Benedictine thoughts
Chapter 7: On Humility Let a man consider that God is always looking at him from heaven, that his actions are everywhere visible to the divine eyes and are constantly being reported to God by the Angels. This is what the Prophet shows us when he represents God as ever present within our thoughts, in the words "Searcher of minds and hearts is God" (Ps. 7:10) and again in the words "The Lord knows the thoughts of men" (Ps. 93:11). Again he says, "You have read my thoughts from afar" (Ps. 138:3) and "The thoughts of people will confess to You" (Ps. 75:11).
In order that he may be careful about his wrongful thoughts, therefore, let the faithful brother say constantly in his heart, "Then shall I be spotless before Him, if I have kept myself from my iniquity" (Ps. 17:24).
__________________________________________
To thine own self be true? This one seems to say this to me. If you can't be honest with yourself, then, to me, it seems as though you will end up being untrue to others as well. Fakey people piss me off. I have a new button on my Big Red Backpack (tm) and it says, "Let's keep notes on who pisses us off" -- it's one of those snide bunny ones. I keep it there for two reasons: (1) I get pissed off too often and this reminds me of my own anger issues (2) Forgive and forget you silly monster. I'm trying to remember to be right and do right by making fun of my foibles.
It's deeper though and I think this reading today really goes to the heart of that. It's the same theory behind smiling in the mirror when you're on the phone. Telemarketers do this to project a happy voice. ~~If you're happy and you know it...~~ When you see a smile, you're more apt to smile and then "play it forward" as they say. There's a new commercial for an insurance company about that. For the life of me, I can't remember the insurance company's name (which really screws up their campaign, sorry) but I remember that it starts and ends with picking up a toy for a child. Doing something for others above yourself.
If I knew more about Karma I'd feel better saying that it's related, maybe my Buddhist friends who get this far in my babbling can clarify.
For the Benedictine, it's all about trying to be ideal, be more what Jesus was around to show us about how to act. Loving, caring, taking care of one another, being more to others than to yourself are all encompassed in that ethic. It's about humility - which coincidentally, is why this reading is from that chapter in the rule. Humility is directly and intrinsically related to my thoughts on this rule. Being true to yourself means being honest. Being honest means looking at where you are in the world as a moral and ethical human. Being honest in this way forces us to realize and act in humility.