Integrity is the most important metric.

As a mathematician, I love metrics. It’s fascinating how the way we measure things changes the way we see and interact with them. I also love thinking deeply about life and people and there’s an intersection between math and philosophy that makes me super happy. One of my favorite philosophers, Immanuel Kant, once created a metric to measure pleasure, called hedons, to decide whether humans are ever truly altruistic or if they are always serving their own pleasure even in service to others. A cool idea but relatively esoteric and inconclusive. I’m much more interested in people’s integrity.

In fact, I would argue that integrity is the most important way that people measure each other. Obviously, integrity doesn’t define the whole person but I mean that, if someone has high integrity, than other qualities add or subtract from an already super quality person. On the other side, if someone has no integrity than their other qualities probably don’t even matter. As an example, if a person abuses animals or children then I have a heart for the fact they’re probably responding to their own unhappiness but I likely don’t want to be part of that person’s life unless I have hope they’ll change, and I definitely won’t trust them until they do. However, if I’m looking for a mechanic and I know someone who is very good but a bit shady, and another mechanic that’s less proficient but honest, I’ll choose the latter every day of the year.

All people have equal value. All people have equal voice due to lessons we have for each other, regardless of background, intelligence, vocab, etc. Therefore, we are compelled to listen deeply to each other. The question is only whether a person shares something good. Good can be hard to describe but I will rely simply on intuition. The famous statement about pornography is that it’s hard to define but you know it when you see it. I generally think the same metric of intuition can be applied to whether something is good. My only improvement on this intuition is that it can be affected by absolute belief. As a Christian, I may place different value of goodness on something than others but the important thing is to hear the intent of someone’s message and the heart behind it will determine the goodness. I’ve spoken with Muslims that are honestly seeking the God of truth, and Christians seeking to spread their personal dogmas. Christ tells us, “Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened.” If another person truly seeks the God of truth but they call Him by another name, does Christ care? He sees our hearts and His love for us is beyond imagining. I doubt He cares which vibrations our throats make as we reach out to Him. The problem is that there’s nothing I’m more sure of than the fact that my current belief system is not perfectly aligned with God’s. As a result, I must listen to others that seek Him honestly by any means, as He has taught them different lessons.

Integrity is sometimes easily measurable, especially as a pattern. If somebody had been divorced five times, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything about their character alone, but it certainly could infer low character. If that same person has a pattern of bad deals with others, then the patterns begin to add up. To be fair, my wife and I have been through hell and back together and we’re blessed to have maintained the depth of our love. I have no judgement for a divorcee but I also believe that the more integrity we gain, the more likely we can work through our differences so any divorce is an indication that the people involved may have low character, and the same can be said for many painful occurrences in life. People also make mistakes and that lead to terrible difficulty so, again, we should determine their integrity by patterns not events, even colossal ones. Additionally, we should be interested in determining their integrity only so that we can help others or choose whether or not to interact with them. Since we must interact with ourselves, we should always be determining our own integrity in order to improve it. Truly, the person who can’t trust their own self is lost.

Integrity can also be measured by the people with which we surround ourselves. We all try to surround ourselves with people who want the best for us but anyone with integrity wants the best for the people around them. Even acquaintances or people we meet briefly should be met with compassion and betterment. In this way, we ensure our own character. If we envy the achievements of others then we aren’t truly happy for them and need to recognize that red flag about our own character. In yoga, we work towards non-attachment. The goal is to be content within ourselves so that we don’t envy anything and can meet others with true joy at their success.

All said and done, there’s nothing I want more for all people, including myself, than integrity. Our world is full of negativity and judgement. So much so that it’s easy and sometimes fun to be a troll ourselves. However, every time we give in to that impulse, we support it inside ourselves. We feel superior as the protagonist of our own stories and trolling others allows us to continue in superiority. The problems is that this superiority is a false one. Our value comes from Christ’s love for us, which is deep beyond imagining for all people. In yoga, we believe in the unity of all things, which is confusing to many but essentially the same idea. We all have infinite value and should treat others as such. The extension in yoga over Christianity is that yogis believe that all of creation carries this same value. I don’t see any good reason for the distinction between human and other creation. Certainly, as humans, we will value our own species but God values us because he created us and said we were good, the same as the rest of creation.

As a final note, I am definitely a hypocrite. I’m deeply troubled by my own lack of integrity. However, this means that, day by day, I’m becoming more divorced from my ego, flesh, and sinful nature, not because of my own work but instead because of alignment with the Holy Spirit which I’ve found is only achieved through long form prayer, meditation, and mindfulness. These are the path to experiencing heaven on Earth. My take away is that I will always measure myself and others in reference to integrity, and will do so only with the intent of improvement. This drives the way I treat every person, including myself. When I find others lacking integrity, I approach them with care. When I find myself lacking integrity, I need all the more careful intention to root out my ego and settle into my real value in Christ’s love.

I’d like to leave you with a story about Ghandi as it relates to hypocrisy. He was once approached by a mother who asked him to get her son to stop eating sugar. The son was totally addicted and she was worried. Ghandi told her to return in a month. When she returned she posed the same request. Ghandi looked at the child and said, “Son, stop eating sugar.” The mother was taken aback and asked why it took a month for such a simple and direct message. Ghandi responded, “It took me a month to stop eating sugar.” Christ asked us to pluck the board out of our own eye before fixing to help our neighbor with the speck in theirs. May I be more like them and live this practice.