Portrait Of A Seeker Of Essence: T4 - Higher Ethics

Portrait Of A Seeker Of Essence

Blog for the novel, "Portrait Of A Seeker Of Essence," which is about a few years in the life of a musician and his personal and spiritual changes. The novel can be read at www.portraitofaseekerofessence.name. Please feel free to post comments on a chapter by chapter basis, before you've finished reading the entire novel. Please use reasonable language. Thanks - Russell Kolish, Author - Click on the lowest thread title on the left and ten additional titles will come up.

Tuesday

T4 - Higher Ethics - C 2

To what principles should we adhere? Where must be their source?

Our principles come from everywhere: our cultures, families, religions, other cultures and their ideas. Common sense. I choose mine mostly by common sense and then examine them over time, years and decades. I'll consider anything and accept it or reject it if 1) it takes me in a direction I want to go or 2) improves my outlook either spiritually, emotionally or financially, preferably all three but this is not often the case.

Some of my friends have more strict rules for themselves. They limit themselves to principles which are approved by their religions and reject others. I never liked this approach. For example, one of my friends still believes that if you're not a Catholic, you can't get into heaven. No matter what.

I like my higher ethics to be inclusive and compassionate.

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Marcel from Lake of the Woods

Without principles to which to adhere we stay lost intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. They could be the Scout’s mottos or Jesus’ words or the Protestant Ethic; it doesn’t matter. We just need an idea on which to focus to give us the
temporary illusion of clarity of mind and spirit. I say temporary because after a while we see through whatever it is that we’ve chosen to use to prop up our flagging spirits and again have to search for a new focusing device. Seeking seems endless and finding soon brings it’s own questions again. Nevertheless the new principle ameliorates our uneasiness, at least temporarily.

So why are we like this and what can we do about it?

Perhaps it’s because, having energy and a nervous system and a need to expend that energy we have found that it benefits us more to direct that expenditure rather than let it occur randomly. At the least, how else could we find food and create shelter?

In the past, through our focus on the basics, we found that directing our energies produced better results than letting them act randomly. When we became conscious enough and adept enough at symbolism we created language and concepts. These helped us even more and gave us more power. We loved the power and would not give up all the intellectual and emotional principles that gave us and still gives us that power. We associate our power with our principles and constantly use and abuse both.

However it’s only an association. Power and principles are really separate. We can not exercise a great degree of power without guiding principles but we CAN have principles without exercising our power. In fact Ghandi was good at that even though his ‘powerlessness’ eventually transformed into power and caused him to make some serious enemies.

What we can do about it, realistically, is maintain perspective over our principles and our powers. Make good choices. Idealistically, we can choose to give up our high powers and go back to basics, low power, whether it’s spiritually or psychologically or even politically. Of course we Americans do have the problem of dependence on foreign oil which limits our focus and our principles. You can’t be dependent on anything or anyone without paying a price. So we need to re-direct our focus towards better functioning principles, for example, slowly abandon the destructive uses of our powers and make better choices for our future so we can have easier, more productive lives, economically as well as psychologically, emotionally and
spiritually.; 5:44 AM