The Way of Integrity

Teacher:
Joseph Naft

Introduction

Every religion and spiritual path emphasizes the importance of morality, usually putting forward sets of rules and laws to specify what is or is not moral.

On the surface this appears to be just a way of organizing a society that works well for its members. We all depend on that in many ways, which only become obvious when some lose their moral constraints.

There are also deeper spiritual reasons for adopting a moral mode of living, for example the religions’ promise that our entry to heaven will be more likely if we live a moral life. In this inner work series on The Way of Integrity, we will explore the spiritual motivations for morality and, more generally, for integrity.

Consider how integrity relates to morality. We could say that integrity subsumes morality and goes beyond it. The actions of a person of integrity certainly comply with the moral and legal norms of their society.

But the person of integrity hews to a higher standard, that of conscience, which though seemingly personal is more than personal. Conscience is how the sacred speaks to us. And its inherent standard is love.

Between morality and conscience, nature guides us toward right action by its law of cause and effect, also known as karma or reaping what you sow. As one effect, integrity affords a person great inner freedom, enjoying the respect and trust of society, unburdened by a guilty or murky conscience, unafraid of being revealed as dishonest or self-serving.

Integrity yields clarity, as many potential courses of action take little or no consideration: either they are rejected out of hand as wrong or pursued as right.

Nevertheless, dilemmas arise in the gray areas and in extending the reach of integrity. Both cause struggles.

Do we keep our word when circumstances change? Do we extend integrity to actions that only affect us and no one else, such as healthy and unhealthy personal habits?

How do we act when no one is watching? Do we drop our standards and principles when alone? Do we intentionally think things we would never actually say or do? These and similar issues relate to our self-respect and our respect for life, further components of integrity.

The purification that integrity brings gives us inner peace and opens doors to the sacred, doors that would otherwise stay closed. It is no accident that the Prophet Mohammed was known as The Trustworthy, for the integrity with which he managed caravans in his early career.

This aspect of his character must have been a factor in later enabling him to serve the sacred as founder of one of the world’s great religions.

No baggage can pass through the gate of heaven. As long as we carry the propensity for actions that lack integrity, as long as self-centered motivations and egoism rule or even lurk in us, the gate remains barred.

This is not to say that purity of will suffices. Deepening of our being is also required. But the Way of Integrity does purify us.

With good reason, integrity also means unity. As long as we harbor and give voice to the many competing urges and desires in us, our actions may fall short of the standard of integrity.

The unification brought by inner work, particularly by the long practice of presence, moves us toward the unity we need to consistently and reliably act in accord with conscience.

Wobbling on the Way

If we want to follow the Way of Integrity, we need to examine the forces at work in us against integrity. What drives us to do what we know we should not do or fail to do what we know we should do?

How we know what we should or should not do, we leave for a later part of this series. For now, we look at the common experience of knowing that an action is wrong, knowing that we will regret it, and then doing it anyway. So why do we do what we know in advance that we will regret?

The particular sets of forces at work against integrity vary from person to person. They might include the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy, and pride.

To these we can add common variations such as arrogance, jealousy, vanity, apathy, egoism, group egoism, misguided principles, and other desires and attachments.

Coupled to these forces, we have enabling factors that ease us into violations of our integrity. Two such factors stand out. First, we might believe that integrity itself does not matter, that we can do as some force in us pleases, without repercussions.

Second, we might believe that if no one else sees or knows what we are doing, then such private acts against integrity do not matter. If we are not going to get caught, then why not do what is expedient or desirable, even if wrong, or shirk our duty and fail to do what is right?

Another anti-integrity enabling factor is having a limited view of repercussions. Several different kinds of such limitations apply.

We may not reckon how the smallest thing we do, when multiplied by the billions of people who might also do the same thing, can have enormous impacts on our planet. We may not reckon how what we do now might have profound effects on our own or others’ future.

We may not reckon how what we do externally will affect us inwardly. For example, failing to do what’s healthy for our body or failing to avoid what’s unhealthy, may, and often does, affect our inner energies and our spiritual practice.

Also, we may not understand that acts against our conscience create a barrier between us and our deeper nature.

Then there is the hedonic treadmill. We seek happiness, personal happiness, by trying to get more of what we want. But the more we get, the quicker our satisfaction wanes, and the more our desires multiply.So we never quite arrive at happiness this way.

Rather it condemns us to endlessly seeking external fulfillment. This desire-driven treadmill can lead us to look the other way whenever integrity raises objections. And the more we look away from integrity, the weaker its voice becomes.

