In the last few pieces I have proposed that why the path of wisdom is a surer and more enriching path to spirituality.
Let me now present what are the ways to develop this wisdom and how it can then take you to bliss (ananda).
The first pillar of wisdom is virtue. And the foundation stone of this pillar is sincerity.
One of the foremost votaries of sincerity, who was also perhaps its keenest student, was Confucius.
Sincerity in the Confucian meaning has three fragments. The first and foremost fragment is loyalty, then integrity and then honesty.
By loyalty, Confucius means faithfulness, by integrity, he means doing the right thing and by honesty, he means telling the truth.
Confucius understands that one can be honest without being high on integrity. Imagine you have gone on an official tour. You come back and submit an expense statement which is inflated and you are reimbursed the money. However your conscience starts pricking you and one day you go to your boss and tell him the truth. You own up. Here you have been honest (truthful) but you have not been high on integrity. For Confucius doing the right thing (integrity) and telling the truth (honesty) both are important.
Confucius says sincerity is the way of the heaven. By way of the heaven he means the Tao- the guiding force of the universe- the governing order of the universe- which can also be called God. Once you are sincere you will come in sync with this governing order of the universe.
Confucius goes on to say to strive to be sincere is the way of man. Which means to move towards sincerity is in the nature of man.
What Confucius said 2,500 years ago is being validated with scientific proof today. Martin Seligman one of the leading proponents of Psychology who has studied Happiness and Fulfillment says, that happiness has little to do with pleasure and much to do with developing personal strengths and character. Development of universal virtues (character), one of which is sincerity, gives life satisfaction and happiness. He feels that talents says something about our genes, about what we have inherited but virtues and developed talents like sincerity say something about us. When you move in the direction of sincerity you feel fulfilled and happy. You are in tune with nature and this getting in tandem with nature helps you evolve spiritually and experience spiritual bliss.
Confucius even says that the most sincere person can foretell the future. Why? Because the hangover of sincerity is a state of deep poise. This state of poise will help you access two kinds of intuition. Let us call the first, Grey intuition. Grey intuition means intuiting through files archived in your brain. These files might be stored at the conscious level or at the subconscious level. Some times this kind of intuition wells up so imperceptibly that you wonder where it came from. Archives of this kind of intuition go up with age especially among veterans in professions where the stakes are very high or where life is at stake e.g. among nurses and among firemen. There is another type of intuition also which this state of poise will help you access and that is Blue Intuition. Blue intuition is intuiting by accessing information from the universal intelligence- from what Karl Jung calls collective consciousness of man. You are in sync with the universe and you become a channel for the wisdom of the universe. This type of intuition is indeed rare. Almost all of intuition is grey intuition. But the totally sincere person- in his state of poise- can access blue intuition also. Hence as per Confucius the sincere person is like a God. Sincerity is one of the paths to spirituality, to Godliness.