A Question About The Morality Rant Video

[Dustin Dustbin]

Fantastic video!

I've been working on some of these concepts for over a year so it was great to take in this larger scope view of things. 

One question I have is about relating to situations without moralizing them, or labeling them good/bad yet still declare them "not cool".  Take the examples of heads being chopped off or your family getting killed..  I understand that reality is just doing reality  (everything) but I prefer to take action should someone try to kill my family and I sense the entire episode as negative. I don't like it it all in a strong way. How do I interpret this strong negative feeling that I want to fight against and simultaneously hold it as neutral?

I totally get ranting against morality and that good/bad are fairly silly notions. I also get that rape exist in reality and fragmenting reality is risky BUT.. if I walk around a corner and witness a rape I'm hard pressed not to immediately judge that as wrong/bad and take action to stop it vs. accept it as a part of the whole of reality, sip my coffee, and walk away.

So I'm confused on this aspect, any thoughts on how to reconcile the above?

[Mal]

@Dustin Dustbin

Hi Dustin,

The way I see it is your reaction is also part of the divine.

At the moment however your relationship to this cosmic dance is the problem.  

That's the ego.  The part that thinks it's in control of any of this.

Who knows how you would handle it in an awakened state? Life will live the moment through you.  However, I imagine that whatever you do will be perfect for the moment.  That's mastery.

Mal

Edited June 1, 2016 by Mal

[Dustin Dustbin]

Control aside in my example I'm either going to walk away or not.

I can't escape doing something and thinking something about the rape I'm witnessing. 

I guess I have a much easier time accepting it as all part of the whole if it happened yesterday than if I walk up on it today. In the moment it would feel very wrong to me and I'd find it impossible not to take action no matter if I had actually or only perceived control. 

[Mal]

4 minutes ago, Dustin Dustbin said:

In the moment it would feel very wrong to me and I'd find it impossible not to take action no matter if I had actually or only perceived control. 

Look at what you are saying.  

"In the moment it would feel very wrong to me". 

Think about this. This is how the ego perpetuates itself. Groundhog day. 

The reality of it is you do not know what you are going to feel in 30 seconds time. You just imagine you would feel a certain way. 

If you were in the enlightened state you would do what life wants you to do - not what your pre conceived values command you to do. 

Taking action to prevent a rape in the moment is not moralizing.  It's just being human.  Moralizing is having a fixed way of approaching the world and messing it up because we're so rigid.

Whatever you do will be what is.  There is no debate about this.  

[Ajax]

Paradox isn't it?

You are moralizing compassion and love. Do you know the difference between punishment and discipline?  Disciple is intended to help and punishment is intended to cause pain. You can discipline others with love and kindness with force.

As I said it is paradox.

I think the reason that people struggle with paradoxes is because they don't have the mental flexibility to see how one idea connects with another, because they are thinking, not seeing/perceiving. 

I have said it before and I will say it again. Looking is a more intelligent act than thinking.

[Dustin Dustbin]

I appreciate your replies and agree with what you are saying Mal, my confusion is on understanding this bit..

"Taking action to prevent a rape in the moment is not moralizing.  It's just being human"

Why would a human bother preventing rape unless there is a reason? I have no desire to prevent a butterfly for example. 

[Mal]

4 minutes ago, Dustin Dustbin said:

I appreciate your replies and agree with what you are saying Mal, my confusion is on understanding this bit..

"Taking action to prevent a rape in the moment is not moralizing.  It's just being human"

Why would a human bother preventing rape unless there is a reason? I have no desire to prevent a butterfly for example. 

This is not about reason. When were an ego all we have is reason and morality.

Awakened people feel deeper than unawakened people.  The reason for this is moralizing cripples our capacity for compassionate action. 

We don't need morals. We need to wake up. 

[joseph--]

wouldnt it be like living in the film purge without moralizing? no laws? all kinds of butterfly rape going on

[abrakamowse]

28 minutes ago, joseph-- said:

wouldnt it be like living in the film purge without moralizing? no laws? all kinds of butterfly rape going on

And what is the difference with the world as it is now? We have moralizing laws and everything goes crazy. No one changes, no one is afraid of death penalty, etc. Death penalty doesn't avoid crimes... etc...

[Natasha]

@Dustin Dustbin

Transcendent Morality Leo was talking about in the video is the answer. It all depends on the progression of the collective consciousness. This could take hundreds of years for humanity to get there. Start with yourself today.  

[ChimpBrain]

I've watched this video 3 times so far and will probably watch it another 3 times over the coming days in an attempt to better grasp the concept. Out of all of Leo's videos this one has been the hardest for me to wrap my mind around. At times it sounds like he's advocating anarchy, complete pacifism, even nihilism, but at other times he makes it clear he's not. I think this advice about moralizing applies primarily to our inner dialogue, not to how we should structure a society. I'm all ears though and have enjoyed the replies so far. I'm glad someone started a thread about this.

[abrakamowse]

It is also a matter of free will @ChimpBrain maybe this article can be of help too...

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-illusion-of-free-will

[Ajax]

@ChimpBrain

Let's say for clarity's sake,  that ethics means "applying the best possible solution given the circumstance."

