Understanding Hypocrisy in the Context of Spiritual Life

0:00 In the legendary novel by Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, an interesting anecdote is woven into the text as the underlying cause of the great fortune Edmund Dantes eventually recovered is related as due to the actions of a corrupt Pope who coveted money and who sold positions of cardinal in the Roman Church to wealthy men and then contrived to have them killed so he could resell the position. One of these men, understanding the risk he was undergoing, secreted his fortune on the Isle of Monte Cristo. The story of the corrupt Pope in this instance, who lived the life of a power hungry libertine with a lust for control of great wealth to indulge his desires, including a number of affairs with various mistresses, is based on an actual Pope, Alexander the 6th, who came from the infamous Borgia family and who used his holy robes as a means of indulging in behavior that remains shocking and infamous to this day.

1:10 Modern day society has seen various individuals rise to great prominence as religious leaders and thereby accumulate enormous amounts of money which they use to fuel a lavish lifestyle and to enhance their power and prestige. What they preach and how they live their lives wind up in opposition to each other. In whatever form someone can acquire power and influence and use it for personal self aggrandizement, it is certain that some individuals have abused that power and influence and thereby besmirched the dignity that they have assumed under false pretences.

1:55 This occurs throughout the world and is not limited to a particular religion or teaching. It is one of the misuses of power that the vital nature utilizes in some case to fulfill its desire. While we pay attention to headline cases, the same dynamic takes place at every level of human activity. The Dhammapada makes this point clear as we see in the below reference. Quote he who puts on the yellow robe while he is yet impure, lacking in self-control and lacking in loyalty. Truly he is unworthy to wear the yellow robe of the monk.

2:37 End Quote. The damaputa, the mother observes quote. It is noteworthy that the two defects insisted upon here are lack of self-control and lack of loyalty. Loyalty means here sincerity, honesty. What the Damapada censures most severely is hypocrisy. To pretend that you want to live the spiritual life and not to do it. To pretend that you want to seek the truth and not to do it. To display the external signs of consecration to the divine life, here symbolized by the yellow robe, but within to be concerned only with oneself, one's selfishness, and one's own needs. End Quote.

3:26 Reference through your window and the Mother looking from within. Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, page 118.