Ethics has been my passion for many years. In October we started first modul of two year school program in Belgrade based on ethics in relationships and ethics as a path to the self.
I find questions and themes around ethics very interesting to explore and talk about.
When I talk about ethics I go way beyond studying of moral. It is about constant communication and interaction between outside and inside.
Outside circumstances ans situations we encounter while we are walking our path and inside reflecting and measuring with personal values as one example.
And there are many more.
I'd like very much to hear from you. How do you see ethics? Do you ask yourselves questions about it? What are your dilemmas and issues?
Hi, Tadeja - I love hearing your questions about this and how you are taking this conversation out into the world. For many years I was confused by what seemed to be a vagueness around morality and right and wrong whenever I tried to bring the nondual to bear on right and wrong. More recently, I've explored how I learned right from wrong in a morally naive and distorted home; what the origins and mechanism are of what I call my "moral compass" - how I discern, often out of conscious awareness; how the trustwothiness of that moral compass is distorted by my partial views/relationship with reality; and the role of the Ki Tov, the Very Good, our inherent Goodness, the Goodness of which we are made, which is another universe of course and at the same time permeated our universes of moral wrestling.
I have thought more about morality at times when I am aware of needing to make a choice. I have never considered the constant communication between inside and outside as you frame it - of course every time we open our mouths to speak, move towards or away from another person, we are making a choice. This is a link to a blog post that tracks my inquiry - which is very much tied up with "the intent to heal" that we encounter in the Magi Process. http://www.alifeofpractice.com/daily-practices/morality-what-goodness-has-to-do-with-healing/ Thanks for starting this thread.
Tadeja, What I thought was moral and clear, can become more obscure as more unfolds in a circumstance. We often decide, because we have to at some point, what is just, but we are always in a river, so to speak, a stream of moments, that our thinking, and that of the social collectives' thinking, adds a continuity to, and by doing so, we often misled by the narrative template we see through.
"selfkindness," would you please identify yourself by name?! Better yet, go to You and Me section and gift us with your profile too.
Sorry Sara i didn't get back to you for so long. Family circumstances.
Here is my thought in response to your question. I find ethics the matter of the heart and this is one of the key points for me. Perciving life from nondual perspective in Briah helps me become aware and awakened to judgements, restrictions, prejudice and narratives I midght have around something. When I find myself in a situations and moments in my life like that, a strong connection between outside and inside opens.
I keep asking myself new questions inquiring and I stay with what is as long as I can.
And I agree that having to make a choice - and we need that too - is an important moment. For me this is time for kindness. First to the self (going towards inside) and then to others (moving in the direction towards outside).
Outside represents the rules and circumstances we experience during our childhood and growing up and leaves a significant mark in our lives. Our family and kulture influences a lot the way how we think, react and relate. Our inner sense of goodness wakes up with the work we do although I strongly believe we all know the difference between right and wrong deep inside. We just need to find access to it. We need to remember.
When I teach about ethics I basically teach about relationships on different levels and from different points of view. I talk about relationships to the self others and the world. I strongly believe that human heart in its core is clean, healthy and clear. Our job is to find the path to that core to that ultimate source and re-build this basic relationship.
TT
A wonderful discussion. I’ve been thinking about this question. I asked myself ” In a theistic setting, such as a religious setting, morality comes from a separate God, a God who stands apart but communicates his or her wished through holy scripture of some sort. Where does it come from in a nondual setting? What I understand is that to truly be in a nondual setting, you must be living a personal life that is simultaneously a life that is in touch with the absolute. Both together: the personal and impersonal. Morality then, comes from the fact that instead of being an entirely personal person, you understand that although you feel as if you ”own yourself,” that you are an actual separate being alone, the truth is that even your sense of self came from the impersonal: you did not invent it. Likewise, your talents and, in short, everything you are, a combination of what occurs in this land of inbetween. Thus, morality comes from this realization, the truth of this that tempers your own supremecy and ego-centricitiy. Everyone you see, as you look around you, is in the same boat: a personal person who is in the same moment, not a personal person. This makes for great humilty and kindness, and allows this built-in morality to come forth. Jason.
I totally agree. I guess that this nondual nature of it - because it is personal and impersonal - not owned by you and yet it manifests through you liberates it from egoic (of an unhealthy ego) need to be right.
From my experience I have encountered many situations where people hide behind moral principles claiming that they have or are right and it sounds very personal as if they are deffending or trying to save themselves.
Thank you Tadeja, and Jason....your words arrive at a moment when I very much want to refresh my view, and neither the heart nor the impersonal seem near at hand.
Are you willing to share more about that? I'd very much like to listen to you.
Love you
I was recently in a ceremony that was essentially asking me to surrender at a very deep level and I could not do it entirely. The same feeling of resistance and surprise comes up for me when I consider that my personality comes for as you say, Jason, 'even [my] sense of self came from the impersonal: [I] did not invent it.' Intellectually I accept this. I know that I am too vast to create, especially in a few years I've been here. But to give up that ownership of myself is like understanding infinity and remains just outside my grasp.
Thank you, Tadeja - you have already listened.
Dear selfkindness,
I guess it takes practice and a lot of kindness and widening the view. I am struggling too sometimes.
To All Above,
Beauty in your words. Thank you. My words respond to a Divine call to hold Righteousness in a world of good and evil. Creation is. Light and Dark dance within and without, all One. Decisions come from the Heart of Kindness filled with the Strength of Angels.