimony of a witness may convict a person or set him free. It could even send him to his death. However, when the witness gives his testimony, he has no further responsibility. If there is a conviction, the courts administer the punishment. It was not so in olden times. Under Mosaic law, when a sentence was pronounced on an accused person, the witnesses against him had to carry out the sentence. If he was to be stoned to death, the accusers and witnesses had to do the stoning. It was a strong deterrent against false witnessing.
Also . . . a provision carried over from the ancient Code of Hammurabi (a king of Babylon, ca. 2000 B.C.): if a witness was found to have given a false testimony, he would receive the punishment that would have gone to the accused. Thus the accuser literally staked his life on his words. It was dangerous to lie.
The word witness comes from an old English word, witan, meaning "understanding," "intelligence," "wisdom." It is related to the Sanskrit Veda, which is the name of the sacred scriptures of Hinduism. It is also the root of vedanta, the chief philosophy among the Hindus. The word witness implies "seeing," "knowing," or what we call "consciousness."
There are different kinds of witnessing: ear-witness, eye-witness, and heart-witness. In legal cases much is made of the fact that a witness saw something. "Seeing is believing" is the axiom. Actually, the opposite is truer, "Believing is seeing." It is much easier to see a person doing something dishonest if one believes he is a thief. What one sees and hears is strongly influenced by consciousness. Note, for instance, how a person afflicted with paranoia may see and hear all sorts of wrongs being done around him or to him.
When you know that "life is consciousness," you know that you have a responsibility for what you see and hear and sense. You always see according to your level of awareness. The seeing thus implies a judgment. You are not responsible for what people do or say, but you are responsible for what you do or say or think about them. You cannot change them, but it is your mind, and thus you can change your thoughts. You can change the attitudes you hold toward them and your intentions of dealing with them.
As you break through the crystallized shell of the ninth commandment, the first discovery is that you really cannot bear false witness. The reason? What you say or report on expresses where you are and what you are. When you bear witness to error, you reveal an awareness of error, perhaps a preoccupation with error, in your own consciousness. As Walt Whitman said: the good or had you say of another, you actually say of yourself. If everyone really understood this, most negative criticism and gossip would be eliminated, and bridge clubs and coffee breaks might lose their reason for existence.
Consciousness being what it is, our dealing with negative things about others, whether true or untrue, not only bears witness to our own state of consciousness, but it opens the way to its outpicturing in us. The principle of causation that is implied is this: What you say about another person will happen to you, for by saying it you indicate that it has already happened in you. This is what Jesus had in mind as He said: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get" (Matthew 7:1, 2).
A strong implication of the ninth commandment is criticism. Listen to the conversation in a typical social gathering, and even though it may be judgmental, use this measuring device: Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people. You may be shocked. Even more, you will note that the conversation about people will invariably be in a critical vein.
Why do you criticize? Usually it evidences poor self-regard . . . and it is a subconscious attempt to cut the other person down to a size where the critic can feel more comfortable in relating. If you really want to work with this ninth commandment, you might spend one week checking up on your tendency to criticize. When you are on the verge of saying something about a person, use the classic Oriental test: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it needful? You may well discover that, in most cases, what you are about to say with enthusiasm might much better be left unsaid.
The word criticism comes from a Greek word coined by Aristotle. It means "to evaluate or establish true worth." Obviously, the original meaning has been lost. For it was intended to mean, not faultfinding, but looking for the good. In this sense, it is as wrong not to creatively criticize one you love as to destructively criticize anyone.
Senator Paul Douglas once told how he had long had trouble with his opponents. One day at a Quaker meeting a man said, "Whenever someone differs with you or criticizes you, try to show him in every way that you love him." Douglas knew that, as the Quakers put it, "the man had spoken to his condition." He had long been meeting criticism with retaliation. So he decided that he would no longer oppose people as people, but he would simply oppose ideas. He would never attack a person's character, but always try to show goodwill toward his adversaries. He said that his rise in politics began when he heard the words of the Quaker man . . . and did something about them.
