The Socrates Triple Filter Test

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem.   One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said,   "Do you know  what I just heard about your friend?"  "Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything,  I'd  like  you to pass a little test. It's called  the Triple Filter Test." "Triple filter?" "That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my  friend, it might be a good idea to take a  moment and filter what you're going to say.   That's why I call it the  triple  filter test." "The first filter is TRUTH. Have you made absolutely sure that what you  are about to tell me is true?"  "No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..." 'All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter  of GOODNESS.   Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something  good?" "No, on the contrary..." "So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him,  but  you're not certain it's true. You  may still pass the test though,   because there's one filter left: the  filter  of USEFULNESS. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?" "No, not really." "Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to  me at all?" Friends, use this triple filter each time you hear loose talk about any of your near & dear friends.

Power of non-violence

Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K.Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, in his June 9 lecture at the University of Puerto Rico shared the following story:

I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban , South Africa , in the middle of the sugar plantations.

We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance.

Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father asked me to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced.

When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, "I will meet you here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together."

After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time.

It was 5:30 before I remembered.

By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00.

He anxiously asked me, "Why were you late?"

I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne western movie that I said, "The car wasn't ready, so I had to wait," not realizing that he had already called the garage.

When he caught me in the lie, he said: "There's something wrong in the way I brought you up that didn't give you the confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out where I went wrong with you, I'm going to walk home 18 miles and think about it."

So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads.

I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a stupid lie that I uttered.

I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again.

I often think about that episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I don't think so.

I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the same thing.

But this single non-violent action was so powerful that it is still as if it happened yesterday.

That is the power of non-violence.