To what do we really owe our loyalty? To what extent should we be loyal? What are we guilty of when we are disloyal? How often are we guilty of misplaced loyalty? Do we understand what selfish loyalty is and what is unselfish loyalty? Are we loyal because we receive something, or are we loyal because we desire to give? These are questions humans have struggled with for ages. This being a relative world, the answers are also relative.

Loyalty, consciousness and discrimination go hand in hand. However, first we have to start with the real meaning of loyalty. It means faithful to a cause, faithful to someone to whom fidelity is held to be due, faithful to an idea, and so forth. The first loyalty of all humans certainly is to God who created them. The second loyalty is to the mother and father who gave birth to you and raised you. The third loyalty is to the country where one lives, which is usually the country in which one was born. Loyalty is something that must be instilled in a child by the parents, not something that the child comes by naturally. However, this depends to a great extent upon the child's habit pattern that it brought with it into this life. It is, however, still the duty of the parents to mold the child into a better pattern while the child is still malleable.

Disloyalty is something that is not tolerated in any level of society anywhere on earth. There are certain things that we should just naturally be loyal to and there are certain loyalties that we acquire as we go along in life. We should, however, be very careful not to place our loyalties in the wrong thing or the wrong person as this can often culminate in disaster. There are many sailors who are loyal to their ship. But, if the ship is sinking it may be time to get off and place loyalties elsewhere. A stubborn loyalty to a lost cause can often cause one to pay a price for lack of reason and good judgment. On the other hand, where the loyalty is justified one should stand resolute in his loyalty. There are some people who find it impossible to remain loyal to anything for any length of time and they often become faithless to the very principles of life itself.

The best place to place ones loyalties is in that which is real and which has lasting qualities. Loyalty when not put to the test is very easy, but when loyalty is really needed there are few to be found who remain faithful. When we cease to be faithful we become known as faithless. This type of person only shows loyalty when it is to his personal advantage to be loyal. So, his life is lived on the surface and has no depth. For a person to be truly loyal there has to be quality and depth in that person, and there are few people in this world that have that quality. When this quality is demonstrated by the people of this earth it will be to God and they will be God people.

Loyalty is something that cannot be bought. Loyalty must be earned. Too many parents try to buy the child's love and fail to give of themselves, and this too often ends in a bitter disillusionment for the parents. There is a need in all humans to be loved and the sad thing is that many who need love the most do not know how to give out love or even to receive it from another person. The reason for this is generally fear of being hurt. If they lovingly give of themselves, they have a deep feeling that people are just not good and they will always hurt them, if given the opportunity. The cause of this often stems back to a prior time or life when, through their weakness, they misplaced their love through lack of discrimination and they were hurt. So now they set up measures to protect themselves and usually they become very introverted and they feel totally unloved. Geographically, these people are often found on the edges of mountains. What they need is to rebuild their strength, slowly regain faith in humanity and come out of their shell.

It is very seldom in this world that you can hand your soul to someone and know that their loyalty will protect you at all costs. The nearest thing to perfect loyalty is motherly love and that is the most enduring love on earth.

It is very easy to be loyal when things are going smoothly, but what counts is to remain loyal when things are not going smoothly. In Transcendental Meditation, one is on the path of liberation and it is easy to remain loyal to the practice when one is enjoying bliss, but let that bliss cease and one's loyalty is tested very quickly. Too often the loyalty vanishes and the practice is dropped. The real test is to remain loyal even when there seems to be no progress whatsoever.

Many, when seeking personal gain from someone, profess great loyalty and then when they get what they are after they are gone. On the other hand, too many people fix their loyalty in misplaced emotions. Also, many espouse loyalty to a cause only because it affords them an opportunity for personal gain or to gain prominence in an organization and exercise control over others, but in such a case there was never any real loyalty to the cause or its organization.

As we grow in life we begin to see all the games people play and how they use each other to further their own ends. Then, we realize it is because they have not grown enough to be honest in their ways and it is then that we appreciate how much we have grown. Jealousy and envy are two great weaknesses that all humans must outgrow. They cause great emotional instability and make our life very hard until we finally master our emotions.

In our practice of Transcendental Meditation, we stabilize the emotions as we infuse the Being into the nature of the mind. However, this is not an overnight transformation and we have to exercise discipline over our emotions until we have infused enough of the Being. Misplaced loyalty probably causes more problems in life than any other thing. The greatest cause of misplaced loyalties is lack of discrimination, or the refusal to really look at something and see it the way it really is. We often do not wish to see the reality of a situation because we do not wish to admit that we have made a mistake, since this would show a weakness which we may not want to correct. Many would far rather live with their mistakes than to take the time and effort to try and correct them.

The greatest loyalty in life is, “to thine own Self be true”. Then, we finally fix our loyalty on God, the one who will never forsake us. And with this established firmly in the heart and in the mind, we will never go wrong. We will find the way to glory, a path of bliss and everlasting joy.