Healing Without Honesty

“I tell you what I think, I wish he (Bradley) left something for me to find him,” Mr Falconio said.

“I wish he left something.

“My vocabulary is not that good, what can I do, I’m only a human being”.

These were the words of a distraught father who lost his son to a senseless and unprovoked murder. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was scanning the headlines for world news when I came across this article (I use Google News). A man named Bradley Murdoch had died in prison. He had been serving a life sentence for the murder of Peter Falconio, a young British backpacker traveling down under. ¹ The case is over two decades old, but what struck me wasn’t the crime itself—it was what never came after. Closure.

Despite being convicted, Murdoch never revealed where Peter’s body was. He took that secret with him to the grave. Falconio’s family, still holding on to shreds of hope and pain, have been left with no place to grieve, no final rites to perform, no true closure.

The day the news of Bradley Murdoch’s death came out, Peter’s father said that it was an “important day”.

“It is very significant,” he said. “I wish I could find him and make an end to it, bury him. (I want to) find where he is buried and what happened to him, even me, I don’t know.

“I know what happened, but I don’t know where he is.” ²

I felt truly sorry for the victim and his family. Even prayed for them. (I prayed for the deceased culprit, too. I’m sorry but I’m unable to hate anyone. Ever.) While this was an extreme case, the truth is that most of us around are trying to heal from something or other. It could be betrayal, trauma, physical or mental wounds or numerous other things. When our pain is caused by the actions of another individual, I feel true and complete healing is impossible without honesty from the other party. I feel the least a victim deserves is the truth. Without knowing the whole truth, they never really recover.

The entire episode of Peter’s murder and his family looking for a closure reminded me of something simple but profound: honesty, often underestimated, is the foundation of all healing. Not just in courts and crime scenes, but in marriages, friendships, business dealings, even in the silent conversations we have with ourselves.

A lie is rarely a one-time event. Like a spider’s web, it pulls other threads with it. One unspoken truth often demands the silence of ten more. And yet, somehow, many of us spend years avoiding the truth, fearing the discomfort it may cause, while unknowingly choosing the disease over the medicine.

I say if there’s one spiritual value you truly wish to inculcate, it would be honesty. Compassion too is right up there, but you can’t beat honesty. Why? Because it takes tremendous courage to be honest under all circumstances. It takes strength of a special kind. Sometimes one may lose one’s friends, loved ones, reputation and everything else  when they choose honesty above everything else. For the world can be a vicious place if you are caught in its so-called web of morality. They will judge you, reprimand you, censure you, mock you and will never let you forget that you were caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Recent episode of Astronomer’s ex-CEO is a case in point (You can google it if you haven’t heard about it).  

Most of us around are not CEOs embracing their HR heads or coldblooded murderers hiding corpses in the outback. But we do, from time to time, bury the truth in shallow graves. Trying to dodge the camera, we attempt to hide behind crystal clear glass. We don’t say what we mean. We don’t admit when we’re wrong. We mask our pain to appear strong. We pretend we’ve moved on when we haven’t. We apologize without meaning it—or worse, never apologize at all.

Why? Because honesty is uncomfortable. It demands vulnerability. And it appears to me that we’d rather wear the armor of silence than risk the wound of exposure.

The sad part is that we do any or all of the above at our own peril.

Now, I’m not advocating for senseless brutal honesty. (In case you are interested, almost 9 years ago, I wrote about five considerations of truth.)  You don’t need to tell your friend they look like a fried samosa in their new outfit. (Unless, of course, you’re really craving a samosa and want to suggest lunch.) Kindness must cushion truth, like a velvet glove over a firm hand.

But honesty with kindness is still honesty. And honesty, more than love or luck, is the true currency of meaningful relationships. Think of your own life. Was there ever a time you were hurt—not because of what happened, but because of what was hidden? Or worse, denied? The betrayal of trust often doesn’t stem from the act itself, but from the cover-up that follows.

We spend so much energy concealing small truths, while life itself is unflinchingly honest. The sun never pretends to be the moon. A tree doesn’t fake its height. Water doesn’t say, “I’ll be fire today.” Nature lives in full view of itself. Perhaps that’s why walking in the woods or sitting by the river feels so healing—because everything around us is unapologetically honest.

I’ve learned that every time I’ve chosen honesty—even when it was hard, which it usually is—I’ve never regretted it. I realized a long time back that if I intended to make any spiritual progress, it wasn’t possible without committing to a life of truth. That doesn’t mean you are not entitled to your privacy but that we never pretend what we are not. Plain and simple. 

Truthful speech, truthful intentions, and truthful actions. Adopt it. Like truly make it a part of your life and before you know you’d be the most realized Buddha walking in a human body.

Until then, keep trying, I suppose. No rush—Buddha took a few lifetimes too.

Peace.
Swami

P.S. I’m excited to be unveiling something truly beautiful on our YouTube channel over the next few days. It’s something I’ve been wanting to materialize for a long time. But it was only in March that I found the right team to execute my vision, so we have been working on it since then.