deeper level of integrity

I’m known for my unreliability… not being useful at all because I slip up on my responsibilities. This is a MAJOR area of improvement for me. Happiness is supposed to be a unification of thought, word and deed. In my case though, every once in a while there’s quite a bit of disharmony 😈

The following ideas are based on several sources over the years, but particularly Kichu.

Trying to maintain a high, uncompromising level of personal integrity – is actually a pretty useful thing to practice.

So to start with, it involves avoiding lying, deception. At an outer level, telling lies is to cheat others and gain something on an average most ordinary people don’t do.

But at a deeper level, one might also hurt others by speech or tell lies to be hypocritical or backbiting etc. All these things we all (I myself am no exception) do unknowingly to some level -we can just try and be more and more careful to reduce them as far as possible. (dosen’t mean we become over-cautious about it, just a matter of being careful thats all). We can try to speak positively about others and reduce criticism (unless it is constructive, and conveyed only in confidentiality in a gentle manner, trying to help the person/situation instead of insulting the person).

At a still deeper level of integrity – comes commitment. We may never tell lies to others knowingly, but we are always lying so many times unknowingly! This happens when we commit things but don’t act upon them. When we commit something, we are actually making a promise to two people – the other person, as well as oneself! And if we fail to keep up the commitment, we break the promise, and effectively lie, to the same two people! So it is important to always try and keep commitments as far as possible (else avoid making them). Not only more serious commitments but also even trivial commitments. There’s a saying “a gentleman’s word is his bond”. For example, telling a friend “I’ll meet you tomorrow at 10 AM to go to the movie”. Even commitments to oneself – one may say “After watching this tv program, I’m going to study for 1 hour” …what happens generally after the tv program is over, is that one more good program comes and then that commitment is gone! Again this is just an example. Maintaining puctuality is also a measure of honesty.

Shruti‘s written a pretty neat post on punctuality.

If one thinks about one’s whole day at the end of every day, one can see how many places one has not honored one’s own word 🙁 The point is not to feel bad or ashamed about any shortcomings, but learn the lessons and try to do better 🙂

If we manage to maintain integrity as far as comfortable – then we can go a little bit further 🙂 …and improve on this margin every now and then… but how seriously one can ultimately go I guess is hard to say. But with practice, it improves and becomes easier over time!

Many times I slip up on things because of absent-mindedness, which I’ve had a lot since I was a kid, and has significantly reduced now but still a bit remains!

Btw, I once came across an article that helped me trace one of the main reasons for my absentmindedness back to my childhood days – it said that kids who have the habit of reading while eating end up becoming absentminded living in their own dreamworld. And as for me, inspite of objections from my Thatha (grandpa), used to read comics while eating while watching TV at the same time! – an old entry

Another reason for absentmindedness getting cluttered up with too many activities without giving right priority for them. There is the standard story of putting rocks into a jar, in a Stephen Covey book.

Of course its assumed that one dosen’t take these things to the extreme but uses common sense, esp wrt telling any truth destructive for others (for example telling a wife about a husband’s past affair with some other girl may be like telling the truth, but it is breaking up the family! 😈 ). At other times, one cannot get stuck wasting time could feeling guilty about every trivial thing.

Going by my experience, attempting to maintain integrity is sometimes effortless, and on the other hand can be quite challenging, especially in our modern world where convention often dictates taking a shortcut. Sometimes not taking a shortcut looks outright ridiculous! I am still trying and many times I fail. But there’s a saying that even a saint was once a sinner, but who never gave up! …making dogged determination a key point. (“saint” “sinner” etc are all extreme words, most of us have both elements in ourselves, I only mean it as an analogy not to be taken literally! 😉 )

One more important point is to never make a show of it to others. Writing this publicly kind of goes against this idea in a way, but then I’m still writing it after a lot of hesitation because somehow I feel I could use any other reader’s ideas and experiences about this as well (this is actually an edited version of a draft dated several months ago! 🙂 )

In day-to-day life, I think its important not to highlight or impose it on anyone else in mere theory. People might comment saying “you are too idealistic and will not survive in this world”. Debating and arguing about it is totally unnecessary. Those who sincerely want to be honest will not have any doubts about it and hence will not need to debate about whether its practical or idealistic 😉 Not making a show to others ( but maintaining harmonious relationship with them as before) makes life much simpler! 🙂

And by personal experience, I know that sometimes it can be very difficult, but its not too idealistic. Going through honest means I have done ok in the world so far. Though of course there are various degrees of honesty and so far I’ve merely been at the surface level. Once in a way, I might lose something (which I could’ve gained by lying) but that loss is short term, the peace of mind gained is long term! “satyameva jayete” – the truth alone wins – is a concrete fact, independent of whether one gains or loses something by sticking to it.

Depending one one’s personal wishes, one may have some or the other ambition in life – to be a doctor and cure hundreds of people, or to be an engineer and build a beautiful bridge, to be a businessman implementing some breakthrough idea and setting up offices all around the world. Having such a dream may be useful in provides one a sense of purpose to live life and contribute to the world (and feel more useful).

But underlying any such dreams or purposes is the one single purpose (which most people tend to forget) : a refinement of character. Having this purpose enables a person to discover and learn many other things along the way! Its a lifelong endevour which works very well in harmony with any other ambition.

[It is the very foundation. In my opinion, even having “spiritual ambition” and becoming a sanyaasi is meaningless without this fundamental endevour 🙂 ]

For me, the idea of integrity isn’t really about idealism by sticking to some moral science rule book. Its more about simple pragmatism, in waking up to the discovery that the gains obtained by lack of integrity are short-term and unsatisfactory.

——–

Just as rust arising from iron
eats away the base from which it arises,
even so, their own deeds
lead transgressors to states of woe.
Dhammapada 240 (subscribe)

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Hmm I feel I have made a bit of progress in reducing the amount of rust that eats me… I am grateful to a few very close friends who have no hestitation in openly giving me their frank criticism in calling me a hipocrite when I’m being one …but anyway a long way to go…