Gullregel nr. 8

Mitt samvittighetsfulle selv;
Oppretthold din ære for enhver pris.

Pir Zias kommentar:
Can you sense within, beyond concepts, the subtle substance of honor? Just think how tragic it is that so many seek worldly advantage, which is nothing compared to this pure, sacred quality of being.

Notions of honor are not always well thought out. If we are insulted, we suppose we have been dishonored. Harmful acts are justified in defense of one’s honor. If one has been insulted, one invokes one’s honor and retaliates. But this is a misunderstanding because no one can dishonor anyone except him- or herself. The one who would dishonor us only dishonors him- or herself.

No one can truly offend your honor, because your honor does not consist in what is done to you. In reality, it consists in adherence to your own highest understanding of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Your own conscience is your honor. We dishonor ourselves when we fall below our own ideal.

Of course living up to one’s ideal is a lifetime’s work. In the Gayan Murshid says that he often feels as though he is playing see-saw with his ideal; when his ideal rises up, he comes down, and when he goes up, the ideal comes down. The ideal is that image of perfection which has been planted in the soul of each one of us, and its enactment on earth is the very summation of all possible integrity, honor, and perfection. And yet it is a struggle. We have been created with the potential for perfection but we have also been created to live in an imperfect world, to be subjected to the vicissitudes of imperfection, internally as well as externally. One of the qualities of perfection is compassion which can only exist in relation to imperfection. And so a part of completing one’s own perfection is compassionately coming to terms with the limitations that one meets in oneself and others.

So a question arises when we come to a crossroads. At a moment of choice, which way is the path of honor? Some choices might seem very attractive as they offer us getting ahead in life, gaining prestige, wealth, power, comfort, and convenience. And yet the attainment of these luxuries is not always consistent with the path of honor. In fact very often it is just the reverse. The path of honor requires us to make certain sacrifices but we do so because it is in the spirit of the integrity of the ideal which we cherish and which has an attraction for us, a satisfaction which ultimately outstrips all of these distracting temptations.

Honor is integrity at any cost. It would be be better to lose comforts, privileges, and possessions rather than to sacrifice a particle of one’s integrity, which is one’s true treasure. Everything else can be taken away, material, objects, position in the world, these things come and go in dramatic reversals. But integrity, no one can take away from you. When we pass, it is the fulfillment of our ideal we will take with us and nothing else. Keep to what you know to be true or right.

My conscientious self, uphold your honor at any cost.