Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Honesty

I wonder how we define honesty?

Most people would define honesty by looking at the physical universe and pointing out what has already manifested. We could be completely honest and tell an obese person that they have a fat butt.

But does this sort of honesty really help? Is it valuable? You could say, “Well, it helps me because I don’t like fat people.” Yeah, but why don’t you like fat people? If you were truly honest, you’d look inside yourself to find out.

If we accept the premise that the universe was created by consciousness and that your thoughts and feelings will ultimately determine your experiences, then anything in your awareness that you choose to focus upon will ultimately become real, and a subject for future honesty. To tell someone that they have a big butt is just to remind them that they have created inappropriately.

So any feeling you have and express is honesty. If you say to someone, "Looking at you irritates me, because I've put on some weight recently and I don’t like myself as much," this might be considered more honest than the statement above. This sort of honesty might be of more value, for we have not denigrated another. We have bared our soul to the other and made the subject about ourselves. And since all statements we make about others are really about ourselves, it also has more integrity.

What do you think?

I've always admired people who can be honest without irritating other people. That's something I've had to personally work on. I think the trick is always to be able to honestly express your feelings without making another wrong. That requires a conscious effort.

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