LIFE – Let It Flow Easy!!
I don’t remember exactly how and when this became my vision and mission statement for myself and you certainly would find glimpses of this in my earlier posts as well.
” I will practice integrity first towards myself, then towards others. I will practice honesty first towards myself, then towards others. I will practice authenticity first towards myself, then towards others.“
Often its easy to think that integrity and honesty would have an overlapping meaning and could be used interchangeably depending on the context. But they both hold absolutely different meaning. So as the topic suggests, today I am going to be reflecting on what Integrity means to me.
If we look at the etymology of the word Integrity, it originates from the latin word “integer” which means whole, complete, intact, uninjured, sound or healthy. Obviously the opposite of it would mean incomplete, injured, unsound or unhealthy.
So the question that we need to ask ourselves is – do we think and feel that we are complete within ourselves? Do we think and feel that we are unbroken? Do we think and feel that the circumstances of our life, the experiences we have had ( and more specifically the unhappy or painful ones) have defined us and our approach, our outlook to life as such? What makes us insecure, jealous, why are we always comparing ourselves with others? How do we decide what is the benchmark for success or health – is it based on what we define for ourselves or what others define for us?
The fact is that we cannot give to others what we don’t have. So if we ourselves feel broken, incomplete, always waiting for something else or someone else to define us, approve us, seek someone else’s idea and approval to give a larger meaning to our existence – then that is exactly what we are offering of ourselves to another. We bring that broken, unhealthy, incomplete existence to all our relationships and expect others to complete us, make us happy. And mostly the people that we are interacting with, bring largely the same broken, incomplete, unhealthy aspect of themselves. Yet unknowingly we all continue to choose to live our lives like that – without integrity and expect others to have integrity towards us. Our leaders – be it the country, organization or at home ( our parents or even we as parents) bring the same broken aspect of themselves (ourselves) to everything – which to a large extent explains the current state of world affairs, a general low global happiness quotient. Generations through generations we continue to pass the same set of broken values expecting some force outside of us, to fix it.
However, the moment we choose to awaken from our unconscious thinking, feelings, actions, it becomes a life altering experience. That’s when we become our own alchemists. That’s when we start practicing integrity towards ourselves. When we start fixing what’s broken or not working within us, we start fixing the same thing in others. This is the spring of our life – when our relationship with others and most importantly with our own selves starts blossoming. Let me tell you a story here….
Once upon a time on the outskirts of a big city in Japan there stood an old temple. From young age boys who wanted to study Buddhism would come to live in the temple and to learn from the master teacher, a Buddhist monk.
One day the Buddhist monk who ran this small temple decided to teach his young students a lesson about integrity. He gathered them around him, and spoke,” My dear students, as you can see, I am growing old, and slow. I can no longer provide for the needs of the temple as I once did. I know I have not yet taught you to work for money, and so I can only think of one thing that can keep our school from closing.” The students drew close with eyes wide.
“Our nearby city is full of wealthy people with more money in their purses than they could ever need. I want you to go into the city and follow those rich people as they walk through the crowded streets, or when they walk down the deserted alleyways. When no one is looking, and only when no one is looking, you must steal their purses from them. That way we will have enough money to keep our school alive.”
“But Master,” the boys chorused in disbelief, “you have taught us that it is wrong to take anything that does not belong to us.”
“Yes, indeed I have,” the old monk replied. “It would be wrong to steal if it were not absolutely necessary. And remember, you must not be seen! If anyone can see you, you must not steal! Do you understand?”
The boys looked nervously from one to the other. Had their beloved teacher gone mad? Is he really asking them to risk their integrity? His eyes shone with intensity such as they had never seen before. “Yes, Master,” they said quietly.
“Good,” he said. “Now go, and remember, you must not be seen!”
The boys got up and quietly began to file out of the temple building. The old monk rose slowly and watched them go.
When he turned back inside, he saw that one student was still standing quietly in the corner of the room. “Why did you not go with the others?” he asked the boy. “Do you not want to help save our temple?”
“I do, Master,” said the boy quietly. “But you said that we had to steal without being seen. I know that there is no place on Earth that I would not be seen, for I would always see myself.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed the teacher. “That is just the lesson that I hoped my students would learn, but you were the only one to see it. Run and tell your friends to return to the temple before they get us into trouble.”
The boy ran and got his friends who were nervously gathered just out of sight of the temple, trying to decide what to do. When they returned, the Master told them the words the boy had spoken and they all understood the lesson.
……you decide what Integrity means to you!!!