Essay for
October 2005

Your Word is your Bond

The world of high-speed communication, where everything is required instantly or yesterday, potentially creates a superficiality that may not be recognized as harmful. Only surface communication is becoming necessary. Everything is moving so rapidly that any form of in-depth interaction is surrendered to the need to compute the constant 'chatter' of this continuous flow of information. When there is time to relax from a stressful day of work, the radio, stereo or TV is turned on and more 'chatter' inundates our lives. From the moment you wake up to the time you retire to your bed, you are bombarded by this 'chatter' that rarely touches the core of your being to awaken your insight to the dangers that this superficial ongoing barrage of information can create.
We are living in an age where only surface information is necessary. The danger of this form of shallow vision, relying upon surface information only, can establish a superficial identity where only the surface is required to live within and present as who you are. Following or referencing media created images of how one should look, what to wear, how to act, be seen with or at, and even how to think is becoming far more important than discovering the 'how' and 'why' of existence. The 'how' and 'why' appears unnecessary, but when the superficial collapses, and it will sometime in your life, knowing the 'how' and 'why' will be discovered as essential to your existence. All the surface 'chatter' of existence is a distraction, and when that crumples you may feel you are crumbling, as that is what you relied upon and presented as who and what your are. Here medication can enter one's life attempting to prevent the crumbing from total disintegration. However, that is only surface glue to patch up the cracks of a two dimensional 'picture' of yourself. It may hold the 'picture' together but the joins will always be visible and your life revolves around only witnessing the flaws in the 'picture', rather than understanding 'how' and 'why' the picture was formed.
Living within superficial information is similar to the pollution you witness floating on the surface of a lake. You only recognize the garbage on the top, concealing the total pollution the lake contains. Clearing the surface refuse does not clear the remainder of the pollution hidden within the lake itself. Continual cleaning is required to make the lake look clean, but that is only superficial cleansing. The hidden pollution will eventually surface to once again cover the surface of the lake with more garbage, and the same process continually recycles. It is ongoing entrapment without recognizing or knowing where the pollution comes from. The knowing requires you to dive into the 'depth' of the lake to witness 'why' the pollution arises, which will reveal 'how' to remove it.
Clearing the lake will automatically repair the flaws you were witnessing in the 'picture' of your life, and it does it with no direct effort on your part. Living within the clarity of your 'depth' spontaneously removes all the rubbish that polluted your life. What you once recognized as flaws will have no place to exist, removing the artificially created cracks in your 'picture', making you feel whole and complete as the 'picture' is whole and complete. The effort is in the 'dive' to reveal the 'depth' of your being by knowing the 'how' and 'why' of existence. When that is known, effortlessness automatically removes all the garbage from your life. The 'depth' will reveal where true joy and happiness lives as you are no longer seduced into the transitory joy and happiness that you believed existed within the superficiality of surface information. Trusting or believing that last statement may be difficult as surface information is continually 'in your face' seducing you into the superficiality of its content. However, sometime in your life, when the 'picture' you have created for yourself cracks, then you will know the truthfulness of that statement.
Getting in the depth of your existence can be from many and diverse angles. You will discover you have a natural propensity toward one particular way as versus another. Allowing that propensity to guide your investigations, you will eventually be led into witnessing the superficiality of surface information. That vision will point the direction to follow, ultimately uncovering the 'depth' of your being. From that position you will see that all ways point in the same direction, just your propensity for one or other way kept you upon your chosen pathway to that common end. When you are circling around that end, not quite discovering its core, one of the first noticeable changes that you can detect in your existence is that you are becoming more honest. The integrity of your statements has a 'depth' that no longer exists within the surface 'chatter' of your environment. You can feel it and that in itself begins to remove any perceived flaws and clutter within your life.
The closer you come to the center of your being, the greater insight you have. That insight, by its own force, drives you further toward that center. It is like lifting you by your own bootstraps. You initiate a chosen direction and the direction will perpetually move you deeper and deeper to the center. With each move inward, the outward has less and less attraction, which is what releases your innate integrity that you cannot learn, only experience. The experience appears to come from nowhere, but that is the center of your being slowly being unveiled to reveal the innate wisdom that exists there. You do not become wise; you are simply immersed within the wisdom of that center, and the center does the work. If you feel you are gaining wisdom, you are moving at right angles to that center, or moving offline to it. If you simply remain within that center your thoughts, actions and speech reveal a greater wisdom-perception existing there, and that can only occur by direct experience. Your speech is underlain with integrity and your word becomes your bond.
It is becoming a rarity in today's world, where one's word is one's bond, as nearly everyone is living within the superficiality of information, creating superficiality of one's word. The bond of one's word hardly exists, and there are mountains of lawyers to prove that contention correct. In days far past, one's word was taken as a bond that could be relied upon and trusted. Today that is nearly a fiction as personal integrity has been eroded by the superficiality of living on the surface of existence. It has reached a point where the trust in another's word is not even expected. Hoped for maybe, but expected, no. If trust is being eroded within our existence what is there left to rely upon but the messy, cumbersome and expensive legal redress, and no one wins in that process even if there appears to be a winner. Lack of trust between individuals is slowly tearing the fabric of existence into shreds and it appears to be worsening ever day.
Where to begin can always be confronting as there are innumerable ways, processes and methodologies. If you cannot become involved with any of them, work from the outside to move to the inside, by simply making your word your bond. That may appear simplistic, but it works, as it slowly strengths your integrity by clarifying every decision where your word is given. It forces you to go deep within to create both a short and long-term vision of that bond, making you aware of both the value and consequences of that commitment. This means you are no longer living on the surface of your existence, and that in itself simply makes you feel good about yourself, which indirectly is healing those flaws in the 'picture' you have self-created. The cracks in that 'picture' also self-heal and eventually you will picture yourself in a new light of wholeness, as the emptiness of superficial 'chatter' is filled with personal integrity. Making your word your bond contains its own reward.

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