Sunday, September 26, 2021
6:25 a.m. Yesterday you said you would probably continue on external factors limiting our ability to blindly trust the inner voice.
You might as well make your comment, to get it out of your focus – and you might remember to set your switches explicitly as well as by habit.
Yes. It did occur to me, yesterday morning, that your explanation of conscience as the compass comparing our actions to our values explains why some people are comfortable doing horrible things to others.
That’s what a clarifying concept will do. Spell it out.
If someone’s value system centers on being strong, remorseless, invincible, never a victim, etc., etc. – then cruelty to others will not necessarily violate these values, and may in fact reinforce them. Just as compassion may be a life-threatening value if you happen to be fighting to the death, so it may appear to be weak-mindedness to someone who sees himself as a wolf and the world as his natural prey.
I have never understood how people could do the things to one another that they do. I don’t mean inadvertently, of course, nor even what we do in hot blood. But some can kill or torture or steal or do just anything, and apparently feel no remorse, and in fact pride. Ceasing to think of conscience as the upholder of an impartial fixed code of conduct, and seeing it instead as a compass for people who have set off on different courses, makes it comprehensible.
Of course this touches on the question of evil, and all that, but we have addressed that many times. A good insight, yesterday. Try not to lose it.
Thinking about it – looking back a couple of pages to the mention of Hemingway’s tender conscience, that gnawed at him till he numbed it in self-defense (or so I imagine): What could be done? I mean, can’t a too-tender conscience be educated to accept that that particular 3D human is going to err and so what? That he isn’t going to attain his impossible ideals but would still be better off for not abandoning them, and so needn’t be tortured by his every failure?
Self-portrait, here?
Well, subject to the limits of self-knowledge, I think that reeducation is pretty much what I have done. It feels more like lowering my expectations than reeducating a conscience, however.
Let’s keep in mind the goal: life more abundantly. In that context, sin – “missing the mark” – is you spinning your wheels by doing things that run counter to your larger aims. In that context, the virtues we named are worthwhile habits that will help you achieve your goals. Your goals, not some abstract set of regulations. Thus, even a safe-cracker or an assassin, with quite a different set of values than you have, will still benefit by being prudent.
And I can see them benefiting from fortitude, too. But justice and temperance?
Don’t strain yourself arguing. Our point is that you may benefit by considering religion and spiritual teachings (by whatever name) as guides to your goals, not as posted regulations to be enforced by invisible police. And this means that theology and associated subjects come squarely to the center of usefulness. But such study, like any other study, may be approached constructively or not. Learning the ten commandments or the eightfold path by rote will help people at a certain stage in development. It will repel others at a different stage, as to them it will be an evidence of superstition or at least ungrounded credulity. Then at another stage, new circumstances internal and external may show them in yet another light, and of course that is what we have been up to. Why ignore the results of long study, merely because they may need some translating if they are to be understood?
Now, if your life is about living the values you are here to embody, but at the same time part of your total soul is self-conflict, or let’s say self-distrust, how does that fit in?
I suppose it isn’t any different from any other obstacle we have to learn to deal with. Some people have inferiority complexes, some are intensely claustrophobic (which must mean something), some have all sorts of ungovernable traits like temper that cause them problems. We all have things to deal with. Some are thin-skinned vis a vis others; some, vis a vis themselves I guess.
Yes, that’s true enough. One aspect of such internal conflict is: obstacle. But is that all it is?
You’re making me think, here. (Is that fair?) Even with slide-switches at maximum, I’m not getting where you’re wanting to go.
Just, think. Feel for what seems true to you.
What comes to mind is only the obvious: Working out such cross-currents is part of the job of learning to live together that all the strands are about.
What is obvious at one time is less so at other times. So if that is a task, not merely an obstacle, then why, and what follows? Think.
I suppose there’s less benefit in having compatible strands – with compatible values – learning to live together.
Think in terms of the virtues: at least the classic four, if not the full seven.
You mean, how do the virtues help us deal with discordant internal elements?
Pursue it anywhere it leads.
Hmm. Well, prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, and maybe faith, hope, and charity. Nothing comes to mind.
This is because you are not doing the work. You are waiting (receptively, true enough) for connections to come to you. But while that works some times, it doesn’t work all the time. To make new connections, sometimes you have to think not merely receive.
Henry Ford and the Wright brothers come to mind, so I get your point. They relied on both reasoning and intuition, and in both examples, reasoning was the work – and hard work, years of work – only occasionally rewarded by moments of intuition, such as when Wilbur Wright twisted the cardboard box absent-mindedly. If he hadn’t spent so much time reasoning, intuition might not have had a place to seat.
Exactly. And you, and any who are equally interested in pursuing life more abundantly, will find that the work of reasoning is not to be suspended when you come to what seem theological problems. Faith is all well and good, but not to the exclusion of reason, or why was reason included in the human toolbox? (Besides, that isn’t what faith is about. It is the belief in things not seen, but it is not the belief in any and all things not seen.) So why are the “obstacles” of life part of your life’s task, and how do the virtues come into the picture? Think!
They help us keep our balance.
That’s in the right direction. Keep on.
In the middle of things, it’s very easy for us to lose track of where we’re going, what we want to accomplish, what we want to become. Any little thing can throw us off.
Think in terms of attention-spans and different “I”s.
Yes. It’s hard for one captain to remain in command, just as Gurdjieff said. We keep getting a different “I” taking charge, then fading out and another “I” seamlessly taking over. It’s hard to maintain continuity in such circumstances. It’s hard to reinforce one overall “I” that will continue to exist after the constraints of 3D are released.
Yes, but how do the virtues help?
They provide us with habits, I suppose. Chosen habits, and if we stick to them, we have a set of habits that don’t change with every change of helmsman or captain.
You have a set of ideals, in a way, for the combination of the virtues with the values you are in 3D to embody constitutes a set of ideals.
More next time; we’re past your hour.
You’re more on the clock than I am, sometimes. This session?
Call it Conscience, values, and virtues, perhaps.
Very well, see you next time, and our thanks as always.