Morality vs. Conscience - Teal Swan
Hello there.
Up until the point
where human consciousness,
people,
were ready to access non-Physical consciousness
without a go-between,
they relied upon religion
and people within religions, to be that go-between.
In fact, spiritual teachers
needed to operate within the confines
of whatever religion they resonated with most.
And what do we know about religion?
It's highly concerned with morality.
What does this mean?
It means that the concept of morality and the concept of spirituality
have gone hand-in-hand
for thousands upon thousands of years.
In reality, morality has nothing to do with spirituality.
Conscience, on the other hand, does.
Morality is about principles, fundamental truths or propositions
that serve as the foundation
for a system of belief, behavior or chain of reasoning.
Morals are principles concerning the rightness and wrongness
or goodness and badness of behavior.
What is the problem with this?
Well to start with,
Source or God never wrote a code of ethics and morals in the sky.
You may believe a book contains these god-given ethics and morals,
but you cannot prove that God wrote them.
You can only believe God wrote them,
or believed that whomever wrote them,
wrote them on behalf of God
and correctly...
or God forbid, translated the original text correctly.
And the thing is,
you can guarantee
that even if you believe that a text on morality is the word of God,
another group of people, does not.
In fact they believe they have the word of God.
This wouldn't be a problem if both parties agreed on exactly
what God said about morality, but guess what?
They don't. What then?
As much uncertainty as it creates to admit it,
people just do not agree
upon what is right and wrong,
what is good and bad.
and the issue is, Source or God does not have an opinion on it.
Why? Because that consciousness,
that collective conscious that we call God or Source
exists in the state of non judgment.
But you can't even prove
that I'm right about what I just said or wrong about what I just said.
You can only believe I'm right or wrong.
The concept of right and wrong
is entirely subjective.
It just so happens that sometimes
multiple people agree
on what's right or wrong.
On that subjective perspective.
So what do they do?
They coagulate into little groups
and they validate each other's rightness,
and then they become more convinced,
as they validate each other's rightness, how wrong everyone else is,
and then they start wars,
and then they say those wars are correct and moral.
Right versus wrong as it applies to morality,
is a very slippery slope.
For example,
many Christians believe it is wrong to kill,
it is a tenant in their bible,
and yet as we speak, soldiers who call themselves Christian
kill people in the middle east and believe it to be morally right.
And so do we.
We drive around with bumper stickers
displaying our support of their efforts.
We also believe it is moral to support them.
So which is it?
Is it moral or immoral to kill?
Is it moral or immoral to support efforts that are known to kill?
If so, when is it Moral to kill and why?
Just ask these questions to a group of people
and watch the fight over morality ensue.
And why does this fight ensue?
Why does it begin in the first place?
Because the minute that we believe that something is moral,
We believe it should be universal.
In other words,
we believe it is a code of ethics
that should apply to absolutely everyone,
not just us.
We assume it's the same for everyone.
We're shocked
that we find this isn't the case.
This is in fact,
one of the most shocking things about traveling the world.
Modern concept of morality
is completely dependent upon geographical location,
even in today's age.
And guess what?
Morals change over time, as well.
Just look over time.
You can look within your own culture over time
or look at the world at large,
multiple cultures, over time.
It's going to blow your mind,
the stuff we used to think was moral
and the stuff we used to think was immoral.
I'll give you a tiny little taste of it today.
In Europe it was once considered to be immoral
for men and women to have physical contact on the dance floor.
They were expected to dance together from opposite sides of the room.
In India, marriage between people of different castes
was seen as immoral.
In America, it was immoral to say blast or retch or even gosh.
So was educating women.
At one point in history it was considered moral
to burn widows with their deceased husbands.
It was considered moral to stone people to death,
and to own slaves.
And list goes on.
We loved to sit inside of our self-satisfied bubble,
looking at the world
as if we know what is morally right and wrong.
How sure can you possibly be?
I can guarantee you
that some of what we think is moral today,
the future will prove, is immoral.
And some of what we think is immoral today,
the future will prove, is moral.
Morals which are completely subjective,
whether they are subjective to a person
or subjective to a group of people,
are based off of things like personally acquired values,
cultural upbringing and religious affiliation.
Some of these morals you may have consciously chosen to adhere to.
But let me be the first person to tell you:
Even those of you who consider yourself "very outside the box",
most of the morals that you live according to,
are not even yours.
They were imposed upon you.
They're like the scaffolding you built your life upon,
and they were put in place so long ago,
you have not even known
that there was a purpose to question them.
But it is time to question them.
Because most of our morals that we are living by today,
they don't even serve us.
Nor do they serve anyone else.
But questioning our own morals
makes us very uncomfortable.
It makes us uncomfortable because to question our own morals,
we have to come face to face
with the fear that we have
about the consequences we face
as a result of potentially being wrong or bad.
Why do we hold tight to these morals?
Because we are trying to avoid condemnation.
Condemnation is total disapproval
for what we are doing and who we are.
We are trying to avoid that condemnation.
We are trying to avoid the consequences
that are accessory to that condemnation.
Growing up in a Moral household is an intensely painful experience.
Because you can't have morals ground into your being,
without being condemned.
