My post on a recent drug-induced spiritual experience lead to a really interesting conversation in the comments section. In particularly, a reader named Justin Hart pinpointed a concept which I myself have never explored at great length (though I have dabbled a little): the place of ethics within spirituality. Justin wrote:
I believe real spiritual growth (which I admit I have not had in the slightest) means becoming a more ethical person — not having a mind-blowing mental experience…. In turn, I hope that developing these qualities may help me be a better, more ethical person. I figure that meditating long enough might give one neat-feeling experiences, and that maybe, just maybe, some of these experiences gained under long practice may serve as guideposts along a neverending path of personal development. However, I believe that none of these probable experiences should be the goal of the mystical/spiritual path — nothing but ethics should be.
Ethics, broadly speaking, basically means trying to figure out what’s right and wrong and live by it accordingly. I’ve heard religious scholars (Huston Smith maybe?) talk about how Judaism in particularly is very concerned with ethics, but I don’t really remember how the argument went. Mainstream Western religion in general though seems to see this as a very important issue. I wonder how much of the linkage with ethics to spirituality also might have to do with the fact that these religious systems governed theocratic nations, and therefore required heavy ethical focus in order to maintain social cohesion…
From my own experience, I would say that the quest to discern right from wrong and live according to it has been a major part of my own spiritual exploration. But at the same time, it has never really been the primary focus or end goal for me. What is? I’m not really sure, I guess. But maybe trying to decide if ethics is a right or wrong end goal is actually a very ethical question in and of itself!
All I can say at this point though is that the question concerns me less and less these days. Maybe I’m just deluding myself into thinking I’m right all the time, or maybe I have processed those issues on a level which has allowed me some peace of mind within this area. It’s difficult to say, and I wanted to talk about it with everyone else because I sense some sort of blindspot in relation to this with myself. Maybe other people have given more thought to this question of right and wrong in spirituality and can come up with something which may be useful to Justin, myself and anyone else.
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11 Comments
It’s generally taken for granted in spirituality that our true nature, the one we’re trying to ‘awaken’ to, is fundamentally good already. I define spirituality as aligning one’s self with nature, the greater world beyond man. I don’t mean externally, like going camping or whatever, but internally coming into synch with the biological programming inside you, which was modeled by the spirit, itself. The most archaic regions of your mammalian/reptillian/amphibian mind, unconsciously shaped in response to the natural world, which raised you, are fundamentally and basically good — not only is that primal mind good — it [b]is[/b] the absolute standard, no set of ethical principles is as primary as that. But there is a huge difference between what is naturally good, and what man thinks is good — if there wasn’t, we’d probably still be living in the wilds right now.
To consciously train one’s ethical sensibilities is fine, but it seems like it’s within the realm of the conscious man, and in that capacity quite useful, but has little bearing outside that world. I don’t think truly enlightened people care about the ‘conscious man’, I think their compassion goes to the animal bodies and ineffable spirits held captive by the ego and super-ego.
Tim, thanks for using the word “blindspot,” for it made me realize a blindspot of my own (with regard to ethics & religion).
I suppose I had it all “figured out” that different people have different abilities to experience God/transcendence — and those with a “lesser” ability seem to get stuck or stop their searching with more ethical religious interpretations. I will not deny that I’ve always considered myself “above” or “beyond” being restricted to mere ethics… but now I’m thinking my blindspot has to do with closing off my understanding of ethics in the first place.
I may see ethics as the stopping point for others, but perhaps they’re located on a level I have not reached in my own searching…
“I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.” - Albert Einstein
I think the problem with this post is that you have an assumption posed by someone who admits he has not had any experience with the issue in question.
While there may be an increased level of awareness and ability to alter the right/wrong behaviors of the actions of a person undergoing development, to others it may appear to be something completely different. To others the person may appear to be a simple nonsensical asshole, such as in the case of Don Juan to Castaneda. He was a prick and the hardest person to deal with just for the sake of destroying the wrongful actions present in Castaneda’s behavior.
Yet, there are many fake gurus who take on this behavior and they themselves have not fought these tendencies in themselves, yet they are not aware of it or may even be aware of it and are doing it for materialistic gain. The average person who is not experienced in these matters will not know the difference and will take all gurus either as charlatans or as true masters.
The easiest (& hardest) thing to do in this case is to develop (& destroy others) qualities in yourself so you may be able to discern the right/wrong behavior in yourself, but you’ll find that ethics only remains as a guide to much more interesting things on the path.
