Awakening the original conscience

They say that we should live according to our conscience, and then the world will become a better place.

We have also heard many times: when you cannot make a decision based on logic, try to listen for the voice within, and it will show you which way to go.

Contents

• What is conscience? What is its nature
• What is the original conscience?
• How to awaken the original conscience within yourself?

Getting along with your conscience is not easy. It will not follow your personal desires; it will hold firmly to its own position. And unless you come to terms with it, you will not find peace within yourself. You can step over it and refuse to listen, but ignoring your conscience completely is impossible. It is an irreplaceable part of our lives.

What is conscience? What is its nature

From Wikipedia: “Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system; the awareness and feeling of moral responsibility for one's behaviour and actions before oneself, other people and society.”

What should we pay attention to here? First, conscience elicits emotion. Among the three main aspects of the human psyche (emotion, intellect and will), it is emotion, or feeling, that is the strongest and the most motivating. So in practice, conscience has the potential to shape a person's decisions and behaviour very powerfully.

Second, conscience rests on philosophy and morality, that is, on a person's value system. Can you give yourself an objective assessment of your own life philosophy and value system? What is their source, where do they come from? If you cannot, then it is hard even to say that you control the source of your own emotions and feelings. What is more, you may feel the powerful pull of your conscience, follow it, and be emotionally satisfied – and yet your actions may cause someone moral or even physical harm.

In other words, history literally shapes a person's value system and life philosophy. Now ask yourself: has the history of your country been a history of absolute good? Looking objectively at the history of any country, it is difficult to say that it represents absolute good. On the one hand, this is what makes every nation unique in its own way; on the other, people from different countries may hold very different views on the things that matter most in life – and that alone is a precondition for conflict.

The conclusion: we cannot treat a value system as absolute, not even the one held in our own country. If each side treats its own values as an absolute, the sides will never reach mutual understanding, cooperation or mutual support. There has to be something that unites all people regardless of the culture they belong to.

What is the original conscience?

We say that the world is a living organism, and that everything in it is interconnected in cycles. Every individual body serves both the purpose of its own existence and, at the same time, complements the world as a whole. Take our own body as an example.

Everything in it is arranged so that we do not feel the processes taking place inside. When we start to feel particular organs (which usually means pain), that is a signal that something is going wrong in our body. Every organ has an individual purpose aimed at its own functioning, and also a general one that makes it an inseparable part of the existence of the whole organism.

This example is a good analogy for how our society exists. If all people want happiness, harmony and peace, then we can say that, taken as a whole, humanity shares one common purpose in life. Within that picture, each individual country can be seen as a separate organ of the whole organism, and each person as a single cell.

So the body shows us that peace and harmony become possible not when everyone invents whatever values they happen to like, but when humanity strives towards shared values and the embodiment of a single philosophy of life.

So, to put it briefly, the original conscience is a conscience grounded in a philosophy and a value system that have fundamental principles at their centre.

How to awaken the original conscience within yourself?

1. Study fundamental principles. The explanations above are a clear illustration of why exactly this kind of education matters. This is what our NWET community works on. Lectures, discussions, educational conferences, training sessions – everything is aimed not only at understanding intellectually which principles the world is built on, but also at experiencing how they work first-hand.
2. Understand problems clearly. Developing critical thinking is far from easy. But it is a vital necessity that will help you analyse information and life situations objectively.
3. Practise living for the good of others. Excessive focus on yourself leads to unhealthy egoism. If your ego is the centre of your behaviour, sooner or later it will lead to conflict and destruction.

Every person has enough power to influence the people around them. What that environment turns out to be depends on what exactly guides the power of our inner voice. Awakening the original conscience is a vital necessity if we are looking for shared well-being and peace.

With love, the NWET team