TRIPLE FILTER

Once a scholar was accosted by a person who said, ‘Do you know what I have just heard about your friend?’ The wise one interrupted him, ‘before you proceed, let’s apply the triple filter test... the first filter is Truth; are you sure that what you are about to tell is true?’ ‘Well... actually I have just heard it’, the man admitted. Next the mystic applied the filter of Goodness and Usefulness... ‘Is what you are going to tell me about my friend something good?’ ‘Is what you want to tell going to be useful to me?’ When both the replies were in the negative, the sage queried, ‘if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?’ It is hard to find a filter that does not make something better. The above filter is attributed to Socrates as well as some Abbasid scholar. But while we do not know whether the story is true; it is definitely useful and carries a good message. Every time we talk about somebody or something, it would be better to use the Triple-Filter-Test. So often we are carriers of careless gossip that would never pass through the Filter-Test. We come across scandalous information that we feel compelled to pass on to others and we end up causing irrevocable damage to reputations, relationships and lives. Hence it would be better to follow the simplified counsel by Thumper’s parents in the film ‘Bambi’: ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all!’ We must BE BETTER at using the Triple Filter Test If not true, good or useful; lay the rumour to rest! - Pravin K. Sabnis