I can still remember the first time I did something devious, and the way it made me feel.In the late morning sunlight, I had noticed the silhouette of something unusual lying on my bed. On further inspection, it was found to be a 20 rupee note. I wasn’t exactly sure what use it was to me or even what I’d do with it, and I knew that I should probably take it to my mother. Something made not want to do that. The note seemed to say ‘keep me’. So I hid it inside my doll’s underwear, feeling the thrill of flirting with danger. You see, I already knew that lying was bad and stealing even worse. But keeping something I’d found on my very own bed, surely there was no harm in that?Although 20 rupees wasn’t a lot of money even back in the India of 1974, the accounting in our house was tight, and the note was missed. And so, the investigation to locate it was in full swing a couple of hours later. While my mother questioned everyone else in the house, and conducted a thorough search starting with my bed where she last remembered leaving it, I pretended to be occupied with my dolls. When there was still no sign of it, my mother’s gaze finally landed on me, the innocent 3 year old.She asked if I knew where the money was. I said no with all the confidence I could summon in my tight throat, not fully believing that I’d get away with it. Another round of questioning and searching ensued. I was in hot water, I busied myself in play. The knot in my stomach was growing in intensity with every passing moment, but in my mind I had passed the point of no return. I tried to become small so she wouldn’t notice me. No such luck. The very next moment, her eyes were back on me, and from the look I could tell that the game was up. There was nothing else to do but swallow my pride and hand the money over before I dug myself any deeper into the hole. While it wasn’t the best idea for me to lie, I learned something important on that day that stays with me even now. Had I even got away with the ‘theft and lies’ I would have still have been left with the damage to my INTEGRITY. The guilt followed by the desire to shrink and disappear were a result of not feeling whole inside.To me integrity is much deeper than being honest or keeping time. It’s the foundation for how well we function in life. The absence of integrity is like a virus in the system, quickly taking it down from joyful strength to conflicted and weak, as I found out that day. Beyond right and wrong, our human system thrives on wholeness and integrity, it funcrions sub-optimally with fragmentation, that’s all. In the end, what anyone else thinks of your own actions matters less than how you feel about it. 
Ritual fire in India called Homa