Lessons of Karma

Now we turn to looking at how and why integrity matters. We begin with a particular and relatively external view, namely that of karma, or reaping what you sow.

A straightforward cause and effect action applies, though the effects can sometimes be long removed from the causes and therefore hard to recognize. Yet many are easy to see.

If we do not take good care of our body, we will suffer the physical consequences sooner or later. If we do not treat our friends well, we will lose our friends. If we deal dishonestly in business matters, no one will trust us. If we cheat on our spouse, we will end up without a spouse.

All that seems obvious; the causal connections are evident. Yet karma also concerns the not-so-obvious effects of morality and its lack. Greed invites greed. Anger invites anger toward us. Cheating gets us cheated.

Lying gets us lied to. It takes time, and long observation of the results of our moral lapses, to learn the lesson of cause and effect, to take it to heart enough that it begins to moderate our behavior and thereby raise the level of our integrity.

We can ask whether integrity based on fear of the consequences of bad behavior is truly integrity, given that it arises from a self-centered motivation. At least from a functional perspective, though, it works.

Eventually we want the deeper integrity based on higher motivations. But as a starting point, fear of consequences is a notch up from self-centered, desire-driven actions, and thus moves us in the right direction.

On the flip side, if we sow positive actions, we reap positive benefits. Generosity is a case in point.

The result of an act of generosity is usually that we feel good about our actions and about ourselves, and we benefit the recipient of the generosity. If we are generous, the law of karma teaches that others and the universe will be generous toward us.

However, what if we give mainly in order to feel good or to attract generosity, and not so much to do good?

Here the key factor of karma comes in, namely intention. The nature of our intentions in what we do shapes our karma. If we have positive, selfless intentions, the effects will generally be positive.

If we are generous in order to feel good, then we have our reward and no further benefits accrue to us.

But as the saying goes, good intentions are not enough. Here another key factor of karma (and integrity) enters: responsibility.

This entails knowing our capabilities and limits, and doing what we can and should, as needed, and as the appropriate situation and opportunity arises. Good intentions driving responsible actions form the high road to positive effects, to good karma.

The causal connection between living an unhealthy lifestyle and the resulting health problems seems clear.

But the law of karma also teaches that if, for example, we cheat, and even if no one else knows we cheat, then sooner or later we will be cheated to a similar degree. If that is true, then it must be due to some mechanism buried deep in the structure of how the universe works, a mechanism we call karma.

Perhaps this is not so surprising, if we consider that another name for the law of karma is justice. We expect the universe to be just. We know that our lives are full of uncertainty and we may wonder how the universe determines which of its many possibilities to manifest to us.

We hope and feel it is not just random, that there is justice, that there is karma, that what happens to us is somehow meant for us, that how we live matters.

But is it true? Does our being really attract our life? This then is part of our inner work: to notice the results of our actions and attitudes, both short-term and long, and to learn from what we notice.

Certainly that can help us live with more intelligence, with more compassion, and with more integrity.

Respecting Ourselves

What do we respect in ourselves? The self-centered ego driven by greed and anger and all manner of petty desires and fears?

Or the one in us who is centered in our higher nature, who pursues our fulfilling passions, nurtures our friendships and family, and can be trusted to do the right thing?

Though we may often succumb to our desires and small fears, we generally do not respect those aspects of ourselves.

Perhaps surprisingly, though, the way toward integrity involves respecting every aspect, every force in us, including those we should not and do not act on.

If we do not respect ourselves, we are inherently divided, and lack integrity in the sense of wholeness. Self-respect is the glue that holds our integrity together.

But to put further nuance to this notion, self-respect need not lack discrimination. While we respect our body and all parts of our personality and character, we need not respect our actions, if they do not accord with integrity.

By respecting our actions when we do the right thing, we promote those actions in ourselves. So respect can be a force for integrity and for action based on integrity. We do not want to feel ashamed of ourselves.

We want to earn and merit our own respect, to be at peace with who we are and what we do. So we aim to act in a way that we can respect.

Yet a great part of our makeup lies beyond our control. We have only limited influence on our body. We are given this body with its genetic strengths and weaknesses.

Do we reject our body, or parts of it? Or do we embrace the whole of it with full respect, even the aspects we do not like? Respecting our body leads us to take proper care of it and to inhabit it more, by way of sensing. In this way, our body becomes part of our integrity.

We have limited influence on our emotions. If we are anxious or depressed, especially if chronically so, do we reject this aspect of ourselves, and thereby heap another emotional wound on top of the underlying issue?

