The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self

by Martha Beck

Genuine soul teachers may perplex or disturb us, but they tend to be fascinating, not repulsive or unbearable.

Soul teachers capture our attention

Soul teachers come with a dash of magic

As they say, the teacher appears when the student is ready. We make ourselves ready just by realizing we’re lost and committing to the way of integrity. A teacher will eventually show up, often in unexpected ways. The dash of magic, if and when it happens, is like the cherry on the sundae.

Soul teachers offer genuine love

When someone you feel drawn to upsets your patterns of thought, you may feel petulant and unloved, like a child whose parents refuse to serve candy for dinner. But pay close attention. As long as it liberates you, what looks like harshness or even cruelty may in fact be the purest love you could possibly receive.

Soul teachers don’t share our culture’s values

Such teachers are countercultural in a very particular way: they jolt us out of our assumptions and force us to see new perspectives.

Soul teachers don’t care about our hustle

Soul teachers help us think the unthinkable

never mentioning that you all know you’re lying. Soul teachers just run right over this rule and talk openly and honestly about what’s actually going on, like savages.

Soul teachers know when to quit

The idea of “killing the Buddha” means learning all you can from any given teacher, until you begin to transcend them. Then you can use both the truths you’ve learned and the falsehoods you’ve spotted to move on.

Now that I’ve given you a few pointers for recognizing an outward soul teacher, I want to talk more about the inner teacher, the one who is your goal. This ultimate guide has been with you since before you were born, and will be available to you until the moment you draw your last breath (and who knows, maybe even after).

Spiritual traditions have coined a whole lexicon of terms trying to label the inner teacher, the wisdom at our center, the essence of what we actually, intrinsically are.

In this book I’ve referred to your inner teacher primarily as your integrity.

The real essence of your inner teacher lies beyond labels. You can’t experience it by thinking about it, only by being it.

I’m dwelling on this because listening to our inner teacher is the most important skill we need to follow the way of integrity. When we meet external soul teachers, we know to trust them only because we feel the ring of truth internally. And even when no external teacher is available, the inner teacher always is.

So another characteristic of the inner teacher—the most important one—is that you can feel it in all aspects of your being (body/mind/heart/soul) at once.

When our minds recognize truth, we experience that invisible cartoon light bulb going on in our heads, the feeling of a riddle being solved. “Aha!” we think, or “I get it!” or “Of course!” All the puzzle pieces fit. The math works. Everything makes logical sense.

Our sense of truth, our ultimate inner teacher, is as familiar to us as the sun and the moon. We use it constantly in ordinary perception. As I’ve just noted, it’s what allows us to distinguish our dreams from waking life every single morning.

Every real soul guide outside you will bow to the teacher inside you.

Our society doesn’t encourage you to admit this, but if it’s true for you, your heart won’t stop yearning for the mentor to arrive. Allow this feeling and keep your eyes open—your soul guide may show up any minute, from virtually anywhere.

In the previous chapter you wrote down a few things you consistently make yourself do, even though you don’t really want to do them. Now pick one of these things (or think of a brand new one) and write it here.

With this activity in mind, say to yourself, “I am meant to do [this thing].” For example, if your activity is “take out the garbage,” mentally repeat, over and over, “I am meant to take out the garbage.”

As you repeat “I am meant to [take out the garbage],” notice any physical sensations. Scan your body, noting the feelings in your muscles, joints, stomach, gut, skin surface, and so on. Write down anything you notice:

Now turn your attention to your emotions. As you repeat “I am meant to [take out the garbage],” what emotional reactions arise? Anxiety? Bliss? Apathy? Write them down:

Answer this question yes or no: As you mentally repeat “I am meant to [take out the garbage],” do you feel free? Circle one answer:

Now let go of the thought “I am meant to [take out the garbage].” Instead, mentally repeat this sentence: “I am meant to live in peace.” You don’t have to believe this, just repeat it in your mind over and over.

As you repeat “I am meant to live in peace,” again notice your physical sensations. Scan your whole body with your attention and write down what you’re feeling physically:

Still repeating “I am meant to live in peace,” notice any emotions arising. Write them down:

Finally, answer this question yes or no: As you mentally repeat “I am meant to live in peace,” do you feel free? Circle your answer

The voice of your inner teacher is not the one that tells you that the meaning of your life is to do something you think you’re supposed to do. It’s the sensation you get when you state that you are meant to live in peace.

If you’re making yourself do something you don’t like, it’s because your mind believes you must. Ask it what’s true, and it will just parrot whatever you’ve been taught to believe. Tell your mind that the only sure things in the world are death and taxes, and it will agree. Suggest that you’re meant to live in peace, and your mind will probably raise one eyebrow and sneer.

Denial is a survival mechanism that keeps us from dying of shock by blocking our perception of things that are too frightening to face.

So, what are your flinch areas, your Do Not Mention Zones? Whatever you least want to know, whatever makes you most fidgety, uncomfortable, irritable, and anxious, is the general area of a gate to hell. Approaching that gate is the next step toward integrity. I wish I could say otherwise, but I can’t.

As we approach hellgates, our minds generate catastrophic fantasies. We visualize all sorts of horrendous outcomes. We fret over What People Will Think if our worst fears are realized. We may feel desperate to control every possible outcome, prepare for every contingency, prevent every calamity. But beneath this effort to control the universe, we feel a dreadful deeper truth: the universe is not ours to control.

From this perspective, every one of us has a personal hell, an internal inferno.

As I see it, hell is suffering—particularly any suffering that feels inescapable. You may remember that I make a distinction between the words pain and suffering: Pain comes from events, while suffering comes from the way we handle events—what we do about them and, especially, what we think about them.

If you’re in a relatively comfortable place right now, with no one physically attacking you, the vast majority of any suffering you feel is coming from your thoughts.

your thoughts, even thoughts you absolutely believe, may not always be true.

Our worst psychological suffering comes from thoughts that we genuinely believe, while simultaneously knowing they aren’t true.

Believing things that aren’t true for us at the deepest level is the commonest way in which we lose our integrity. Then suffering arises—not as punishment, but as a signal that we’re being torn apart. The purpose of suffering is to help us locate our internal divisions, reclaim our reality, and heal these inner rifts.

So it’s not the positivity or negativity of a thought that makes us feel happy or sad, trapped or free. The operative variable is whether the thoughts we believe match what we deeply feel to be the truth. Being split from ourselves is hell. Reclaiming integrity is the way out of it.

These are the same steps we need to end our own psychological suffering. First, we must become the observers of our suffering, instead of drowning in it like swimmers sucked into a maelstrom. Second, we must question each belief that traps us in misery until we figure out where it diverts us from our sense of truth. At that point, our infernal chains break, and step three—moving on—is almost automatic.

You don’t have to believe any of your own new ideas. Just keep working on this exercise until you find the part of yourself that is capable of doubting your demons.

Beliefs—especially scary ones—act like blinders. Once we believe a thought, we selectively pay attention to anything that seems to support it. If evidence contradicts a belief, our attention slides away.

Questioning one’s own beliefs is a paradoxical business, and our culture doesn’t usually acknowledge that it’s possible, let alone advisable. We aren’t trained to nurture doubt and seek disconfirmation—quite the opposite.

But suffering is a dauntless ally. Because of it, most of the people I’ve coached ultimately learned to observe, question, and free the parts of themselves stuck in their inner infernos.

We spend almost all our time diligently avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure. And yet, after all our efforts, one of the few certainties of human life is that we all suffer. Every damned one of us. Why?