An older English gentleman, being interviewed on the news, said America is losing its Freedom of Conscience. It is represented in the US constitution as Freedom of Speech. I understand other countries do call it Freedom of Conscience. It is a profound and precious concept sometimes thought of as listening within for Truth… the idea that God speaks to you through your conscience.
But is your conscience really free? Are you free to think for yourself? Or has society, your peers, religions and political correctness told you how to think? Do you even know your inner voice or is it your indoctrination masquerading as your conscience? In this age of political correctness, your conscience is under attack: “Think this way or you are vile!” Intolerance is rampant and, as Gandhi said, Intolerance is, in and of itself, a form of violence.
The depth of your being is divine. Human evolution is about living in harmony with the depth of your being. Societies, religions, peers, and everything in a culture… in your environment… support your evolution when that culture is healthy. In this day and age that is a difficult thing to even comprehend. Worldviews are at war with one and other. Conscience has been hijacked by indoctrination. If you are not careful, even the finest of religions, morality, and codes do not free but instead they enslave. They can be used but are often abused. The path of evolution is indeed delicate.
As you evolve, you become free. It is called spiritual liberation. When truly free, your conscience is the voice of the divine. But such freedom is not attained through indoctrination. Nor is it attained through rebellion or anarchy. It is only attained through your evolution… a profound, delicate, highly misunderstood and elusive process.
Freedom of Conscience is a lovely concept, when comprehended and honored.
Beautiful blog.
Thank you
Very beautiful and so perfect for today. My first conversation this morning with a long time staff member was about ,”How Do You Really Know” She said she has been told many times that you just need to have faith..and your good. She already knows how I feel about that so right after I hit the submit key..I will hit the print key and she will have a little extra something to take home and ponder:)
Thank you for the blogs Brahmarshi.. They are great tools for myself and a gift to share with many others who have empty tool boxes.
I really appreciate your courage to even speak of this topic. Thank you for a thoughtful offering.
Wonderful blog. You are always inviting us to free ourselves from where we hold.
Indeed, thanks for the courage and boldness.
As always, this is a beautiful blog. It speaks to precisely what is going on.
Turn off your televisions.
Jai Guru Dev!
Often it seems your blogs take me back to America’s founding fathers…
“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom & no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech”
~Benjamin Franklin, 1722.
Spent time in U K. years back and a British man from Sheffield told me that we Americans have become “self-policing” and laughed… He added we had turned on ourselves.
I thought he was crazy, but I took a long fresh look at my country.
Britain they say conducts more public surveillance of its citizens than any other country (has been a model and envy of our NSA).
I wonder, if the culturally held values in Britain, France, other countries is far deeper, more respectful so as to mitigate or offset the potential abuses of surveillance…
( I mention surveillance as this invasion of our communications and privacy suppresses our “Freedom of Conscious” and speech. )
Has America’s lack of community fabric and excessive exploitation of resources corrupted us so that we are exploiting out very own people, devoting each other ?
Bold, thought-provoking blog….but it raises some disturbing questions…
Is Evolving the only answer ? When and with what measure of spirit do we speak up ?
We of course do well to strive for proper laws. At the same time, we get the laws the group consciousness deserves… can uphold. Otherwise we are just rearranging the same old furniture. As the people of a society evolve, so do the laws. When we raise group consciousness enough, the politicians will pat themselves on the back and declare that they have finally got the laws right…
I was a bit surprised honestly by the responses to this blog. Courage? What courage? This, I thought, was just common sense… The idea that it involved courage gave me a refreshing new perspective on it. Fascinating, yes? Thanks to all of you for the thoughtful comments…
To ‘The Dude’,
We need two legs to stand upon, to run… Meditate [evolve] and act…
I’ve witnessed many people, over and over again, pay a severe price to be fully honest…even when tempered with sensitivity and tact.
On the light side they’ve been called “rebellious” and in more extreme reprisals they have been fired from jobs, cast out.
So when you even hint at something that sounds outside the comfortable conformity of our unspoken social agreement (do not rock the boat or make me question my life)…yes, it sounds courageous.
It IS very interesting and thought provoking to hear you did not see courage, but only common sense…
It makes me wonder
Is it courage or is it freedom from fear? As has been said by the truly courageous, courage is half commitment and half fear. Perhaps people’s fears compel them to read something into this blog that was not there. The simple point is that even the very best of things can be abused. That is not a criticism of those things. As I say, it is not about the thing… It is about ‘your relationship with’ the thing. To point that out does not require courage. It is simply an appeal to stop and think… to look deeper. The child did not require courage to stand up and say the emperor had no clothes. It was just common sense. No offense intended. To take offense would be to misunderstand the point.
Very nice and a lot to think about. I’m going to reflect on it this evening.
” I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I’ve wanted to do. ”
— Georgia O’Keefe
Thanks everyone for this fascinating discussion.
(Corrected typos)
Still reflecting over your blog. Pulling back layers of prior notions. Seems to be an infinite depth to some of your points.
This quote I read once in college but it just bounced across my desktop and for some reason it now has deeper meaning to me:
” … I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “Brief candle” to me. It is a sort of spendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. ”
— George Bernard Shaw
I would add that the USA is now a corporation formed after we were bankrupt from the civil war. The 1871 organic Act did the deed. The original constitution was adopted only as a mission statement by the corp. Common law was slowly replaced by Corporate Admiralty law. Corporations now have become beings with the same rights as living breathing beings. Except they don’t have freedom of consciousness. But we always do regardless of others actions. And thanks to your blog & Mt. Soma we have more of it every day.
We are all assets of the USA corp. by the way. Our “Straw Man” is used as collateral and traded based on our social security numbers. More citizens, more assets to be multiplied by derivatives creations.
All mortgage money lent to us is actually created by our signature in that moment. A note based on our intrinsic value. And all reality created by our thoughts.
Thanks for elevating mine. John