Bearing false witness against your neighbor is criticizing him to put him down rather than to build him up. Instead of trying to help him, it is helping yourself to feel more adequate at his expense. The commandments are not saying, "Don't do that, for it is not nice!" They deal with cosmic law. And in this case, by bearing false witness, you are setting up negative causes for which you will have to pay the price.
There is an interesting Christian fundamentalist term, "witness for Christ." It might imply proselyting, standing on street corners to preach the Gospel, or standing up in a revival meeting to give personal testimony. However, this term takes on a whole new meaning when you realize that Christ is not Jesus, but the divinity within Jesus, a divinity that is also within every person. It means knowledge of the Christ indwelling, your very own divine potential . . . and seeing from that knowledge, hearing from that knowledge, and feeling from that knowledge . . . and then projecting it in the words you speak, the things you do, and the feelings you engender.
Jesus said: "For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37). We have been misled into thinking that this was "very God" telling us that He was a special dispensation of infinite Mind. Overlooked are His clearly stated words, "All that I do you can do too." Actually, every person has his own inner relationship with the divine flow. Jesus was only saying of Himself what every person can and ultimately must say of himself: Everyone came into the world to bear witness to the Truth of his own being.
Does this mean that each person must preach or teach? No! Truth is not the spiritual "gems" we mouth. Truth is a nonverbal reality. We experience Truth in the depths of our being and then we attempt to articulate the experience; we encode into words that which is basically a feeling. To bear witness to Truth is to know who we are and to express our true selves honestly.
The Truth of you is the Christ of you. Do you really know this Christ self? Is this the level of you that you are bearing witness to? Or are you bearing false witness to your neighbor?
We are civilized creatures, and civilization has often come to mean the responsibility of putting on a facade, wearing a mask under the guise of being "normal" or "decent" or "socially acceptable." A child in a religious family is taught at an early age that he must be good or he will be flogged, so he puts on the mask of "goodness" and "morality." He goes off to school where he learns to don the mask of erudition and intellectual maturity. We also wear masks of culture, masks of urbanity, and many masks that consist of little more than the clothes we wear and the makeup we painstakingly apply.
The greatest fear of the average person is that someone will catch him unawares without his mask. This is classically demonstrated in the following vignette: A little girl comes home telling her mother that the new neighbor is coming over to visit. Mother excitedly runs around the house picking up the papers, hanging up clothes, and straightening the rugs and furniture. The little girl, surprised, says, "But mamma, she is just our neighbor!" To which the mother replies, "Do you think I want my neighbor to think that our house always looks the way it always looks?" Thus her orderly house would bear false witness to her neighbor.
In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman we have the tragic story of one who is so concerned with being well-liked that he never discovers who he is or how to be himself. In his early years he learned to "win friends and influence people" as a salesman by putting on a mask of geniality. However, behind this facade was the empty shell of a man who had never really known life as a quest, an unfoldment. The most important thing to him was to be well-liked, but he did not really like himself. When his employer terminated his services, he did not have the capacity to let go and walk on. There was nothing to go to, because he really had nothing to go from. His life was over!
The interesting thing is that Willy Loman was bearing false witness only because he thought he was. As Emerson says, we do not represent but misrepresent ourselves. Willie rejected himself and put on a facade of dash and self-assurance, but he never knew that the person he tried so hard to be was the person he really was. At any time through the years he could have removed the mask and "let his light shine," and his effectiveness as a salesman and as a person would have been enhanced. The false witness was not the fact that he was playing a game, but that he thought he was.
There is a folktale about a great ruler who was hard and cruel and whose face had become lined with ugliness. He fell in love with a beautiful princess whom he wanted to be his queen. However, ashamed of his grim appearance, he had his magicians create for him a mask of thin wax that carefully followed his own features but made him look kind and pleasant. He married the girl and had many years of happiness, during which time his character and consciousness underwent a complete metamorphosis. However, he began to feel pangs of conscience because of his deception. Finally, he decided that he had to be true to himself and his lovely wife. He removed the mask. And, miracle of miracles, he discovered that he had actually become in fact and feature the kind, honest, and good person that he had played at being. In a very real sense, the false witness that he was bearing to his subjects was the hard and cruel manner that he had projected before he met his lovely princess, which is symbolic of finding the Christ within.
