Morality

Beliefs. There isn't a human being on the planet that doesn't have a few of those. There is nothing wrong with having beliefs. It's a question of what we do with them, how they affect us, and whether we're willing to let others have their beliefs or not. 

Morality is just a set of strong beliefs that tend to govern how we think the world and the people in it should be. Moral beliefs are typically conscious beliefs, meaning we're aware of them. They also tend to be the set of beliefs we most often fight about - therein lies the problem.

There are two types of moral beliefs: religious and secular or personal. Religious morality comes from and is influenced by your religion, if you have one. Secular or personal beliefs are not based on religion and usually have a lot to do with a person's life experience and pain or trauma. There is nothing wrong with either set. It's how we use them and whether or not we project them onto others that matters. Projecting our beliefs onto other people is what gets us into trouble, and indeed, is the foundation of the problems we experience in our world today.

The purpose of this section is not to debate which set of moral beliefs one should have. I honestly don't care what your moral beliefs are, nor am I here to argue them with you or make you change them. What I am here to do is encourage you to stop projecting them onto other people and to stop making people that don't believe as you do out to be bad people.

Morality is a neutral construct. It is neither good nor bad. It is equal to any other belief system or lack of a belief system that someone might have. Whether you believe in abortion or not is equal and opposite. The person who believes in abortion is no better or worse than the person who doesn't. To take it really over the top to make the point, the person who doesn't believe in murder is no better or worse than the person that does. Everything is equal and neutral including your moral beliefs or lack of them - whichever side of the coin you happen to hang out on. It does not matter.

Morality is difficult because the ego injects itself into that set of beliefs. They are particularly strong and as a result the ego defends them the same way it defends the human form. Morality is a set beliefs that gets identified with by the human being that believes in them. That identification with a belief system is why the fighting happens. It is why the projection occurs. It is not your beliefs that needs to change, it is your identification with them that needs to be released.

You are not your beliefs or your religion. They are not who you are. They do not define you as a person. They have nothing to do with your identity at all. What religion and morality do is inform your choices. They help you decide what you like and what you don't like for yourself. They offer you a guidance system to follow for how to be in the world. When it causes you to argue with yourself or other people your beliefs are no longer helping you, they are now harmful to you. Why are they harmful? Because they are causing you pain by making you fight with other people over them. The minute something causes you pain, it is no longer helpful to you. Your job is to figure out why you are triggered by people that do not believe as you do and release the pain behind the trigger. Get okay with all beliefs, regardless of what they are or your judgment of them. Everything is equal and neutral.

Your beliefs, your morality, and your religion are meant for you. They are a guidance system for you to use to inform your own personal choices. They have nothing to do with anybody else. It is not your job to judge, like, or dislike, the choices that other people make. Your job is to live your life in your own way, without projecting that onto anybody else or trying to change what anybody else is doing or not doing.

I'll take a moment now to acknowledge the hypocritical nature of what I'm doing. There are people in the world, for example, that get on social media to tell people to get off social media. In the interest of trying to offer a message or help others in some way, there are situations like this where we have to do what we're telling others not to do. In the interest of trying to encourage a more neutral perspective of the world, I end up offering opinions and perspectives that aren't entirely neutral, essentially doing what I'm encouraging others to stop doing. That is the hypocritical nature of, and one of the risks of, sharing a message regardless of what the message is. 

The problem is not the belief or the message itself, it's the triggered reaction to the alternate belief. It's the attack or the fight that happens as a result of the awareness that this other person doesn't believe as we do. This site and the message that I share isn't the problem. Going on social media to tell people to get off social media isn't the problem. Telling people to have an abortion or not isn't the problem. What is the problem? The triggered need to change those things. The triggered need to make others agree with us. The triggered need to ban or allow things for everybody - the all or none approach.

The way to heal that is to figure out why we're triggered, not to change the other person. Why does that person having a different belief bother me so much? What do I need to heal within myself so that I'm not bothered by alternative beliefs anymore? Why am I so strongly identified with that belief that I feel the need to try to change other people?

Here's a hint: fear. We're afraid of what the world looks like if too many people don't believe what we believe. What does the world look like if everybody believes or doesn't believe in abortion? What does the world look like if nobody believes in the idea of morality anymore? What does the world look like when we don't build societies based on common moral beliefs?  What does the world look like when [insert alternative moral belief here]? Whatever that fear is shows you the trigger and the pain that needs to be healed within you. The fear of "what if?" is so strong that it makes you defend your belief and try to project it onto other people. Not only that, the fear makes you believe they are bad or that there is something wrong with them for not believing as you do. There is nothing wrong with them and they aren't bad people. The fighting stops when we stop being afraid of the unknown future.

I don't care what belief system you found me with. I don't care if you're politically extreme right or extreme left or anywhere in between. It doesn't matter to me at all. You're not a bad person, regardless of what those beliefs are. I don't care if we're complete opposites. There is nothing wrong with you or me. We're all equal. We're all individual. We're all entitled to have our beliefs.  What you will find below is not an attack on individual beliefs or belief systems. Instead you will find more on the concept of moral nihilism, how it can be helpful in spirituality and self-mastery, and what a world might look where we aren't fighting over moral beliefs anymore.  As always, take what works for you and leave the rest.

Love to all.

Della

What is Free Will?