I came across a marvellous story the other day in a talk given by Joseph Campbell on Hinduism. He was talking about the Indian concept of the spiritual value of performing ones duty, of acting in accordance with ones station in life. I would call it having integrity. During the time of the Emperor Ashoka the Ganges flooded and threatened the city.
Campbell goes on ‘Now there is an Indian notion that if you have fulfilled your life duty to perfection, you may perform what is known as an Act of Truth. You can say (and this is magic now): “If I have performed my duty without any trace of ego, but, like the sun rising and the sun setting, have done just what I should have done, every hour of my life, then let such and such happen!“ And such and such will happen. This is called an Act of Truth. For, since you are part of the organism of the universe, and perfectly so, you partake of the power of the universe. You have become a conduit of universal energy and can perform miracles.’ The Emperor asks whether there is anyone who can perform the Act of Truth and save the city by making the flood waters recede. Everyone shakes their heads – all the important people, the nobles, the priests, the merchants – not one has lived life with sufficient integrity. And then on the edge of the crowd an old prostitute says, ‘I can.’ And the waters begin to recede. The Emperor is astonished and he asks the woman how she, a wretched sinner, an outcast of society, could perform the Act of Truth.
The woman replies, “Whosoever gives me money, your Majesty, whether he be a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, or Shudra, I treat him as any other. I make no distinction in his favour if he is Kshatriya; and if a Shudra, I do not despise him. Free both from fawning and from contempt, I serve the owner of the money. And this your Majesty, is the Act of Truth by which I caused the mighty Ganges to flow back upstream.”
The remarks of Jesus about prostitutes immediately spring to mind. The moral of the story is that any way of life whatsoever is a way to God, if followed faithfully, selflessly, in perfect humility. Perhaps ‘any’ is a bit too sweeping and needs to be qualified. There are certain ways of life which, by their nature, cannot be reconciled with what it means to be human. Hindus, with their more liberal attitude to sex, would not have a problem with prostitution, though Christians would. Buddhists rule out any occupation which involves killing, animals or men. The early Christians did not see how being a soldier could be compatible with being a Christian. Times have changed, as has society. Possessive individualism reigns supreme as a worldview (though there are signs that this is slowly changing) leading to the apotheosis of the individual. Fidelity, selflessness and humility are not seen as appropriate virtues, not if you want to be competitive and, as they say, competition is what it’s all about.
To me integrity seems to be the key virtue. Love gets overloaded with sentimentality and with the idea that you have to like someone in order to love them. The concept agape is not understood, or where it is understood, is seen as impractical. Integrity, being true to yourself, is much easier to understand and appreciate – or would be if we each had a clear idea of what it means to be a self, a human being.