A completely and utterly Technocratic/Enlightenment viewpoint coming from the wizard of the Technocracy himself! Great quote though! I have a post about this topic coming later this week…
I see the point. If our spiritual development does not transform or at least inform our being in the world, what good is it? Or as St. Paul said, “if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
Having said that, the love and compassion of an awakened person might not even be recognizably “good” to the unawakened mind. For example, I have recently become intrigued with Chogyam Trungpa, a Buddhist teacher. It is clear (to me) from reading about the way he has transformed the lives and minds of many of his students that he was a great teacher, a spiritual giant. But much of his personal conduct at least seems ethically repugnant and has been the subject of much controversy in American Buddhism. Was he just an asshole, or an authentic “crazy wisdom” guru goading students into enlightenment with his outrageous antics? It’s hard to say; the moral ambiguity of his behavior was part and parcel of his outsized trickster persona.
Another point that comes to mind is this. Many ancient thinkers took it for granted that ethics found its summum bonum in individual happiness, or eudaimonia, better understood not as the transient happiness the h-word so often signifies, but (as one professor schooled me) as the flourishing of the whole, virtuous person—the idea being that all other goods and virtues are good precisely because are conducive to eudaimonia. Aristotle comes to mind as one of this camp. It’s not hard to translate this relatively humanistic concept to a more spiritual paradigm and take eudaimonia as the flourishing of the awakened mind. If that’s the case, then ethics is inextricably tied to the project of spiritual development and to separate it out as the ultimate goal of spirituality, period, is kind of missing the point that it’s all connected.
Good topic.
There are many of us who’ve come from spiritual backgrounds where ethical behavior was seen as the sine qua non of our existence. Coming from fundie xianity I was told that god was most interested in putting me into a ‘right’ relationship with himself and that the verification that this had occured was a radical change in my behavior toward the deity and my neighbor. The nature of this change would manifest itself as love. As you’ve already pointed out, most western religion has ethical behavior as at least its stated outcome if not its raison d’etre. Judaism has faithfulness to the Covenant (the Covenant itself being in great measure a guide for ethical behavior) and Islam has submission to Allah with the resultant change in human action. In fact, this behavioral modification is often the primary ’selling point’ used by proselytizers. But this seems to be largely absent from much of ‘alternative’ spirituality.
When I first came in to contact with modern Gnosticism (as opposed to ‘gnosis’) I was struck by the seeming dearth of concern for ‘ethics’. With the exception of vows to be taken by those pursuing ‘holy orders’, little seems to be said on the topic. To be honest I found this a little off-putting at first but now I think I see why. Parents tell chilldren what to do. We do this because they aren’t experienced or sophisticated enough to always do as we think they aught or even make safe choices for themselves. But as they grow, they should more and more be able to make their own decisions. It is a great joy for me as a parent to observe this process in my own children. Once we’ve grown up we shouldn’t need someone (not even a ‘Super-someone’) to lead and correct us. Growing up is never easy; making your own choices can at times be difficult; thinking for ouselves should be a challenge for each of us.
I would agree 100% that the object of e.g., meditation, isn’t that I have a good time, see interesting things, or become more successful (yuk!). But I also don’t think that becoming more ethical can be the outcome either.
This is why I think there’s so much wisdom in much of ‘alternative’ spirituality. These approaches to the sacred seem to make the assumption that we’re already ‘mature’, at least on the ethical level and no longer need a mommy or daddy figure to give us our marching orders.
Every day I live I experience a little more within my self the truth of Blake’s words: “One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression”.
h.
Thanks TIm, for the chance to continue this discussion. As the comment above was, in part, a reply to some comments I made, allow me to clarify some of my views on the subject.
First, you really don’t need meditation or “spiritual growth” to become “more ethical person.” Ethics is the philosophical understanding of (1) your place in the world and (2) your relationships with other people. How do you choose an action? How do you treat other people? Thats obviously an oversimplified definition, but gist of what “ethics” is essentially just that. You come up with a code of right and wrong (or accept one from “up high”) and then do your best to apply that code to everyday living. Hopefully, as you experience more, your understanding of right and wrong grows as well, but you’re still simply trying to choose right over wrong. I honestly don’t see what religion, meditation, or “spiritual practices” have to do with ethics. You don’t have to be a Buddha or a Saint to be a really ethical person.
“Spiritual growth,” on the other hand is about the fundamental understanding of Reality (or God, Truth, whatever). Its about finding/creating the meaning/non-meaning of your existence. And yes, the point of these practices are “mind-blowing,” or more accurately, “ego-blowing.”The ego is essentially a mirror of Reality. The problem is that the mirror is dirty, smudged, and has a bunch of shit all over it. Spiritual practices are like a rag, dipped in super-triple-extra-xtreme-strength lysol, cleaning all that grime away and polishing the mirror to a divine shine.
