The Great Lie is not a truthful book. It's a lie of a book. It's an exaggeration of a lie. It's one hundred percent false. Why is America a Great Lie? Because Americans like truth. They don't like any lies at all, except a few lies like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. And other lies which are absolutely necessary, for instance, lies about birth control or wars which don't exist, things like that. The Great Lie is so great that it makes the lies acceptable. And the Great Lie isn't a lie. The Great Lie is really a truth, but it's a truth that is accepted only after people have been made to believe that it's a lie. The Great Lie is a lie which requires lies to be told for it to become a truth. That's why truth is always such a difficult thing. Because it's all so personal. Everybody has their own truth. Most people are able to lie if it is necessary to do so. Most people are able to lie to themselves about what is truth and what isn't truth. But it takes so much energy to lie. To lie is to waste energy, to waste time, to waste thought and to waste words. The moment you lie you are wasting yourself. And that energy can be applied in a better way. For example, you can devote that energy to your work. You can then go on to the next lie instead of lying about the last lie. If you start lying right away, then you are just putting in time, and so you are wasting time and your life. A lie should be told after a man has lived for a long time, and then only when absolutely necessary. A lie should not be told by a child who has only been alive a few minutes. A child shouldn't have to lie, because he is innocent. A lie should only be told by an adult because an adult should have developed the sense of morality and responsibility to know what's true and what's not true. It's not right to lie to a child. The child doesn't know enough to lie, and he can't bear the truth. A child doesn't have enough life experience, or a sense of life experience to even be able to lie. It would be an insult to a child to tell him a lie. The child is too young, and you as the adult should be ashamed to tell a lie to a child. A lie should be told only to children when it is necessary for them to know. For instance, a lie about Santa Claus. A child must be taught the difference between reality and fantasy. This is no lie at all, because it isn't a lie that you are dreaming when you are asleep and you are having a lovely time being chased by dragons and you go through beautiful fields of flowers and suddenly you see Santa Claus at the end of a trail of roses saying, "Ho, ho, ho," and you know it isn't true. It isn't a lie at all, but a fact. And if you lie to a child, then the child will be confused as to whether the lies are or are not. If a child is confused, then he can't even begin to develop his own feelings about reality. A child is a dream, as well as an adult. And if you want to tell a lie to a child then you should be ashamed. The lie shouldn't be told. It's not your job to teach a child the difference between reality and dreams. This belongs to the child's parents, or the parents of the child. It's the parents' job to teach children the difference. They should learn the difference between reality and fantasy, so they can learn the difference between what's true and what's not true. The adults should know the difference. It's for the adults to know the difference. A child can be taught the difference between reality and dreams, and the children's game of telling lies and keeping secrets is a game that children should not play with each other. It's not the children's role to take care of their parents. Children shouldn't do that. Children should be left to grow in their own individual way. The children are not mature enough for that yet. The adults should be the mature ones who know what's right and what's wrong. Children should have a chance to play in their fantasies and daydreams. If you are a child who wants to lie, then you lie because you are selfish and egotistical. You want to preserve your own fantasy for yourself and for your own use, to tell yourself it is truth while you are still young, so that you won't be ashamed of the lie. You want to lie to make yourself feel good. In this selfish and egotistical way you want to protect your fantasy from the eyes of the grownups who might disapprove. And you may not even know why you lie. You just want to protect your selfishness. This is a selfish lie, and not a lie that is done for the welfare of all humanity. If you tell a lie for your own welfare, then your selfishness isn't even necessary. If you tell a lie for your own selfish and egotistical interests, then the lie is unnecessary and it isn't a real lie, it's a pretend lie. But you have to pretend, to make it all an act, so you will be ready for the day when you are older and don't want to be egotistical anymore. The adult who lies to a child in order to protect the child's fantasy is a liar who is also an egotist who is selfish and doesn't care about the welfare of children, and the adults who teach children that it's all right to lie are lying to children because they are egotists who don't care about the welfare of children and who are self-interested, they want to protect their own selfishness, which means they are egotistical, and they do not care about humanity at all. And the children who tell the lies become egotistical children because they also lie because they are selfish and egotistical. This is not a childish game that children play. The greatest lie that is ever told is the lie of God. The greatest untruth is that we are protected by God. It's a story made up in human form. It's a fantasy of human imagination. The Great Lie is the idea of God and the idea of a good afterlife. People believe in the Great Lie and it helps them to survive. Most people believe that there is some reward after death. The Great Lie helps a great many people to endure living with themselves and with other people. What is it for you, when you take this step, to abandon the Great Lie? Do you know that you will always be a liar and that the Great Lie is always against you? This means that if the Great Lie is in conflict with the truth and you are to accept the truth, then you can be no part of it and you must abandon it and you must abandon the lies and the Great Lie. If the Great Lie is to believe in a good life after death and in an individual's survival, which will keep the world as it is now, then the Great Lie and you as an individual who accepts this lie cannot co-exist. You must abandon the Great Lie and you must abandon yourself. If you accept the Great Lie, then you say with your mouth that there is life after death, and with your soul you deny the existence of God. This is a terrible conflict between your body and your soul, and your soul wants you to be an individual which means to have a separate individual existence, which means to be in touch with the soul, to be alone with the soul, and not to hide your identity from yourself. The truth is that there is no life after death. And if the Great Lie is taken to mean that there is life after death, and if we must change and survive in this form until we are dead, then we must abandon the idea of the life after death and the idea that survival is worthwhile. We must abandon the idea that the life after death is a continuation of the selfish and egotistical lie and of the selfish and egotistical life of lying and pretending. This is not a continuation of life. If a man is going to survive, he should live life and not pretend. Life will go on, just as it is now. It doesn't change. The only things that change are the people, not the ideas. We are always the same. And if a man accepts the Great Lie, then he is always the same. And he has become a liar and a cheat. And if you are not going to accept the Great Lie, then you must abandon it. Because you are a liar, and the Great Lie is a lie. The Great Lie is self-evidently false. No one is justified in believing the Great Lie except those who live in denial, the liars. The liars are those who are addicted to believing the Great Lie because they are addicted to lying. And the Great Lie is a lie of self-evident falseness, the lies and the beliefs are self-evidently false. You will not believe these things simply because they are written down and printed in books and even the written ideas don't believe what they have said in their books. And you will know this if you abandon the Great Lie. You will know that you cannot believe the Great Lie. Many lies you have believed over the years, which were taught by your parents, and by the people you loved most, your siblings.