"GI" Integrity

Virtue #3 of the "8 Virtues of Bushido"

""Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. Believe in justice, not from other people, but from yourself. To the true warrior, all points of view are deeply considered regarding honesty, justice, and integrity.

The most important line to me in this virtue is "believe in justice, not from other people, but from yourself". This is where justice fails in modern society. Everyone wants it for themselves or the ones that they care about, but really aren't concerned if it is found for those who are strangers to them, especially if it means they have to sacrifice something or stand against the ones that they consider "their own" to give justice to the mistreated. When we allow this mindset to lead us through life we are setting the integrity of our society and self up for self destruction.

Can a "judge" truly "judge" another man or woman? It's easy to "pass down" judgement to someone who we feel is inferior to us as we can think we have some sort of divine right to mistreat lowly others. If the person who is judging feels that his or her life means more than the person that he is placing judgment upon, then NO he or she CAN NOT rightfully judge someone. I will make this clearer by saying, "Will the one who is judging pass the same sentence of execution to his or her child, that he passed to someone else's child for the same crime? Would the judge do that even for a parking ticket or D.U.I.? I'm pretty sure that we all feel that a high number of judges would not give the same judgement or punishment to their cared ones, that they would give to a stranger. And this IS NOT justice or a display of integrity! The truly rightful judge must give the same punishment to a stranger that he would give to his loving wife. But, ...let's talk about the judge who would be 100% just.

The judge who would pass the same judgement to his loved ones and self as he would to a stranger would be viewed and labeled by many as a person who doesn't "love" the one that he placed fair judgement on. He would be called heartless, a bad parent, a horrible friend, a disloyal husband, and possibly even evil. This is the judgment that society more than likely would place on the judge who is 100% just. An honest judge possibly would be shamed & hated by more than the dishonest, biased judge.

To have "Gi" or "integrity" promises no reward, applause, or compensation. In fact, those of true integrity can expect to be alienated, discredited, bad jacketed, sabotaged, and possibly even attacked for displaying acts of integrity. Gi is the most intimidating and despised personality trait of a modern world that promotes, motivates and admires materialism, money, and personal gains because true "Gi" CAN NOT BE BOUGHT! Therefor, the person who has true "Gi" can be viewed as useless because he can't be "used" by the "users" of the world.

We must assure that our "Gi" is held high out of the reach of mankind's trickery, compensations, negotiations, intimidations, and confusions so that we never adjust it to benefit someone else or even our self. Because once we compromise our Gi, it no longer is Gi. It becomes our hooker that we are pimping out to those who pay enough. If we want other men and women to view our Gi as valuable above all, we must assure that we our self value it above all offerings of man. Then we become an unbreakable one that others respect, admire and even fear if need be.

And this, ...is a "way" of "The Warrior's Edge" -Jermaine Andre