I remember years back reading about Byron Katie's journey and how at one point she started feeling the presence of this voluptuous old lady in a paisley dress with a bun in her hair. This
lady felt like pure love to her and whenever Katie was out of integrity as in telling a lie, exaggerating a story for effect, the lady would recede and Katie could no longer feel the love. Desperate to have her back, Katie would do whatever had to be done to make amends, calling people to apologize and to tell the truth. And she would again feel the love of her lady and all would be well.
I remember longing to have a little old lady or some such loving figure show up in my awareness and help me clean up my act.
But the truth is that love has not forgotten any of us and we have a built-in mechanism for knowing when we are out of integrity. As mature seekers we begin to become acutely aware of when we're off. We know when we're being dishonest in subtle ways, we know when we're doing a little self-promotion, we know when we're holding back information that might make someone else look good. Oh, we know a lot of things. And if we don't and our commitment to truth is in place, the feedback or reflection of our offness from the external will appear in no short measure.
So the invitation is to clean up our act. Be honest and direct. Tell the truth. Make those calls when necessary and say you're sorry. And don't hold back on helping others to shine when it feels appropriate.
And when we can't, can we have the utmost patience and understanding for the one who feels fearful. In God's timing we all come to see we could never lose anything of value by being true. We only gain our whole life back.
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