Integrity

True integrity exists everywhere in nature. Everything functions together as a whole. Also, in nature time is not linear, it is cyclical; a circle of life representing a whole. The seasons change every few months, and they give each other integrity, they give each other change. Right now it is fall, and the leaves can fall because of the spring, summer and winter. In the winter the leaves are gone, but in the spring new leaves can grow in the place of the fallen, and in the summer the new leaves live happily giving us oxygen until they must die in the fall to start the cycle all over again. They live so they can die, and die so that they can live. The leaves have integrity because they live when it is time to live and die when it is time to die. They know these times because of their relationship to everything else; their relationship to spring, summer, fall, winter and the mechanisms of the earth that produce the seasons, and the mechanisms of the universe that make the earth. As humans, we do not live when it is time to live because we do not live in relation to everything else, we live according to the dictates of our egos and steadily march towards death-time. We do not perceive time as a circle, a whole, held together by a web made by each other and each thing because we want to have our own separate integrity, defended by the creation of linear time. This separate integrity feels assured by the steady ticking of linear time, like a heartbeat its existence is affirmed every second. It ticks until the very end, our heartbeat stops and we are no longer conscious of the ticking. The clock we have created never stops ticking, even if we can no longer hear it. It only mattered to us while we were alive, when it gave us order and what we perceive as integrity. However, the beat of the heart does not conform to the ticking of the clock, it has its own time and the clock does not know it; it is a secret. Only time will tell it. We think that death is not a part of us; it is the anti-ego, when we die we lose "our" consciousness and control. It is something we dread at the end of that road of linear time we march on. We march boldly and proudly like soldiers on their way to war with an attacker, we can't let ourselves be seen as cowards. We cannot desert the army or our egos, we cannot show weakness, or the “Other” just might kill us. We use our time wisely, getting our work done so that we can become something, because we are not enough; we must be victorious and stand apart from the rest. Time is money; linear time is valuable, it can bring us success in the future. In circular time there is no future to bring success, nothing stands apart but stands together as a whole, and time is a tree that makes leaves instead of money. Our pride and bravery is now recognized as cowardliness, fear of relation, and we stand there looking stupid in our uniforms, holding our weapons up against an opponent that isn't there. Our opponent morphs into a friend that has been supporting us and keeping us alive the whole time. If death is not a part of us, then life is not a part of us. When life and death become one, they produce rebirth. In a way death does not really exist, only rebirth exists. Rebirth is a constant cycle of existence, but not a monotonous one because it can never produce sameness. Rebirth is really in the middle of the circle, it is not in the cycle anymore. Rebirth is the whole that life and death make. It is in the present moment, it is the merging of space and time. It is birth after birth after birth after birth. It is one whole life giving birth to itself. Where is there death in the universe? I do not see it when I look outside of myself. Everything just looks like reformation, rebirth, shifting in form, constantly in movement. Everything is always in the middle of the circle in an infinite universe. When I picture true integrity I picture a web in the shape of a sphere. But really I think it is impossible to imagine an image to represent true integrity. Since everything and everyone is every part of that sphere, there is no place to place things and therefore no form to be held, because everything is everywhere. It is almost like it is beyond form and therefore beyond our comprehension. Thinking is a very limited thing, being is not. Being in a web, interconnected, has infinite possibilities. These truths are no good unless we put them to practice, or rather, let them put us to practice. We will not take them and shape them to ourselves like we do with systems of government; we will let them govern us. They are much more alive and capable of leading us than our governments ever have been. They are not ideas, and they are definitely not my own; they are alive by themselves and you would not be alive without them. They belong to no one, but if you see them yourself they are yours to shout at the top of your lungs to anyone else who might hear, and you just might stop a war, poverty, hatred or all of the endless miseries humans inflict on each other because of their egos. Everyone on earth is a savior if they try to be. Are we capable of forming a web together, of being each other's brothers and sisters? If not then thinking about this is the true meaning of a waste of time.