Civilization 101: Moral Principles

There are a number of lists and compilations of moral principles and teachings from the world’s great religions, philosophers, and spiritual teachers. For example, see World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts (A Project of the International Religious Foundation, Paragon House, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1995).

C. S. Lewis published a list of universal moral principles he called “Illustrations of the Tao or Natural Law” in the appendix of his book The Abolition of Man (1944). He quoted from Christian, Jewish, Egyptian, Babylonian, Roman, Old Norse, Greek, Hindu, Australian Aborigine, Chinese, and American Indian sources.

The Universal Moral Code includes five of the Ten Commandments of Moses, found in the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible (Exodus 20). Those five are:

1. Honor your father and your mother.
2. You shall not murder.
3. You shall not commit adultery.
4. You shall not steal.
5. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Perhaps the best-known universal moral principle is “the golden rule” or ethic of reciprocity. Its negative form is “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.” Its positive form is “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” The golden rule can be found in Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and Confucian texts, among others. People around the world have been making a serious effort to live these moral principles for thousands of years – at least as far back as the Ten Commandments of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon. We know that we need to follow these moral principles in order to live together successfully in our families and communities. People who regularly lie, cheat, steal, and murder make up a very small percentage of the world’s population – perhaps only 5 or 6 percent. These people cause a lot of pain and tragedy, but they are a small minority. The most significant fact is that, literally, billions of people – the other 94 or 95 percent of the world’s population – follow fundamental, universal moral principles on a daily basis, regardless of their religiosity or atheism.

The Code of Hammurabi is one of the oldest moral/legal codes known to historians. Hammurabi was King of Babylon about 2250 B.C. The Code of Hammurabi has been translated into 282 sections that set forth business, family, social, and political rules. The sections include penalties for false accusations, adultery, incest, assault, medical malpractice, shoddy workmanship, and negligence. (See The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon About 2250 B.C. by Robert Francis Harper, University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, 2002.) Hammurabi was a great soldier and a pious, god-fearing king, who destroyed all his enemies to the North and South, and made his people to dwell in peace and security. He codified the existing laws that the strong might not oppress the weak, that they should give justice to the orphan and widow, and for the righting of wrong.

The value of empathy—putting oneself in the shoes of others, trying to feel their pain—has been recognized for centuries by all major religions and countless philosophers and human rights advocates.  Empathy is seen as the major path to moral engagement, the psychological process whereby ethical people resist the chronic call to participate in man’s inhumanity to man. Moral engagement requires moral courage–that is, a commitment to behaving morally in regards to others despite social pressures to participate in or passively comply with policies and actions that are hurtful to others.

Being morally engaged requires:

• Accepting responsibility for one’s own behavior
• Being sympathetic and empathetic
• Acknowledging the negative effects on others of inhumane behavior
• Recognizing that the “enemy” – whoever the enemy of the day might be – is a human being who shares a common humanity with oneself.

Living a moral life is a meaningful and fulfilling thing to do. People surveyed about the sources of meaning in their lives and work have given very high ratings to “living my values” and “always doing what’s right.” These are important sources of personal meaning, and personal meaning is a key to being deeply happy, not just for a moment, but for the long term. The Universal Moral Code is a simple reminder of the basic moral principles that are the foundation for that meaning and happiness.

 

The Practice of People-Watching

A little spiritual practice I recommend is to go to a public place where you can sit and watch human beings, perhaps at a café or in the park. I call it “people-watching.” The only difference between ordinary people-watching and this kind of people-watching is that your practice is not to attach any label or judgment on any human that you watch; you allow them to be as they are as they walk along or do whatever they do, and enjoy the incredible spectacle of the multiplicity of human forms.

There is no judging as good or bad; just allow them to be, so the mind does not call them anything. You’re there as an innocent observer. It’s a beautiful thing; it even does something to the energy field where you are, where you’re sitting. You bring in a different frequency, but that’s a secondary thing. Don’t start thinking, “I am here to bring in a different frequency…”; just be there an alert watcher…

—Eckhart Tolle

Read the rest here.

 

Care For Your Soul

“You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy. You have to resist the demands of the work-oriented, often defensive, element in your psyche that measures life only in terms of output – how much you produce – not in terms of the quality of your life experiences. To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.” — Jean Shinoda Bolen

 

Illusion of Time

“Time is only experienced by the events which occur within it; and I maintain that the early universe had very little going on and consequently time moved very, very slowly. The character of time as we approach the present is that there are more and more physical domains, and energetic domains in which change can occur. For example, the early universe was a pure plasma, a pure swarm of unassociated electrons. You didn’t even have atomic systems, let alone chemistry, molecular chemistry, life, complex speciated life, and dynamically balanced planetary ecosystems. Each one of those more complex phenomena crystallized out, or emerged, if you will, from the previous systems that had come into existence.

So when I say time is speeding up, what I mean really is, more and more is happening. And if you ask the question, ‘Well, what would be the ultimate state of connectivity, or of happening?’ It’s when all points are connected to all other points. Somehow this concept of connectivity is intimately linked to the concept of complexity, and so really what I’m saying is that the universe is getting its act together. It’s connecting the dots. It’s bringing everything into co-relationship with everything else. And somehow it does this through the production of consciousness.”

 

Greed and Selfishness

Saint Gregory

It is by no means enough not to steal the property of others; you are in error if you keep to yourself the wealth which God has created for all. He who does not give to others what he possesses is a murderer, a killer; when he keeps for his own use what would provide for the poor, one can say that he is slaying all those who could have lived from his plenty; when we share with those who are suffering, we do not give what belongs to us, but what belongs to them. This is not an act of pity, but the payment of a debt. — Pope Gregory the Great (6th Century)

 

You Be You

“Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel.” — Jim Morrison

 

Authenticity is the First Act of Freedom