There are great many families,
who believe that they're being loving,
who are in fact condemning their child
into a state where they are ultimately moral.
If you are a moral person,
then you were in a situation
most likely, growing up,
where your parents or your caregivers
thought that by condemning you,
they were loving you.
If you grew up in a moral household
and believe me,
your household did not need to be religious,
to be highly moral,
it just had to have a very strict idea
about what good was
and about what right was,
then you can absolutely guarantee
that love and shame became synonymous.
And self-regulation,
became self abuse.
To understand more about this,
watch my video on YouTube titled:
How To Overcome Shame
We who are judged grow up to judge,
unless we intervene in that unconscious process within ourselves.
Morals are dysfunctional inherently,
because they closed the mind down
and they closed the heart down.
If you are absolutely convinced you know what is right
and you know what is good,
you have put your entire system on lockdown.
You are no longer open to seeing any alternative truth.
We shut people with alternative truths out of our lives, as well.
Principles are rigid,
they do not allow for the flexible flow one must develop
in order to move through this life without creating suffering.
Morals also destroy relationships.
As is evident in war.
But even on a smaller scale, morality prevents us
from really seeing our friends and partners
and from understanding one another by standing in their shoes.
As it applies to romantic relationships,
nowhere is this morality issue more evident,
than in the argument over fidelity.
To understand how this works,
watch my video on YouTube titled:
Fidelity and Infidelity in Relationships
Conscience is an inner feeling or voice,
which is subjectively viewed
as acting as a guide
to the rightness or wrongness of one's own behavior.
Yes, that's right.
Conscience is subjective too.
But it is concerned with the self instead of others.
In other words,
it is more concerned with what right or wrong is for you,
versus right or wrong in general.
There is an intuitive feel to conscience,
whereas morality is guided by reason.
I want you to think of your conscience like a guiding light.
A guiding light that is obscured
and bent by morals.
In fact, consciousness
is filtered through your moral standards.
And you have no way of knowing
whether on the other end of that filter
conscience is going to be clear or cloudy.
By questioning your morals
and learning to hold the ones you do hold loosely,
you do not prevent
your conscience from shining through.
It's a bit like taking cobwebs or spiderwebs
down from in front of the window,
so the light can shine through it clearly.
You can feel your own inner truth as well as objective truth
surfacing.
You become a highly guided person
who acts according to your internal sense of yes or no.
But who does not impose that internal yes or no, on others.
There is a reason that ethics,
which is essentially moral philosophy,
is an entire branch of philosophy.
It's because, there is no ultimate right or wrong,
and no one can agree on it.
So it's a field that is wide open for investigation.
But let me tell you,
if you would ever like to get way outside your box,
your moral comfort zone,
if you would ever like to wander
way out on the branch
of what you think you know is right and wrong,
just expose yourself
to the information that is made available
through this branch of philosophy.
What do you think is right?
What do you think is wrong?
What do you think is good?
What do you think is bad?
Open your mind up to alternative views,
if you haven't.
Remain curious.
Stay open to your own views
relative to conscience, changing as a result of that curiosity.
You can continue to share your way
and share how you feel relative to specific subjects,
without making other people wrong
and condemning them.
A person who has high moral standards,
does not just make other people wrong.
The reality is they make themselves wrong, too.
You can guarantee that any time
life puts you in a situation
where your internal compass says "yes",
but your moral standard says "no",
you're going to be in a world of hurt.
You're gonna be drowning in self condemnation.
If you're one of these people who knows
that you have made yourself wrong according to your own moral standards,
watch my video on YouTube titled:
How to Let Go of Guilt
I suggest that you lay down your moral judgments
and instead, walk in the direction
of the practice of curiosity and conscience.
This is the perfect antidote
to the Ego's addiction
to right versus wrong.
To good versus bad.
One of my favorite practices
to give people to do this,
is that the next time you are in a situation
where you feel your moral buttons
being pushed by someone whose views oppose your own,
you pretend that you are an extraterrestrial being,
that comes down to Planet Earth
with no prior idea of right and wrong and good versus bad,
and attempt to step into that person's shoes completely.
To know what they know,
to understand from their perspective.
To fully take it on,
why would this person come to this understanding?
Try to let it in.
I can guarantee that as a result of doing this,
you will feel yourself softening.
Now you may not have your original views changed.
That's not the point of this exercise,
to have a different definition of good vs. bad or right vs. wrong.
The entire point of this exercise
is to let go of your other condemnation.
To let go of the way that you are shutting yourself down
and condemning the other person.
Rigidity is a painful experience within the body
that gives rise to all kinds of disorders and disease.
We want to practice anything
that allows us to move out of rigidity,
into a state of fluidity.
Play this game with yourself, as well.
Any time your internal compass says "yes"
when your moral compass says "no",
take on the perspective of the one who says "no" within you,
and then take on the perspective of the one who says "yes",
as if you are an extraterrestrial with no prior ideas of right or wrong,
and explore those two distinct perspectives
and the values and needs and desires
associated with each of them.
Feel your self condemnation melt away.
Question your morals,
and perhaps the light of your conscience
will shine through as a reflection
of your true self.
Because the correct way,
the true way
and the only way,
simply does not exist.
Have a good week.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com