Maybe it’s time to talk about the next level of development in human society. We’ve seen so many accomplishments, from computers to travels in outer space, which can make us feel like we’ve done all we can do on this planet. But when we look at the disagreements, and economic disparity between the rich and poor all over the world, we can see that there’s still more that needs to be accomplished.

What we need to uncover now is a deeper realization of our capacity for integrity, which the dictionary defines this way:

integrity |in_tegrit_| noun
1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness
2. the state of being whole and undivided
• the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction
• internal consistency or lack of corruption in electronic data

Integrity is a level of awareness that guides us from within when we’ve learned to develop it through life’s lessons—it’s a sense of responsibility for every word we say and everything we do, to the point where we always want to do the right thing in every situation. This is a huge responsibility, and most of us seem to fall far short of it in many ways for a variety of reasons. So learning about it and coming into this realization usually demands more of what we understand about ourselves than we really want to think about.

But now we’ve come to a time when the rich and famous are being brought down out of the stratosphere of wealth and privilege in a way that couldn’t have been imagined just a short while ago.

The definition from the dictionary can really help us to see how to move forward from here. The “quality of being honest and having strong moral principles” actually comes from a person’s “state of being whole and undivided” within one’s self.

So our next step needs to be one of understanding the unique and precious wholeness of our own being, by conscientiously being respectful of our own self. This appreciation of our own uniqueness, and, of course, our precious vulnerability, can heighten our awareness of the beauty we each carry within us. As we acknowledge the importance of our own unique life, we can begin to recognize that others around us are also unique, and therefore also precious individuals, and we can learn how to respect their vulnerability just as we can learn how to respect our own.

This does take deep, careful thought—contemplation that can gently lead to loving-kindness between us. It does take time to become more aware of our capacity to develop integrity, but we can find that we are all made in a way where this is our next step forward into a more compassionate, integral society. It is possible to uncover the inner knowing that is already hidden within your own heart.