Conscience

A few days ago I wrote the following post on PositiveBloc.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.- Voltaire

And the first step would be to listen to what our conscience has to say...

And right below it, there is another article titled 'Tightroping life with 'Conscious Balance' which has a part that talks about life’s situations and our reactions to them based on
* our knowledge and our interpretation of it and
* life’s experiences and how they mould our thinking and our reactions

..and that got me thinking..

Is conscience universally the same? When I quoted Voltaire and said that the first step would be to listen to what our conscience says.. did I know what I was talking about? Does everyone’s conscience tell them the same thing? Is there a universal right? A terrorist has no fear of death. Does that mean that he has been following his conscience?

I have no answers to these questions but they are extensions, in some way, of a question that I have always wondered about… do we all see the same things? As a child, I used to wonder that we all have eyes but when we look, do we see the same object, the same colour, the same distance.. and even if it is the same, do we perceive it as being the same.. as in does blue look the same to everyone..

It’s the same question I have with regard to conscience. I say very casually that we must follow our conscience but what is the conscience telling us? Is this inner voice for different people not conditioned differently by life’s experiences? The incidents in our life must mould us all in a unique manner.

I think that conscience is the absolute, pure, unadulterated emotion we feel in response to anything just before the intellect takes over. It’s that split second reaction which cannot be controlled. Does this split-second reaction vary for everyone or is it the same?

Does everyone feel the same anguish when a terror attack happens?
- Or when a tree is cut?
- Or when a dog is kicked?
- Or when we hear about the NSG soldiers who died fighting for the country?
- Or about global warming and the destruction of the rain forests?
- Or about the inhuman living conditions in Africa?
- Or shopkeepers being threatened?
- Or when innocent people were attacked during the railway examinations?
- Or when the Taj mahal is threatened by factory emissions?
- Or when we see the glory of the rising sun?
- Or the splendour of nature?

Will the reactions of every person reading the above questions be the same? I don’t know the answer but I’m quite sure it’s in the negative. If these things affected everyone the same way, we would have no terrorists; we would have no hunger in the world, nor any injustice.

So what’s the solution? What is it that we can change to make it such?

I think that since these are all reactions based on perceptions of the world, the one thing we can do is to ensure that everyone’s perception of the world is good.

It’s a vicious circle that we are all stuck in. Perceptions are based on experiences and experiences are further created by our reactions which are based on our perceptions.

Change, therefore, is hidden within us. We have to rethink our world-view and our aspirations. We have to modify our reactions to make sure that we are creating positive experiences for ourselves and people around us. That is the only way to break the cycle and begin afresh.

My mum says that the split-second reaction of the conscience is the same in everyone and the first time the conscience does insist that we do what is right.. but then, we stop the voice of the conscience and do what we want and that’s what kills it.

If that is true, let us not do that any more. Let us listen to the first voice within us and follow it. Let us allow the positive influence of the conscience to guide our reactions. Once the new cycle of positive thought and action is started, it will influence experiences and reactions within and around us, for the better, and hopefully we will be able to build up a new, positive, universal conscience.

So finally, after much thought, I return to the words of Voltaire:

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

.. and these words make so much more sense to me now.