Integrity Law #12

To act powerfully in the world, all parts must synchronize. No one can take on the whole world, or live a whole life, until they become a whole person. Discuss the relationship between ‘integrate’ and Integrity…  (excerpt from the Integrity card, available at www.thewisdomwheel.com)

Time to consider the Law of Integrity and why the laws of our land have failed to instill Integrity in our culture. Based on the daily news, about everything from crime statistics to cheating scandals at schools, banks and in politics, I think we need a lot of ethical rehab, not just drug and alcohol rehab. 

Is Integrity a head, heart or a gut issue in your life? Do you believe you can be a person of Integrity without first being whole? Notice that the Law of Trust balances this Law on the Wheel. Without one, you won't have the other.

For the next ten days, make Integrity your watch word. Bring it up in conversation often enough to be considered a bit of a pest. Find out what people believe about Integrity. How important is it to you? Have you left any job(s) for the sake of Integrity? People who 'sell their souls' have usually sold their Integrity. This causes the psychic pain of conscience which can drive many to abuse drugs & alcohol...there's always a link.

Identify one thing you can do this week about your Integrity. Help someone else maintain theirs. Be honest, keep your word, be a person of Integrity. All the money in the world can't buy it back. 

      

Here are some nuggets of wisdom about Integrity.

Integrity requires that I discern what is integral to my selfhood, what fits and what does not - and that I choose live-giving ways of relating to the forces that converge within me... By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am. 

Parker J. Palmer, American teacher and author, books include Hidden Wholeness

Knowing what we value deeply-what we hold most dear, when in alignment with being of service to the greater will of all, allows us to take right action in our personal and professional lives. When the will and action are conscious, and in alignment, integrity follows…There is a voice within us that tells us when we are acting right.

Maureen Simon

If we want more brotherhood and goodwill, more intelligence, more clear thinking, more honesty and sincerity, more tolerance and human understanding we must concentrate upon cultivating these qualities within ourselves... There is no substitute for personal integrity. 

Howard W. Hintz, DD

…instead of dividing into mirror-image opposites…people need to achieve a healthier balance of integration. But such integration is difficult. It represents that high human achievement: wisdom. In the absence of wisdom, people are compelled to struggle in their folly. Each side, wedded to its half-truth, sees the other as the problem. But the problem is a property of the system: the polarization and conflict are symptoms of the failure to find a way to bring together those values that are in tension. 

Andrew Bard Schmookler books include Beyond Dispute: Working Through America's Moral Polarization and Fool's Gold: The Fate of Values in a World of Goods

 The saying, “to thine own self be true,” means to act in accord with one’s deepest feelings and values, no matter what the social consequences.  Such emotional integrity could well lead to deliberately provoking a confrontation, for instance, in order to cut through duplicity or denial – this clearing of the air is something a social chameleon would never attempt.

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.

 Spencer Johnson

It is no longer enough to be smart -- all the technological tools in the world add meaning and value only if they enhance our core values, the deepest part of our heart. Acquiring knowledge is no guarantee of practical, useful application. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential.

Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman

..it is not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.

 Francis Bacon, Sr. (1561-1626) English lawyer and philosopher

What is not integrated repeats itself until it is integrated. I look at the personal story and the societal story as being one and the same, only in larger or smaller scale. In our families and in our nations, what we see is our disintegration being played out. The journey needed now is the integration of ancestor wisdom into the living community—personally in each of our families, and globally in the human family.

Angeles Arrien in The Four Fold Way

Principles are like a compass. A compass has a true north that is objective and external, that reflects natural laws or principles, as opposed to values which are subjective and internal. Because the compass represents the eternal verities of life, we must develop our value system with deep respect for "true north" principles… Consider the absurdity of trying to live a life or run a business based on the opposites…unfairness, deceit, baseness, uselessness, mediocrity, or degradation

Michael Lewis Norton

When you are fully integrated you can be either/or/both/all that you are. You are androgynous in spirit. Your physical nature is just something you take on, play with. No matter how you look, you are not as you seem, you are a soul. 

Christina Baldwin, in Life’s Companion 

The great spiritual leaders of humankind, Buddha, Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, St. Francis or the Dali Lama, possessed integrated values that seem to put tension into a form that was not just a compromise on the lowest common denominators. At their level of integration, one might be at once freer than the libertines, and more disciplined than the straight-laced. One could be both a better warrior than the hawks and a better peacemaker than the doves. 

Andrew Bard Schmookler in The Dance of Polarization

It is in the integration of the inner and outer worlds that true spirituality can be distinguished from false. But this integration is greatly influenced by an internal struggle in the psyche for balance. From this struggle self-knowledge is attained.

Katherine Tyler Scott in ‘Leadership & Spirituality’ chapter of Spirit at Work

Integrity means living and acting in alignment with spiritual law and with our highest vision, despite impulses to the contrary. From the heart of integrity we recognize, accept and express our authentic interior reality, inspiring others now with words, but by our example.

Dan Millman in The Laws of Spirit

The personality is the integration of the physical, emotional and mental worlds in one…Integration of the soul with the personality connects to the plane of intuition and the spiritual world… The goal of all development is integration – of the individual as a personality; integration of the personality with the individual soul: integration of the human with the whole, until complete unity has been achieved.

Margo Kirtikar, Ph.D. in Cosmic and Universal Laws 

In ten days, we'll look at the 13th Law of Beauty. Until then, enjoy integrating your thoughts, feelings, intuitions and sense of spirit.