Integrity and Spirituality

The concept of integrity has arisen often in discussions of spirituality. What do we mean however when we invoke this concept in this context? What is the role of integrity in spirituality? How will we know it when we encounter it? More importantly what will be the consequence to us if we choose to remain ignorant of its crucial importance as a foundation stone to our spiritual enlightenment? Here I intend to address these questions and to give a fresh perspective on how to achieve what I will define as Spiritual Integrity.

The Oxford definition of the word "integrity" includes words such as honesty, soundness and wholeness. Interestingly these words themselves embody an enormous wealth of knowledge and intelligence that slowly unfolds upon reflection of their meanings. It is upon such reflection that I feel we can begin to get a clearer sense of the underlying meaning of the concept of integrity.

The concept of honesty basically refers to being truthful to one's self and others about everything. The concept of soundness refers to the "rightness" or "correctness" of one's position i.e. again referring to truthfulness. The concept of wholeness refers to a sense of completeness, i.e not leaving anything of significance out of the picture. The truth is not only, in and of itself "complete" it also gives one a sense of completeness or wholeness, because nothing is left out when one is living it. So, in summary, integrity appears to have a great deal to do with living truthfully or living a life in alignment with one's own truth.

Now living truthfully may at first seem like a simple task until we recognize that individuals clearly have diverse beliefs about many things and what the "truth" is, is one of them. Hence the concept of "truth" may be more elusive than at first thought. In fact, aren't people killing each other on this planet "in the name of the truth"? So, are we to conclude that killing others in the name of the truth is the road to spiritual enlightenment? Are we to conclude that being in or having integrity is "not" a key principle in achieving spiritual enlightenment? Perhaps we should choose to be out of integrity, i.e. be "untruthful" instead. So you see, it is not as simple as it first appeared. How do we steer through this morass of confusion without becoming hopelessly lost and disillusioned?

I would like to point out that such confusion largely arises out of our "beliefs" about where the "truth" resides in us. Most individuals turn to their repertoire of "beliefs" when asked to ascertain the truth about something. This repertoire is stored in the mind/brain and is added to and modified daily as the individual learns new information throughout their life. Mysteriously, at some given point in time, an individual "chooses" to "accept" one belief over another as being more credible for that day, week, month, etc. and hence it becomes the "truth" for them in that period of time. Sometime later, the tides might shift and the old belief becomes supplanted by a new belief that then becomes the "truth" for them.

If we choose to search for the "truth" in the vast repertoire of beliefs that is stored in our minds/brains then we find ourselves with a "truth" that is forever shifting, much like quicksand. Sounds paradoxical, doesn't it? After all, isn't the truth supposed to be something fixed, absolute, unmovable, eternal, solid, certain, and so on? You see, the very fact that we recognize the paradox suggests that something is not sitting right with us about the belief that the truth lives in our minds/brains. If this were not so, you would not have recognized the paradox, and would have thought and felt that everything was fine. So, there must be a deeper intelligence within you that is able to recognize this paradox and comment internally, to you that "something doesn't sit right about this situation".

The paradox arises here because of the "belief" that it, the truth, is to be found among our learned beliefs stored in the mind/brain. Perhaps this is not "the truth". As mentioned, there appears to be a repository of intelligence inside of us that is acutely aware of this and tells us this one way or another. So where is this intelligence and how do we access it? In order to answer this question I ask you to follow me in a short diversion.

Assess the two statements below:

a) I am sitting down.

b) I am standing up.

Which of these statements is the truth for you at this moment? Well if you are, in fact sitting down, the for