HONESTY…SECURITY PRECEDES THIS POLICY!

Honesty! A word that engulfed my last week more than anything else. In several conversations last week, it is the honesty which I have always considered as Virtue, that seemed to look like a liability. Not to me, but to those who I interacted with. And because it happened in more than a few instances and with a more than a few people, I am very sure it has something for me to reflect more deeply on and refresh my understanding of it.

Needless to say, I did not have to make a decision to do so, as this was the most natural direction something like this could have taken me to. In my hunger of exploring and understanding the various facets of life, honesty being looked at as a liability could not be ignored. It took my time, my thoughts, and obviously me having a relook at my understanding of honesty as being a virtue.

Loads of thoughts and experiences flashed past in the process. Some of my own life, and some of the experiences that others around me shared with me. I am happy that to do justice to all of it, I was able to look at things from both the sides with complete righteousness. It was a natural instinct to not be biased towards any one aspect. Yes, it took a lot of my energies, but having got a chance to reassess my understanding of this, I loved the experience.

Honesty, to me, always starts with one’s own self. I have always believed that being dishonest to someone else can be easier, but somehow, I have seen many who fool themselves by being untruthful to self. Why do they find it so easy? Well, from what I understand, it is because dishonesty to oneself does not need a cover-up or a false narration. All that you simply need to do is to, shut yourself to the truth. No flowery words, no created stories, no made-up situations are required. All that it takes is to do nothing and just overlook the truth, and you can be dishonest to yourself. 

I realized that it is this effortlessness that makes being dishonest to oneself, so easy and so frequent for a lot of us. And as practice, without doubt, makes us better than ever, we start to master this over time and in due course become a pro at it. 

But then what makes honesty being misunderstood, and at times look like a liability? My understanding about it tell me that honesty can be not taken as a virtue only if it is served and presented where the capacity to accept it is lacking.

I have realized that honesty should be served based on the appetite but should be presented where there is an ability to digest it. 

In the name of being right or having an aspiration to be fair, one can demand to be presented with complete honesty, but unless an ability to digest is developed, it can lead to the truth being treated as a liability. Intent to hear what is honest may be there, but it has to be coupled with an ability to accept the truth and understand it in its totality without bias or any prejudice. 

Honesty or truth cannot be my truth or your truth. Truth is naked, and it just needs to be seen as it is. As and when in life, we develop the ability to digest the fact in its most raw form, we shall feel liberated. And it is this feeling of liberation, that converts honesty from being a liability to become a virtue for us.

I have been practising this in my life, and though it is an ongoing process, we can all take heart from the fact that it does not wait long before it starts to shower us with its goodness. Merits of understanding, accepting and practising honesty can clearly be visible in the way we see life and life looks at us.

Love to all! Stay Safe!