Edward’s Diary Entry 56 – Virtue 9. Straightforwardness / What to do about crookedness?

Crookedness, lying, cheating, stealing, falseness, untrustworthiness, deviousness, deceitfulness…

There was a crooked man, 

and he walked a crooked mile. 

He found a crooked sixpence

upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat,

which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together

in a little crooked house.

- Mother Goose

The horns of an animal are seldom straight; they curve. From Vulgar Latin we have “corna” and we get “corner” in English from there. And the same root is in “crooked”, meaning not-straight, and Middle and American English gave us the “crook”, the liar, cheater and swindler.

Rectitude means aligning things in a straight line. We think, we feel, we act and speak. If these are aligned, we are “straightforward”. If not, we are like the man in the nursery rhyme, which, if you notice, cites “crooked” a total of the esoteric SEVEN times, one for each day of the week.

But “alignment” is not all there is to it. What’s the use of aligning wrong thinking with wrong feeling and acting wrongly? The vice of “crookedness” we are looking at has to be the opposite of straightforwardness in the sense that if we have practised all 26 Virtues, thinking is right, feeling is therefore right, and acting and speaking will also be in tune with this rightness. Then it is a Virtue, not otherwise. Just saying what you think is not being straightforward – you may be under the influence of mental deceptions and think wrongly. This is splintered personality, and we are seeking integrity.

And so we measure our words, acts and thoughts. We practise the Virtues and we make up a little mental chart of them, analysing our actions as to their coincidence with all 26 Virtues. Which of the 26 qualities are lacking in any action? We may be OK with Charity, Fearlessness and Endurance, but lacking in Gentleness and Self-Mastery. We may see Compassion towards one party but not to third parties. We may be energetic, but bordering on injury in thought, word and deed. To get the “feel” of the Virtues, it is good to take an event, assign it to a Virtues chart and analyse each of the Virtues for presence or absence and effectiveness. What qualities were there? Which ones were missing? An event reflects our basic grasp of the Virtues and will show up where we have gone off track, gone “crooked”, where we have to apply more Self-Awareness…

Here’s one I did a while ago concerning an event that was talked about by two parties involving others.

VIRTUE	Analysis
1.     Fearlessness	OK, no fear
2.       Purity of Mind/Heart	OK, as “pure” as possible, because event is very subjective in any case.
3.       Steadfastness / Perseverance	OK, certainly persevering, yes!
4.       Charitableness /Almsgiving	Lack of charity towards third parties (X,Y)
5.       Self-Mastery/Control of Senses-Passions	Theoretical OK
6.       Readiness to Make Sacrifices / Fire rituals	OK
7.       Studiousness	OK, situation studied as stated, yes
8.       Austerity / Ability to Make Efforts	OK
9.       Straightforwardness	OK, very much so!
10.    Non-Violence/Non-injury in thought, word, deed	OK, certainly non-injurious intention to P, and additionally to third parties (X, Y)
11.    Truthfulness	OK, but perhaps an overriding insistence on “being truthful”
12.    Absence of anger/ Wrath	Watch out for this, because “surprise” can evolve to a degree of anger
13.    Renunciation (of fruits of action)	Yes, OK
14.    Tranquillity / Peacefulness (of mind)	OK…, but watch out for excess vehemence!
15.    Aversion to Slander/Nonmaliciousness	Yes, OK
16.    Compassion towards Living Beings	Yes, OK, but compassion not extended to third parties
17.    Non-Covetousness	Not relevant
18.    Gentleness	Lack of Gentleness. Could have said same less dramatically.
19.    Sense of Shame in Doing Evil Actions/Modesty	Not relevant
20.    Faith in Strength of Higher Nature (Absence - fickleness)	Yes, OK, faith extended in mind to P’s “higher nature”, but not to X’s or Y’s!
21.    Energy / Vigour	Yes, OK, could have been seen as too much!
22.    Forgiveness	Yes, OK
23.    Endurance / Fortitude	Yes, OK
24.    Chastity/ Purity / Clean in Thought and Act	OK, but overriding insistence on “purity” in action
25.    Absence of Malice/Hatred	Yes, OK
26.    Aversion to Praise/Absence of Pride	Yes, OK

What about you, reader? Can you contribute an analysis of an event in the light of the 26 Virtues? Would you like to provide a description of an event or occurrence, or a story, so that we can examine it in the light of the Virtues? That would be interesting if we could do that. Thank you.