We lie for different reasons, wishing generally to ameliorate situations which seem to us unbearable or difficult to accept. Lies thus open the way for mechanisms of rationalization or of justification, which are ways of 'patching up'. We shall further see on how the entangled behavior of persons round about us provoke many shocks, creating difficult and sometimes insoluble situations of human relations, veritable 'Gordian Knots'. It is thus in the utmost good faith that we resort to lies.
This being so, the attitude of the esoteric Doctrine towards lying is clear and realistic. It does not require us to stop lying from the start, because nobody can carry out such a resolution. However, if man cannot stop lying to others, the same cannot be said as far as he himself is concerned. He is therefore asked to stop lying to himself - and this in a definite way. This requirement is absolute, and we can easily understand why. The objective of esoteric work is the march towards Consciousness, which means towards Truth. It would be a 'contradictio in objecto' to try to approach the truth while continuing to lie to ourselves or to believe in our own lies. We must therefore eliminate any attempt to lie to ourselves: on this point no compromise can be tolerated, no excuse admitted.
But while in our present condition we cannot live without lying to others, we must at least be conscious of our lies.
There is, nevertheless, another recommendation which we can make in this domain. In the ensemble of our lies to others, tolerated esoterically, we must distinguish between those lies which are indispensable or inevitable, those lies which are simply useful, and those which are not. The Doctrine asks those who study it to fight energetically against those useless lies.
It is only by training of this nature that we shall progressively be able to master the rooted tendency to lie which exists within us. Every attempt to hurry things, so far as lying to others is concerned, though it be a noble attempt, is doomed to early failure. We live in a world which is immersed in lies and moved by lies. It is to be noted that the Decalogue, which imposes observable commandments on man, does not forbid him from lying except in a small sector of human relations; that of bearing false witness, and also in situations where he is already badly predisposed to someone.