Stress and Joy of the Decisions Not
Taken
(Lesson
IV)
(Conscience and Life)
Conscience is our wisest counselor and
teacher, our most faithful and most patient friend.
Billy Graham
Consciousness:
Chetna: the state of being aware-of and responsive to one's surroundings, this
how the dictionary defines consciousness. In addition, it is alertness of mind
and body. Dictionary defines Conscience
as: the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of
one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of
obligation to do right or be good.
Fact
of the matter is, the conscience is much more; it is difficult to define in
exact words. It is the purest form of feeling beyond love and hate, profit and
loss, life and death, possession and dispossession, act and not to act, mine
and yours, victory and defeat, egoless, jealousy less, it is natural, instant
and inadvertent, it is spontaneous, it is not calculated move, it is most appropriate
in human response, it is feeling from the heart not from the mind, it is God
sent rather it is what He wants to say to you to act or not to act or abstain.
It
is the voice of your soul, comes from inside, it is intuition, it is natural
free from any bias, it is right and most appropriate always, it is guard
against mishaps, it gives decision and direction right and bright. The only
thing is, a human being must learn how to listen, understand and talk to his
conscience rather His conscience.
"Conscience
is the window of our spirit, evil is the curtain."
- Douglas Horton
Conscience
is present in all living things like plants, animals, all living creatures, may
be their degree of conscious awareness and responsiveness to one’s surrounding
is less as compared to humans but they do respond and respond appropriately at
strange time like when it is Sun eclipse for a long time and there is dark
during the day, birds start returning to their nests and plants respond with
quick growth when it rains for long time say for a week or so, they respond
differently during the day and at night their response is quite different.
In
addition, the non-living things like stones, rocks, mountains, rivers, and all
the things which one can think of, have their conscience. Their response to the
surroundings initiates only when they are disturbed by the outside forces
otherwise they remain dormant and continue to follow their own path silently:
in fact, they have suspended life in them, they need some action to revive the
life. A Rocks continues to stand as it is for thousands of years but when it is
disturbed by human activity, it behaves in a violent manner sometimes and if
treated with love and affection it can be used for the welfare of human beings
like stone idols in temples where they are treated as living Gods.
Still
bigger like air, water, climate, environment all are conscious-full because
they are all part of still bigger system, of planets of solar system, galaxy,
Universe, beyond Universe, space anywhere is the essence of consciousness and
conscience that human wisdom considers full.
Seniors
say do not prick anybody’s conscience, because curse that creature gives is
sure to fructify and hence the trouble for the picker. It so happens, because
the conscience anywhere is part and parcel of the conscience of the Universe
and beyond: the creator and controller of everything seen and heard. This is
true of living things and equally true of non-living things. Fact of the matter
is there are no separate consciences we are all part of the one conscience and
all ill acts that we do, are after killing our own conscience that is against
the conscience of whom we happen to be part, hence you are punished by your own
guilty conscience.
A
stone is aware of himself that it has to be at one place; not to move, not to
hit its surroundings other things that happen to a stone is the result of
action of others. When we prick a stone either by hammer or by removing the
sand and soil below it creates a disaster by rolling done or by landslide as
the people generally say.
How
to experience a contact with your conscience, is a fundamental question that
erupts in the mind of every person with prudence. People say different methods
for this. The most common is meditation. But how to do, then there are
innumerable methods. Easiest of all as I learnt from the discourse being
delivered by one of the holy-men is as follows:
A
holy-man invited those who pretended to be his disciples to his discourses with
simple conditions that those entering his premises should place all gadgets
such as cell phones etc. outside and should wear the clothes which are most
comfortable: he further said please also place your worries, tasks, thinking,
imagination, gossips outside and enter with empty mind and awareness of the
body. Slowly the gathering starting leaving one by one as people could not comply
with his last condition. When a limited number of people was there he
rescheduled the discourse to next day but with same conditions.
Moral
of the story is for some time we should keep our mind free from worldly affairs
that helps us to talk to our own self and it is possible, but only if, we have
the patience and time to practice.
Fact
is, all things living and non-living, other than the man, behave and respond as
per their conscience rather His conscience because they are pure whereas the
man gets adulterated after his creation; adulterated by the faculties of his
brain, mind and the environment in which he grows up, hence only he has the
need to talk to His conscience and shed adulteration he has acquired. Now
question is how much he should shed adulteration, reply is simple, a man to
realize himself rather Him must come to the level of purity and emptiness with
which he was sent by the Lord at the time his birth, that is empty mind and
full awareness of his body.
Men
everywhere have created an image of God as they like, personified Him as per
their perception, given Him the name they like, believe in Him as per their
convenience, worship Him the way they like, men offer many things to the Lord
whereas he is fountain of everything on this earth, men go to different places
to find the Lord whereas he is present everywhere as the Conscience of every
creation seen and felt, men even fight for the God they believe in with those who
do not believe in Him that way, whereas the other creations take the God as He
exists that way they are much superior to man.
Conscience
drives the sleep out of one’s eyes when one has gone against it. It is that
faculty that will be the first one to stop one from doing any wrong that goes
against one’s moral evaluations. In short, conscience is the only factor, if one
follow it, which will keep one in the straight path. However, the power of
conscience can be quite fragile compared to one’s will to do wrong, but after
the deed is done, its pinch will be the sharpest, which one can call guilt. So,
no matter what, always heed to your conscience.
Is
it that only we should try to talk to the Bigger Conscience or it also talks to
us and listens what we want to say. Yes “Bigger Conscience”, also talks to us
in the hours of need. History is full of the examples when nature guided people
on the right path and He also appeared in person. He makes the impossible,
possible, all solutions emanate from Him. He talks to each of His creations
once in twenty four hours as many Sanatanis-followers of eternal dharma believe
and they are perhaps correct also. But He definitely talks to His men on some
important occasions for example at the time saying “yes” to marriage with a
particular person.
Shadi,
marriage, phere, annad kaarj, lama, nikah, the most beautiful words in the life
of a common man; the event he enjoys the most himself, many a times decides
himself; normally has his approval; celebrates year after years. It is always a
conscious decision to marry and marry a particular person; more so these days of
open discussion with parents; your soul speaks to you to say go ahead. It is
just one example where everybody listens to voice of his conscience at the
appropriate time and then move further. Despite this maladjustments in marriage
and married life are not uncommon, they are caused by adulteration of human
mind by ego and considerations honoured by the individuals after killing their
own conscience.
Reason
often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
Josh Billings
Conscience
is such powerful that it guides a person in every situation particularly in
difficult, unforeseen and tragic situations, when it provides you with the best
of the alternatives. Without going into permutations and combinations of the
situations and alternatives, it provides us with “Fight or Flight” options
always and also guides what to choose. When you select “fight” as the
alternative it provides you necessary mental and physical power and strength
also and when selected alternative is “flight” it provides with the best of
options.
Conscience
is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
H.L. MENCKEN
"There
is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells
within us."
- Sophocles
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