Spiritual Honesty: Why Good Thinking And Bad Feelings Matter

“To learn about spirituality, to become spiritual, you have to give up all you think is spiritual.”

honestyJack Adam Weber – Without honesty, we live in disaccord with reality, which bears all kinds of hidden problems. Honesty is truth, and refers to the accurate perception of ourselves, each other, and the outside world.

We can only heal to the degree that we are honest, for what goes unnoticed, especially inside us, will remain largely unchanged. Our spirituality is no exception. In this vein, I will first discuss intellectual and emotional honesty as a build-up to spiritual honesty. So, please bear with me while I set the stage for this fruit of our best-used inner resources.

Intellectual Honesty

Intellectual Honesty is our capacity to notice and accurately report to ourselves and others what is true in the world, what is true of ourselves and our own logic (if it is internally consistent), and what we honestly believe. Intellectual honesty relies on our subjective capacity to level-headedly assess what is most likely true, what is factual, which is another way of describing rationality and self-evident common sense.

Some things we all consider to be true. This is called consensual, objective reality. Drinking poison will hurt you. Lying to others for our gain at another’s expense is hurtful. Abusing children is damaging and not compassionate. Unless you are a psychopath, we all hold these to be true. Good science and self-evident common sense inform us of objective truths. We now know the Earth is not flat, that it revolves around the sun and that gravity is an invisible force that causes things to fall to Earth. This all pertains to fact, to intellectual honesty. Continue reading