A Lesson in Honesty

Newsflash: Body-minds (aka persons) have a tendency to lie and manipulate for their apparent benefit. Such behavior often takes the form of little white lies that are assumed to be harmless; and the great big ugly whoppers that destroy personal and professional relationships and contribute nothing positive to elevate humanity.

Many persons hold the belief that telling a lie often enough will magically transform it into truth. Such is delusion of the ego. To see evidence of the latter, all anyone need do is tune into major media coverage of…anything. Sound cynical?

Of course, I’m not claiming to be a saint when it comes to telling lies. I did my fair share of telling the small ones in my youth and even during my teenage years to protect the perspective of the shy false self that claimed to be me. It was so convincing that it even fooled me. With regard to the subject of telling lies, I consider myself very fortunate to have been raised by two incredible parents—Katherine and Walter Russell. They taught me the lesson referred to in the title of this article. It began like this…

One day, at about the age of eight or nine, I was running in our house, which was an activity that I had been warned against doing on multiple occasions. Even then, however, the interests of my “self” were of prime importance; not the shared interests of our family. As destiny would have it, I accidentally bumped into a lamp and caused it to crash to the floor. I’m sure there must have been an internal gasp as I realized what had occurred. There, on the floor, was the fancy lamp with a broken bulb. “What now!” shrieked my ego-mind, as it began to spin fictional tales—all useless—to get me out of the mess.

Amidst my panic, I remembered words that my mom and dad had told me. Their paraphrased message was this: “It’s always easier to tell the truth; when you do, it makes everything easier. If you do something wrong, just come and tell us.” With those thoughts running through my juvenile mind, I approached mom and dad and told them what had occurred. I told them straight up, and I apologized for running in the house. Much to my amazement, they thanked me for telling them, replaced the bulb, and sent me lovingly on my way. There was no punishment; for I had told the truth and so had they. To the best of my knowledge, I never ran in the house again.

As I write this, I find myself becoming emotional. What a foundational lesson my dear parents taught me. Did it mean that I never again told a lie? No; the ego has a way of pushing us to behave in ignorant ways; but I’m grateful that incredibly damaging whoppers have not been a prevalent part of my life. They would have felt too uncomfortable to use. I’m also fortunate that I realized from a very young age that The Universe has a perfect accounting system called karma. Eventually, all is balanced one way or another for the good of ALL.