This beautiful quote by Paramahansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, perfectly expresses the imperative of heeding the inner urge to lift your thoughts and your gaze heavenward.
Paramahansa Yogananda
Think that which is good; love that which is good. Be enthroned in the castle of goodness, and your memories will be like (more…)
Yep, pretty much. Here’s a similar take from nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:
All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Trying to corner the market on truth is like trying to wrap your arms around (more…)
Clayton M. Christensen, who has been called “The Number One Management Thinker in the World”
In a brilliant address titled “How Will You Measure Your Life: Don’t Reserve Your Best Business Thinking for Your Career,” Clayton M. Christensen, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, advised his students how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-graduate careers. Here is an excerpt from that speech, which speaks to the heart of integrity.
Unconsciously, we often employ the marginal cost doctrine [a business theory that is unimportant to go into here] in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t ever look at where that path ultimately is headed and at the full costs that the choice entails. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this once.”
I’d like to share a story about how I came to understand the potential damage of “just this once” in my own life. I played on the Oxford University varsity basketball team. We worked our tails off and finished the season undefeated. The guys on the team were the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. We got to the British equivalent of the NCAA tournament— and made it to the final four. It turned out the championship game was scheduled to be (more…)
Are you unhappy with what you have or with where you are in life, and feel like you deserve better because you played by the rules and did everything right? Well, if you’re referring to the unwritten rules that required you to work hard, buy a home, raise a family and build your retirement account, it’s unfortunately time for a reality check. While those activities are undeniably worth striving for, the “rules” that supported them have been rendered irrelevant by societal and financial upheaval. What are the new rules? There are none.
Here’s the good news: It was never about social status, job security and financial security to begin with. It was never about your intended results, it was always about (more…)
In the CD, My Spirit Shall Live On: The Final Days of Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Daya Mata shares a vow she made to her guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, that she did her best to live by:
Let me so conduct my life that every moment I can look into your eyes with sincerity, with purity in heart, in mind and in soul.
Whether you are making this pledge to a guru or to God, they are wise words to live by. They are a reminder to reach every decision and choose every action as if God’s hand were on your shoulder. Living with complete integrity is the tangible expression of your love for and devotion to God. Integrity is your spiritual practice made visible.
Sri Daya Mata went on to say:
Let there be no hidden thoughts from you. Let me not try to hide a single motive from you. . . . He was the only one in this world to whom I felt I could go and open my heart and let him behold (more…)
Celebrate the difficult moments, for they are where the missing pieces of your greatness can be found.
Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
Charles (Tremendous) Jones
Greeting every challenge as a character-building exercise (more…)
Commit to a life of integrity, and you will consider yourself successful, regardless of whether you achieve career and financial goals, as long as you stay true to yourself and your ideals.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
You recognize that success is determined by the quality of your relationships—with friends and family, with colleagues, with yourself, with God, with the world at large, and, through your words and deeds, even with (more…)
True integrity is as tough as steel and as fragile as a snowflake. Tough because it is immalleable and unyielding, and fragile because one careless act can melt it away.
The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.
Japanese proverb
Preserving your integrity may come at a steep cost, but steeper (more…)
True integrity does not so much as flinch at attempts to sway it, even if all the riches of the world were to be laid at its feet.
The test of character is the amount of strain it can bear.
Charles Houston
Hold on to your integrity and you will hold on to your peace of mind, even if all else appears to be lost.
It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better (more…)
When you dedicate yourself to living for God, you vigorously guard the integrity of your virtue and the virtue of your integrity. Relaxing your ethics, even for trivial matters, is unthinkable.
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself—and be lenient to everybody else.
Henry Ward Beecher
You do not flaunt your integrity. By definition, integrity is (more…)
Embrace absolute integrity and you will find that guilt and regret are inevitably replaced by peace and serenity as naturally as winter gives way to spring.
Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty.
Vernon Howard
On those occasions when you do fall short of your expectations, you (more…)
Living a life of integrity begins right now. If others continue to define you by your past errors, so be it.
Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.
Albert Schweitzer
Do not allow the mistakes of (more…)
A person of integrity honors other people’s perspectives and interpretations, never making the mistake of taking an opposing view personally.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When someone challenges your statements or positions, you welcome the opportunity to clarify any misperceptions.
Truth is not afraid of questions.
Paramahansa Yogananda
Even if every choice you make is virtuous, your (more…)
Commit to a life of integrity and you recognize honesty as your best friend. You understand that telling the truth—or what you perceive to be the truth—is a sacred trust.
Truth is no theory, no speculative system of philosophy, no intellectual insight. Truth is exact correspondence with reality. For man, truth is unshakable knowledge of his real nature, his Self as soul.
Paramahansa Yogananda
Breathe life into a single lie and your (more…)
Live with integrity, and though you consider your truths immutable, you recognize and respect that other people hold other truths that resonate just as deeply with them.
Whenever two good people argue over principles, they are both right.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Trying to corner the market on truth is like trying to wrap (more…)
Truth is a multi-sided gem that reflects the light of perception differently depending on how it is held and turned in your hand.
The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.
Vaclav Havel
How do you know what is true? Divine intelligence speaks to (more…)
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Triumph of the Spirit 