Many persons become interested in personal development through the study of this new insight in Truth. The word develop does not mean to create something out of nothing, as many have supposed. It is not putting on a facade that is manufactured by affirmations and autosuggestion. The word comes from the same root as envelope. To develop, then, means to unwrap, to unfold, to release and use that which is already available within. Whatever you desire to become you already are, for your desire is an intuitive foreshadowing of the inner reality.
"Know the truth, and the truth will make you free!" Free from the limitations of the past, free from the sham of human consciousness that forever tries to obscure what you are, and free from the false attitude that believes that what you are is not good enough. Knowing Truth should also set you free from the ego needs to emphasize the years of your study, the teachers you have worked with, and the degrees you have achieved. It was Jesus who said that you are to be known by the fruits of your consciousness. Any claims of spiritual excellence, not borne out by evidence of mastery, is bearing false witness.
To truly keep the ninth commandment calls for humility, the self-honesty to see yourself as a lifelong student on the quest. The need is to see oneself in right relations to the divine flow. Nowhere is this process more articulately summed up than in the closing lines of "The Lord's Prayer" as it is commonly spoken: For Thine is the Kingdom—all right ideas, plans, purposes come out of infinite Mind; And the Power—the strength and creative ability to put them into operation comes from the divine flow; And the Glory—thus all credit of accomplishment belongs to God.
When we truly understand this process, we will keep ourselves humbly receptive to the divine flow. We will be true to ourselves in giving witness for the Christ pattern within. In this consciousness we will never be untrue to anyone else. We will be too big to belittle, too secure to be critical, and too humble to be boastful. This is why Jesus emphasized "love your neighbor," for when you are loving you are living fully and receptively, you are in tune with God, and in right relation with your fellow human beings.
Every person is a steward of the tiny spark of living fire that one may desecrate but never quite lose. You are like a lighthouse keeper. You have the continuing responsibility of keeping the light trim and burning bright. "You are the light of the world" said Jesus. "Let your light . . . shine" (Matthew 5:14, 16). The smile of your face and the friendliness of your manner are contagious. Walk down the street of your town with a friendly smile and you will leave a “mile of smiles" behind you.
From a moral point of view you are charged not to bear false witness to your neighbor. From the perspective of metamorality you have a responsibility, as an integral part of the universe in which you coexist with your neighbor, to radiate to him your witness for Truth. "He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes" (I John 2:10, 11).
It is relatively easy to refrain from bearing false witness to your neighbor in a moral sense, but to really express your Christ-self to your neighbors of the world calls for total commitment. It means revising all your thoughts about yourself, and changing your way of thinking, seeing, feeling, speaking, and acting. It means a complete purification of consciousness.
In biblical times this commitment of purification was symbolized by the act of going into a pool or a river to bathe. Originally, what is now a rite of baptism was done for sanitary purposes. For people who rarely bathed, it indicated a commitment to make a clean breast of things. Certainly, one who is physically unclean . . . or who has unpleasant body odors, is bearing false witness to the "temple of the living God."
The bathing process is an excellent symbol to work with, the ideal of a spiritual as well as a physical cleansing. Every morning or evening as you take your bath or shower, close your eyes for a few moments and identify the experience as an immersion or baptism in the allness of God. Get the feeling that all that is impure is being washed away, and that you are established in the dynamic flow of infinite life, love, and intelligence. Make your commitment to keep your mind stayed on God, your whole being consciously in the flow of life. Resolve to bear witness to the Truth in mind, body, and affairs.
The world today desperately needs people who will make the commitment to bear witness to the Truth, people who will make a special effort to be true to their God-self within, to be morally straight and metamorally disciplined. When there are more business people who are committed to honest representation of their products, more politicians who mean what they say, and more educators who set examples as well as examinations for their students . . . then truly we will begin to realize the millennium of God's kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven.
However, let us not at this point slip out of the commitment. For it is not "they" who are the problem. The problem is countless people . . . and you are people. You make the difference! Or you can. Begin this moment to let your light shine, and to bear witness to the Truth.
© 1987, Unity Books
Reprinted with permission.
