kagablog

When does a ‘natural’ moral state arise? What conditions create it? Does it exist at all?

Francois Rabelais, a 16th Century Benedictine monk wrote about the Abbey of Theleme in his satirical books called Gargantua and Pantagruel.
One of the verses of the inscription on the gate to the Abbey of Theleme says:
Grace, honour, praise, delight,
Here sojourn day and night.
Sound bodies lined
With a good mind,
Do here pursue with might
Grace, honour, praise, delight.
But below the humour was a very real concept of utopia and the ideal society. Rabelais gives us a description of how the Thelemites of the Abbey lived and the rules they lived by:
“All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed,
Do What Thou Wilt;
because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what is denied us.”
The question then becomes, if a state of tyrannous enslavement first exists and is then removed, can those who were subject to it learn to live in a state of utopia, where they can do what they wilt? Looking at post-apartheid South Africa today, it does not appear so, at all!
The acquisition of a conscience only occurs, according to Russian philosopher GI Gurdjieff, through special effort, through deep self-examination:
Man, we are told, has a unique place and function in the cosmological scheme and enters into obligation by the fact of being born. The awareness of all this is not, however, a gift of Nature, neither are Individuality, Consciousness, Free Will and an Immortal Soul—these attributes, which man mistakenly believes he already possesses, have to be acquired by his own special efforts. Above all, the book (Beelzebub’s tales to his Grandson) repeatedly insists that man is asleep. It is only at the moment when he awakens, not merely to consciousness but to conscience — to GI Gurdjieff the words were, in fact, synonymous - that his true evolution can begin.

It seems that the process of inner work is something our modern world has forgotten. The dictum “know thyself” has become replaced with “get rich quick”. Since the inside world is so hard to access, the only reality is the illusion of the external one, the world of gratification and vanity labeled “Babylon” by Rastafarians.
Dr Jacob Needleman elaborates in Money and the Meaning of Life on how “we cannot see the real world because we are not in contact with the deeper powers of thought and sensing within ourselves that could perceive it. Because of this, it is inevitable that we experience the external world as the strongest force in our lives. This is the meaning and origin of materialism.
The error, or, to use Christian language, the “sin” of materialism has at its root nothing to do with greed or possessiveness. Nor does it involve, at its root, some philosophical view about matter and spirit in their usual meanings. No, the error of materialism is an error of reality perception, based on lack of experiential contact with the inner world. What we know as greed and possessiveness, with their attendant traits of cruelty and human exploitation, are results of this ignorance of the inner world. We turn to the superficially perceived outer world to replace that which can only be obtained through deep access to the inner self. Materialism is not a “sin”; it is a mistake.
The capacity to live morally, according to mankind’s highest ideals, requires sustained experiential contact with the higher forces within. Therefore, as actual contact with the inner world diminishes, the individual and the community suffer more and more disorder.
To repeat: moral power, the power to live according to the ideals of the inner world, comes only from direct contact with the higher forces that can pass into the inner self from the deeper recesses of the universal world.”
But the inner, or spiritual world has become so remote from modern man that even if he experiences moments of universality, for instance in a near-death experience, that soon afterwards the experience is often dismissed or forgotten.

It appears that only when one’s back is to the wall that the unspiritual, unbelieving modern man finally turns to a “higher power” for help. This is, according an addictions counsellor I know, the only time we really change or learn. Relinquishing the ego’s control - when it has become clear and obvious to a junkie that it has lost control of the life situation anyway - then makes sense, it becomes a lot easier. The Twelve Step Programme enshrined in the practices of Alcholics and Narcotics Anonymous lists the following:
“We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
“We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
“We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
The “surrender” to a higher power, whatever that higher power means to the individual, is also a common theme across many religions. The belief is that the ego only forms a small part of the whole person or soul. But to “cross to the other side” usually requires the guidance of a shaman or group who have made the crossing themselves, and know which ceremonies, dances and music aid the transition.
For example, The “Red Path” of the American Indians makes use of, among other rituals, a “vision quest” in which the initiate is required to sit in nature for a period of time, usually four days, without food and water, to get in contact with the higher self and leave the ego behind. Here the protagonist enters another order of reality, a landscape of mystery and power to be pulled apart and put back together in a new and more powerful way.
During my experience of Western-based Christianity (which was short-lived) it struck me that the whole message was to talk to a God that was outside of me. I would also be able to communicate with this external God through prayer in the language I spoke. Thirdly, there was little or no emphasis on self-knowledge as a path to God. Simple prayer and faith were enough.

Contrast this with these messages from the late, highly controversial guru known as “Osho”:

“My message is simple - that I have found the god within me. My whole effort is to persuade you - look within, the master cometh. Yes, it is possible. Yes, he comes. And he does not come from the outside; he explodes from the inside.
The guide is not outside, the guide is within you. One has to go deeper into one’s own being to find the guide. Once the inner guide is found there are no more mistakes, no repentance, no guilt. There is no question of doing good or doing bad; whatsoever one does is good. It is not a question of morality either; one’s very being is good and whatsoever comes out of it is good. One walks in light and one walks lightly because the head and the burden of the head is no more there. And when one walks in light and walks lightly, life becomes laughter, love, joy.
If you penetrate into your body, three layers are there: Just on the surface is your body. The body looks material, but deep down there are currents of life, prana, vital energy. Without that vital energy your body would be just a corpse. It is alive, with something flowing in it. That flowing `something’ is energy. But deeper, still deeper, you are aware, you can witness. You can witness both your body and your vital energy. That witnessing is your consciousness.

Every existence has three layers. The deepest is the witnessing consciousness. In the middle is vital energy and just on the surface is matter, a material body.

What are you? Who are you? If you close your eyes and try to find out who you are, ultimately you are bound to come to a conclusion that you are consciousness.”
To sum up: if we look within, we can travel past the illusion of the material world as being the only world. Then we achieve true consciousness, and realize everything has, or is, consciousness. Once in touch with this universal consciousness, we acquire a true morality, free of the guilt and fear imposed by society and our own ego.
Easy,hey? Happy travels!

“God is in everything – he sleeps in stones, breathes in plants, dreams in animals and awakes in mankind.”