And finally, just because you’ve realized that deep understanding of reality doesn’t mean you automatically become an ethical person. In fact, the starting point (not the end point) of most spiritual systems I’ve ever studied is ethics. And there is a pretty simple reason for this. Imagine you have an old car. Over the years you fix it up, mod it out, supercharge it, etc. After a while you have a really powerful machine. What happens if your skills in driving haven’t gotten any better? What happens if you can’t handle the nitrous system, or the Brembo Brakes? You get into a really bad fucking wreck, and end up hurting/killing yourself and possibly everyone around you.
You need ethical training as well as spiritual training because as you grow in power (basically, your ability to change and affect the world) you need to have an advanced understanding of how to use that power without blowing everything up.
And this got a lot longer than I expected, so forgive me. Sometimes the keyboard gets away from me…
Be Good
Ronin
Thanks, Tim, for responding so thoughtfully to my comments on your earlier post. I honestly did not mean to come across as an asshole on “The Golden State” comment thread, and if I did, I deeply apologize. I can come across like that, and I hope that in the future my comments will not be interpreted that way.
To Aditi Tahiti:
True enough. I don’t know if that means I can’t speculate based on what I’ve heard others say, but I guess I just try to come to tentative conclusions based on my own thinking (and yes, subjective feelings) about such issues.
To Ronin (no hard feelings):
I agree with you, sort of. I believe that although religious practices or meditation are not necessary for ethics, nonetheless ethics are necessary for real religious practice. Similarly, I believe (and people more mystical than me throughout history agree) that although “[y]ou don’t have to be a Buddha or a Saint to be a really ethical person”, you do have to be an ethical person to be a Buddha or a Saint.
I don’t think I ever said that you need mysticism to be good. I just figured it was a useful sort of ethical training exercise for ethically handicapped assholes like me.
You also said something else interesting that I want to comment on, Ronin:
Isn’t the question of the meaning/non-meaning of your existence an ethical question? And isn’t true “ego-blowing” essentially tied to ethics (although not necessarily the exact same as ethics)? When you free yourself to some extent from ego, doesn’t that free you to behave more ethically?
I really want to thank you, Ronin, for the thought-provoking implications of what you said next, which I think may partially answer my questions directly above:
That is an analogy/line of reasoning I hadn’t thought of. I agree with you there. It’s just that I’ve been thinking of the overcoming of ego as being more like getting control over the parts of your brain that drive you to do unethical or antisocial things. Maybe simply seeing a truer reality is indeed the first step, like you said, and the actual enhancement of control over/overcoming or reducing of the ego — which can lead to more ethical behavior due to fewer egoistical incentives to do wrong — comes later.
Thanks everyone for putting up with both my assholery and my long comment-posts.
Justin,
Hopefully we have hard feelings, soft feelings, and all kinds of emotional turmoil…I mean we’re trying to help each other figure out our way through the labyrinth–and that should certainly not be an emotionally detached journey. But I try not to hold anything against anybody, and hope that others will do the same for me…
“Isn’t the question of the meaning/non-meaning of your existence an ethical question?”
Its more of a metaphysical question. I know the branches of philosophy aren’t hard categories–metaphyiscs leaks into ethics leaks into epistemology leaks into aesthetics blah blah blah–but understanding the foundation of your being isn’t necessarily gonna help you treat your neighbor better. This, of course, is a highly arguable point.
And as to some of the other things you stated, I’m gonna have to think about. Truthfully, I’ve never considered the idea of “the overcoming ego as being more like getting control over the parts of your brain that drive you to do unethical or antisocial things.” I need to see where that leads me…
And how do you put the quotes in those fancy little boxes? I’m severely blogger deficient here.
Be Good,
Ronin
To Ronin:
Thanks. By the way, I just found out recently you do the blue boxes by highlighting what you want to put in it and clicking on “b-quote” right above.
To Jacob:
I’m confused. I thought the reptilian brainstem was the part of the brain responsible for the four F’s — fight-or-flight, food and fucking. And as essentially neutral as these activities may be, I’ve been assuming that it’s the lack of control over these drives that leads one to immorality.
To homognosticus:
I apologize, but although I guess I might agree with your point as far as it goes, I don’t see what that has to do with the importance of ethics. I mean, there’s the whole love-and-do-what-you-will thing, and there’s love over and against “the Law”, but still: it seems that whatever is ethical to do in a particular situation (and I believe in situational ethics) is what is ethical, and that a real Law or God of the universe wouldn’t tell you to do anything that you shouldn’t a priori do anyway. And I suppose if you didn’t end up coming to the conlcusion on your own to make Ethical Choice A, then you would pay whatever the karmic consequences would be. Sorry if that seems like a tautology, and maybe its a non-issue. Anyone got anything more coherent than me to say about that?