Rather than rejecting how things are with us, if we can find compassion and respect for our emotions, we can feel whole, even if not perfect.

On the other side, self-respect does not mean arrogance; it works best with humility. Self-respect leaves room for self-improvement. Instead of trying to escape from or hide our shortcomings, we simply seek to improve, not out of self-rejection, but rather to become more completely ourselves.

If we can forgo the inner war against ourselves, we can have much more energy and attention for what matters beyond ourselves: for our family, for our community, and for the Sacred.

Notice also that self-respect neither demands nor needs the respect of others. Nevertheless, others will tend to respect us, if we respect ourselves and act with integrity.

Conversely, the more we respect ourselves, the more we will respect others, because ultimately what we respect in ourselves is the same as what we respect in others.

There is something very precious deep within us. The part of us that is capable of having an attitude of respect comes from what is most sacred in us. So by respecting ourselves, we invite our deeper nature to penetrate toward our surface. We connect with what is deepest in us.

That is what we respect and that is what respects us. This mutual connection evokes clarity in the face of uncertainty and peace in our heart.

Our Word

What we say matters, often as a direct expression of our integrity or lack thereof.

We do not hear malicious gossip or harmful tales from people of integrity.

We do not hear lies from people of integrity, though depending on the situation, they may refrain from stating hurtful truths.

And above all, we do not hear empty promises from people of integrity. If they give us their word that they will do something, we can count on them to follow through and do it. To speak with integrity is certainly part of spiritual practice.

These same issues also apply inwardly, in our thoughts. Most of our thoughts are automatic, with no conscious intention behind them.

They are just reactions to external events, emotions, or to other thoughts. Automatic thoughts in themselves do not impact our integrity, although if we believe them or act on them, they can have a dramatic impact. Intentional thoughts do matter, because they are our actions, albeit inward actions.

Do we inwardly nurture malicious gossip or harmful tales? Do we tell ourselves lies, pretending they are true? Do we make empty promises to ourselves, promises that we fail to keep?

For our integrity to be whole, what we do inwardly must correspond to what we do outwardly and spring from ethical, kind, and forthright attitudes.

We may believe we can hide our views and inward actions from others, but we cannot hide from ourselves.

If we consciously and intentionally harbor attitudes of greed or hatred or shirking, then integrity can have no foundation in us. Inner integrity is the basis of outer integrity.

When we give our word that we will do something, that promise and our actions surrounding it define us. If we are to be ourselves, then we must keep our word. Otherwise, we are not anything; in a real sense, we do not even exist. If given automatically and without conscious intention, the promise has no one standing behind it.

But a promise not only defines us, it can create us. When we say “I promise ...,” it means something only if we are there saying it with intention. By consciously making the promise and fulfilling it, we assert our individuality, our reality, our I. An empty promise means an empty self.

A real promise means a real Self. This is the spiritual reality underlying the giving of one’s word.

What to do? If we never give our word, we will never break a promise. Yet this also fails to assert our I and it shirks what we need to do. So instead we are careful about what we say we will do.

We only give our word with our full intention and ability to keep it. We take our word as seriously as we take our very existence.

When we make a promise, we first make sure that we are actually there, present and choosing to make that promise. And then we make sure to fulfill it.

One requirement for speaking with integrity is to speak with awareness and purpose. Do we allow words to fall out of our mouth without paying much attention to what we are saying?

That can lead to foot-in-mouth syndrome. At the very least, automatic talking can use up energy that could be put toward our inner work, toward our being. The second part of this is whether we talk just to take up conversational space or do we mean what we say, do we intend to say what we say?

Intentions that spring from integrity usually give positive results in speech. A lack of intention, gives unpredictable and scattered speech. So in bringing our word into our spiritual path, we practice speaking with attention as well as intention deriving from integrity.

Though we may speak with attention and intention, it is no part of integrity to dominate a conversation with talk about our self and no interest in the other person or people we are talking at.

That is not really a conversation. It has no give and take. Integrity understands that others matter as much as we do.

Yes, we can fake an interest in the other person, and that may be a positive step in the direction away from our self-centeredness, but it still falls short of genuinely sharing our time and valuation with others.

None of the forgoing means that spiritual practice requires us to be serious in everything we say.

On the contrary, our intention in speaking may be simply to enjoy the camaraderie of our friends, maybe even to say something funny. But it does mean that we aim always to be aware of what we are saying and the context surrounding it.

Web Source: http://www.innerfrontier.org/InnerWork/Archive/2015/20150209_Integrity_Intro.htm