In this Weekly Wisdom, Gurudev speaks about what ethics, morality, and integrity are and how they play a role in our lives.
In response to a question about the role of ethics, morality, and integrity in life, Gurudev shared the following:
Ethics simplified
What you don't want others to do to you, you don't do to others. Ethics are as simple as that!
In business, you do not want your vendors to cheat you, so you should not cheat your customers. Full stop. Would you like it if your vendor cheated you? No. Then you shouldn't cheat your customer.
In every role we play in life, there are ethics. The baseline for ethics is not to do things that you don't want others to do to you. You don't want anyone to steal your stuff, so you'd better not steal.
Morality and social norms
Following social norms is morality. For instance, here in India, driving on the left side is the law. If you drive on the right side, that is immoral here. If you go to America and keep left on the road, you'll face accidents.
In tribal areas, they have different codes of conduct. A lady can have multiple men and a man can have multiple women as partners. They don't consider that immoral. But in the accepted norm of this society, if you have a partner and you flirt around with somebody else, it's immoral.
If you break morality, you have to face the consequences of it from society.
Accepted social norms exist. Now, what is moral here, in one part of society, is not considered moral somewhere else. But the world is evolving towards a universal moral code of conduct.
For example, 5000 years ago, polygamy wasn't immoral. But today it's immoral because we have accepted a certain code of conduct and we have to go by that. We made laws and we have to follow them.
Integrity and desire
Integrity depends on your consciousness. When your mind is powerful, you feel solid, focused. That focused, unscattered quality of consciousness, with clarity and sincerity, is integrity.
Lack of integrity is a confused mind, where objects seem more important than you. When you are more important than your desire, that indicates your integrity. But when your desires become more important than you, when desires dictate your life, you lose integrity.
For example, you have a desire for money. But when you know you're bigger than money, you can get or lose it any time, that's integrity. But if money is bigger than you, you lose integrity. Money becomes big and what does it do? It brings misery to you.
Whenever desires overpower you, it brings misery. When you're in control, and you're more important than those desires, then that integrity brings happiness.
Why do sex crimes happen? What is the reason? Desire becomes so powerful, it overshadows the individual personality, self, and consciousness that one is. The person loses self-control to the desire and that one minute of taking action ruins their life.
Everybody has a certain degree of integrity. With spiritual practice, it only increases. The centered quality of your consciousness is total integrity.
When there's clarity, when you're above all the desires, when you're bigger than your wants, when you know what you're doing, that's integrity. You can call it sincerity, clarity of mind, purity of being, whatever you like. Only this state of consciousness feels powerful. Without integrity, there's fear and weakness.
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