Conscience Vs Consciousness

SMALL STORY

(His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam has delivered almost 20,000 hours of recorded talks till date. As part of the talks, He shares simple small stories that give powerful A cognitive shifts to the listener. Following is one such story.)

When you start internalizing the laws of society, you create a deep wound in your being. You destroy your innate intelligence. According to me, children can be given a set of rules initially so they don't move from the path of consciousness. But soon they have to be given the understanding of life and the need to operate from consciousness instead of conscience. If you live with consciousness, you will automatically live a moral life. To start understanding the need to live with consciousness, just look into your morality. Morality is only skin deep, whereas consciousness comes from the very being. Your consciousness tries to break through your conscience. Your consciousness continuously fights with your conscience. Conscience is societal. Consciousness is natural. Conscience is a poor substitute for consciousness.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, what is this? You are pulling down the whole social structure. Then how can we all live morally?' I tell them, 'Be very clear, it is only for kids you need a forced morality. For them you need to say, 'Keep quiet, I will give you candy.' Of course, nowadays kids reply, 'Iam happy. don't need your candy. Who cares for your candy!' For a child you can say that you will give candy and restrict him. You can impose morality on him based on fear or greed. But for you, it is time to grow up. You are not kids anymore. Just stand up with consciousness. When I say consciousness, I mean the intelligent energy of your being.

Rules

The natural instinct to break rules When anything is a forced rule, you always try to get around it. For example, you always speed when you don't see the policeman.

A small story:

A policeman pulls over a car on the highway for speeding. When he asks for the driver's license, the driver replies, 'But officer, I was only trying to keep a safe distance between my car and the car behind me!' When you follow rules blindly without understanding their spirit, this is what happens – you just wait for an excuse to break them.

Honestly answer yourself: if there were no rules, no regulating authority to keep a check on what you did, would you be the same person as you are now? Would you be doing things in the same way as you do now? If your answer is no, be very clear that the rule is coming from your conscience, not from your consciousness.

You have not internalized the spirit of the rule or you do not agree with the rule. That is the reason you are not doing things in a way natural to you.

The thrill of 'no'

You can see, when you tell children not to do something, they will be most tempted to do it. As long as you don't mention anything about doing it or not doing it, they may not even be bothered about it. But the moment you tell them not to do something, they will be looking to do it.

A small story:

One man says, 'I found three ways to get things done.'

His friend asks, 'What are the three ways?'

The man replies, 'First, do it yourself.

Second, hire someone to do it.

Third, tell your kids not to do it.

That's all, it will be done!'

Actually there is a taste, a thrill in doing what you are not supposed to do. Most of the time, you develop an instant urge for something if you are asked not to do it.You feel a kind of joy or satisfaction by doing it. That is the basic tendency in every human being.

A small story:

Once a shopkeeper was trying hard to increase his sales. He tried various options like discounts, catchy advertisements, better customer service. Nothing worked. Then one day, he hung a black curtain on his shop window and made a small hole on it.

Under the hole he put up a board, 'Peeping strictly forbidden.' From that day, he saw crowds gathering at his shop, each one curious to peep through the hole to see what was there!

His shop sales automatically increased because people now actually saw the variety of grocery items his shop carried.

When you are told not to do something, the basic human tendency is to do exactly that.

As a teenager, when you say 'no' to your parents, you feel you have proved you are independent. When you say 'no', you feel you have proved you are somebody special, somebody different. As long as you say 'yes', you feel you are only a child. When you start saying 'no', you feel you have become an adult. You feel that you are a man only when yousay 'no' to your father. Till then you feel you are a child. Just to prove that you area man you start saying 'no' to your father.

This is basic psychology. When you say 'no' you think you are somebody, until then you think you are nobody. So please be very clear, to whatever you say, your grown up son is going to say 'no', because he wants to be somebody.

Only life can teach

People come and ask me, 'How do I make my son do what I advise him to? I know it is good for him but he won't listen to me.'

You have to understand two things. First thing, if they feel that something is giving them happiness, just let them be. Only life can teach them, you cannot teach them. You cannot teach anybody, only life can teach. You can put a few words into them so that it echoes when life teaches them the same thing, that's all.

Second thing, unless they need help, your help cannot help them. When they need your help they will come. See, your idea of happiness and unhappiness has come out of your experience. Just think, did you listen to your father when you were young?

No. You did not.

No son listens to his father. After they become fathers, they forget that they did not listen to their fathers and start blaming their sons. Because they have to train their sons, they remember only the incidents in which they listened to their fathers! They forget the incidents where they said 'no 'to their fathers. Be very clear, your children are doing the same thing that you did. Only life can teach them. You can neither teach nor help your kids unless they want the help. If you force something on them, if you force rules and regulations on them, they may learn one thing, and that is how to cheat you, that's all. So just remain aware of the stage your child is in, that is enough. You can step in at any time he wants your support.