On the subject of what 'conscience' actually is and what it may mean to awaken it, I think there are actually a few different parts to this whole that we can look at and work to comes to terms with.
From the
Esoteric Glossary we first see this:
From the dictionary, we have:
The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong: Let your conscience be your guide.
A source of moral or ethical judgment or pronouncement: a document that serves as the nation's conscience.
Conformity to one's own sense of right conduct: a person of unflagging conscience.
The part of the superego in psychoanalysis that judges the ethical nature of one's actions and thoughts and then transmits such determinations to the ego for consideration.
In general, I think the above definitions are how most people understand what conscience is. Many of us here have feelings of guilt or are capable of introspection or have a natural understanding of what doing the right thing means, or acting from a higher part of our natures. This, at least, is a large part of the work we're doing here: To refine and to see ourselves, one way or another, so that we can do the right thing in as many different situations as possible.
Getting back for a moment to the Session in which the C's mention conscience, we have this:
Q: (L) But how did we manage to get awakened consciences, and how can other people manage to do it, too?
A: Recall how you started, you acted on your own as the conscience of the world.
Conscience of the world, eh? Sounds a bit lofty, no? Like only a Ghandi, JFK, MLK, Julius Caeser, Laura, Ark and few others can reach such heights of being. But there are a couple of things worth pointing out here, and that is that all of these individuals had strong supporters who saw the great value in what they were doing. Without this support, these leaders of conscience simply could not make the strides that they did, and take the stands they took for what could have been a much much better world.
On a different level, the people mentioned above (the ones who are no longer with us) weren't born consciences of the world. They worked very hard for it, consciously suffered for it, and paid the ultimate price for it. And so we honor them every time we do something or acknowledge some truth that they would have affirmed in a speech, protest, or action of some kind. They didn't see others doing what was needed, and so they took it upon themselves to do what they could do, based on what they saw and who they were inside.
What I'm getting at is they took responsibility for others well-being; strangers to them mostly, by sharing knowledge of the true state of the world. And I think putting ourselves in the shoes of the Palestinians, Syrians, and the Novo-Russians for instance, and really grokking their horrific suffering - and why they are being made to suffer, and feeling responsible to them - in some way may be a case in point of helping raise or awaken our own consciences. If I were living under their circumstances I would sure as anything hope to God there were individuals who cared enough about me as another human being of the same planet to do anything they could to help.
So it's like the standard definitions of conscience listed above, only kicked up a notch!
More from the glossary, we get the 4th way understanding of conscience:
In Search of the Miraculous, Ouspensky describes conscience as follows:
' "In ordinary life the concept 'conscience' is taken too simply. As if we had a conscience. Actually the concept 'conscience' in the sphere of the emotions is equivalent to the concept 'consciousness' in the sphere of the intellect. And as we have no consciousness we have no conscience.
"Consciousness is a state in which a man knows all at once everything that he in general knows and in which he can see how little he does know and how many contradictions there are in what he knows.
"Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general feels, or can feel. And as everyone has within him thousands of contradictory feelings which vary from a deeply hidden realization of his own nothingness and fears of all kinds to the most stupid kind of self-conceit, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, and self-praise, to feel all this together would not only be painful but literally unbearable.
"If a man whose entire inner world is composed of contradictions were suddenly to feel all these contradictions simultaneously within himself, if he were to feel all at once that he loves everything he hates and hates everything he loves; that he lies when he tells the truth and that he tells the truth when he lies; and if he could feel the shame and horror of it all, this would be the state which is called 'conscience. A man cannot live in this state; he must either destroy contradictions or destroy conscience. He cannot destroy conscience, but if he cannot destroy it he can put it to sleep, that is, he can separate by impenetrable barriers one feeling of self from another, never see them together, never feel their incompatibility, the absurdity of one existing alongside another.' [end quote]
Almost all discourse about the human being speaks as if the human being were a unit. The 4th Way recognizes that this is only very seldom the case. TS Elliott once said the 'man cannot face too much reality.' This is so also as regards conscience. Even if all buffers could be immediately dissolved, this would not leave man as a functioning whole. The real I must be strengthened and built up before this makes sense. All these processes of development are gradual and take place concurrently.
Bringing this to bear while doing any kind of the needed activities may be useful. So suppose there is some struggling involved in taking up something and sticking to it. You can see it as a good thing, rather like physical exercise. There is some exertion, discomfort, maybe a little groaning and breathlessness too. And you have a bunch of emotions and thoughts running through your head and heart - all at the same time ie."this is great for me, it will make me healthier which is what I want, I love the idea that I will be in better shape as a result, etc." And then there are the thoughts/feelings of "I really hate this, I'm physically uncomfortable, I want to cry, can't I do this tomorrow...?" The work involved means looking at and feeling this struggle in toto, experiencing the conscience of conflicting feelings involved, and, heck, doing it anyway! This also speaks to intentional or conscious suffering and conscious labor, as mentioned in an earlier post.
By the same token, it may not be nearly as hard to do as we make it out to be in our minds. As s-kur quoted before:
A: Taking the bull by the horns is always fearful in the imagination, but when you approach the beast, he usually lays down and submits.
Q: (L) That doesn't answer my question. Okay, what constitutes "approaching the beast"? Since that seems to be where everybody gets stuck...
A: As Yoda said, no try, just do, if only a little. That will break the logjam. Butterfly wings and all that.
The last part of the glossary entry reads:
In Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson, Gurdjieff discusses conscience in many places. The following excerpt deals with the League of Nations and man's perpetually unsuccessful attempts at stopping war:
"In the course of observations during my last sojourn there I cleared up, among other things, that the beings with objective Reason do not happen to be in these societies for the following reasons: "The point is that in order to participate in any society whatsoever, a being must always of necessity be important and such a being there among them, thanks once again to the abnormally established conditions of being-existence, can only be one who either has a great deal of money or who becomes what is called 'famous' among the other beings there. "And since especially during recent times only those beings can become famous and important among them in whom the mentioned sacred function, namely 'being conscience,' is entirely absent, then in consequence of the fact that this sacred function in the presences of beings is in general always associated with everything that represents and is Objective Reason, then, of course, those three-brained beings with Objective Reason always have conscience as well, and consequently such a being with conscience, will never be 'important' among the other beings. "That is why the beings with Pure Reason there never have had and never will have the possibility of taking part in the societies of beings who are formed of important and power-possessing beings.'
This describes our global situation all too well I think. Again and again we see the substantive, reasonable, sane attempts on the part of Putin and the Russian leadership to stave off more war, destruction and disaster. And again and again we see the 'famous' U.S. and western political hack/celebrities spouting drivel, lying, and acting with no care for the ramifications of their actions. It also explains why Russia and several other countries no longer fit the Western paradigm, and are seeking to extricate themselves from it - and being attacked for it. Russia et al. are aligning themselves as best they can with Objective Reason it seems, while the U.S. et al. are irrational, destructive and still trying to maintain their 'importance'.
That's a great analogy!!
