Can we tell the truth selectively if that helps someone?
I said that we don't have to tell every truth every time when legal system when we have to test you test if any we are expected to tell the truth what is that tell the whole truth and tell nothing except the truth so so then if we can to sell the truth selectively while sharing krishna consciousness does it mean that also we can tell the truth selectively if it is going to help someone yes there are two broad conceptions of morality one is morality as categorical and other is morality as context morality as categorical means that this is the category of moral or right and this is the category of immoral or wrong and some people this is how it is this is this is white this is black one conception the morality is categorical the other is morality is context that what is in right or what is wrong will depend on context so now if we consider practically say speaking lies is not good but suppose say there are terrorists who are chasing after a friend of ours and that friend comes to our house and we hide that friend somewhere in our basement or something and those those rioters they come and knock at our door is he there over here should we speak the truth in that now speaking truth is a virtue now there is a higher virtue that is preserving morality so we have to not only have the adherence to morality but you also have to have the intelligence to know that sometimes there will be different moralities involved you know different kinds of moralities involved and there can be a hierarchy speaking truth is important but saving life is more important so therefore morality cannot be absolutized always morality is not always categorical it can also be context so what would normally be considered wrong can in certain contexts be right and that can be more right than other thing than what would normally be considered right so therefore there is the letter of the law and there is the spirit of the law so the letter of the law speaking truthfully the idea is that we have to we have to speak truthfully so that we become attracted to so that you know we function properly but sometimes not speaking speaking partially the truth that might that's my that's what may be required so that we can we can benefit others so Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that that all endeavors are covered by fire just as fire is covered by smoke so in this world it's not possible to be absolutely moral at the material level now this of course should be that that the that morality is contextual does not mean two different things it does not mean that there are no moral categories at all that is the idea in today's world morality is entirely relative you know whatever whatever your conscience tells that is right for me what are my conscience says it is right for me no there are moral categories but the categories are not prototyped there can be there are there has to be exceptions which have to be made according to context so the complete relativization of morality is not accepted the second thing is that the habitual or habitual resorting to immorality is also not accepted these are exceptional so on some exceptional situations we may have to speak something which is not true for serving higher purpose but normally we need to speak the truth so sometimes it's required and that has to be done very carefully if we are not careful then we will start habitually speaking something which is not true uh and we we we we eventually we speak too many counterfactual things people come to know and then we we become untrustworthy we become seen as untrustworthy we may even become untrustworthy so in extremely difficult situations for example when Sarathan Goswami was in prison and he was a tyrannical muslim ruler who was not going to release him at all and it was just a personal vendetta there was no no case against him at all there was no trial nothing was just implicit so at that time he told his prisoner he told his uh warden that you know i want to go to Mecca and you know once before i die i want to do this pious activity of going to Mecca and you know if you release me then you will also get that piety by having helped a person go to Mecca go to the holy place and then that time Sarathan Goswami took also a pile of gold coins and gave it to his son so now actually he had only a desire to go to Varanasi to meet Saitanya Mahaprabhu and to indulge in the world but you know that was a life or death situation so he did that it is not that he was habitually doing it all the time once in a while after careful thought and usually with consultation with some seniors we can sometimes uh speak in a way that is that helps other people grow but that may not be the full truth but we should not make that as a habit and that doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a truth does it answer your question?