With this concept in mind, what will make us be unethical or have a lower level of ethics?

Well, it is having a lower level of consciousness due to prejudice. If our thought processes are biased due to value judgements or emotions, we will not process the situation fully and therefore not make the "best possible solution".  We perceive the situation through the lens of morality or social conditioning and so we do not see the situation as IS. Therefore, the potential to make poor decisions is high.

 Let's look at the issue of criminality... When we moralize a criminals actions, we start to punish them in order to hurt them for hurting others. However, if you loved your child and he did wrong... wouldn't you do everything humanly possible to help him in whatever way you could?  When you punish someone... unless they have a high level of consciousness... you are creating a victim. By definition a victim is someone who does not take responsibility for their actions... So now you have a criminal who was probably already a "victim" who now is further victimized by society and is now judged and labeled/identified as a "bad guy" which further ostracizes him from society.... And then people wonder why he doesn't have compassion?

However with "Transcendent morality" you love the criminal as much as you would your own kid. Therefore, you discipline him with love you may be harsh but you love him at the same time, accepting him and not judging him showing him how to take care of himself and how to care about others. Teaching him to actualized, how to survive without taking advantage of others.

 

The rape scenario mentioned in this thread is an irrelevant point. A compassionate person is a responsible person, they would not idly stand by and allow others to be injured. That has nothing to do with Transcendent morality. If you saw your own kid beating up your other kid, obviously you would stop them and then try to prevent it from happening again...

 

Edited June 1, 2016 by Ajax

[ChimpBrain]

@abrakamowse Thanks. I'm a big fan of Sam and have read all of his books multiple times, including Free Will.

 

 

@Ajax So rehabilitate criminals rather than punish them, I'm on board with that.

I think I grasped how to apply this concept of not moralizing in my own life pretty well. I also think I grasped the concept of transcendent morality. It's when he starts talking about society in general and accepting violent crime that throws me for a loop. It's one thing to realize and accept that bad shit happens to good people, it's another to give up on discouraging people from harming others because "reality is what it is".  I'm hoping his follow up video next week will tie up all the loose ends for me

[abrakamowse]

9 minutes ago, ChimpBrain said:

it's another to give up on discouraging people from harming others because "reality is what it is". 

Where did he say that?

I think he discouraged people from harming people, but he didn't say a criminal shouldn't go to jail. Or maybe I am wrong...

[ChimpBrain]

1 minute ago, abrakamowse said:

Where did he say that?

I think he discouraged people from harming people, but he didn't say a criminal shouldn't go to jail. Or maybe I am wrong...

Ajax didn't say that, but a lot of what Leo said in the video could be construed as saying that if you don't listen to the entire video very carefully and piece it all together. Maybe I need to fourth viewing before I comment in here anymore lol 

[abrakamowse]

@ChimpBrain  no problem hehehehe... sometimes our minds are programmed to see things in certain way, and we give different meanings to same words. It's tricky, I know. It is still an idea that I understand from an spiritual point of view, but I think it can't be applied until the whole humanity had a shift in consciousness.

[Mal]

@Dustin Dustbin

Dustin,

I'm in transcendent experience right at this moment.  I am also in a public place.  I know without a doubt that if anything kicked off here I would probably step in.  

Depending on the logistics of the situation. I know that I would be able to scan my environment and make an accurate assessment of the dangers involved. 

This is not blind bravery.  Nor is it my conditioned moralistic programming leading me to act. 

It's much more subtle, much more detailed in terms of data.  

However, I have already developed to Kohlberg's post conventional stage, but I'm not sure how much of my ego is flavouring my experience right now. 

If I was at pre-conventional but in a non-dual state would i have the same intuitions?  Perhaps my prime directive at this stage would be to save my own hind lest I be inconvenienced by a disturbance.  After all, everything IS the divine, including my own personality. 

I don't know directly.  But as far as I am aware from the perspective of transpersonal developmental psychology, what I do right now not only depends on my present moment state, but also on my cognitive development. 

Your transcendent morality may in fact be different from mine. 

Mal

[Mal]

2 hours ago, ChimpBrain said:

@abrakamowse

@AjaxIt's one thing to realize and accept that bad shit happens to good people, it's another to give up on discouraging people from harming others because "reality is what it is".  

It depends where we are on the cognitive development line.

Orange and green absolutely condemn hurting others -and they tend to enforce that and push their values onto others. 

Integral and turquoise on the other hand are different.  Yellow knows by pushing it's values onto others it's an inherent part of the problem space.  Turquoise is more interested in seeing if a certain act of violence is maybe really in fact an act of the divine.  Further to that turquoise even wants to see if it can learn something from these acts and how these acts affect the whole picture.  For example, turquoise knows we would not have modernity if it were not for certain acts of violence. Therefore it tends sit back and wait to see what comes of it.  

 

Edited June 1, 2016 by Mal

[ChimpBrain]

47 minutes ago, Mal said:

It depends where we are on the cognitive development line.

Orange and green absolutely condemn hurting others -and they tend to enforce that and push their values onto others. 

Integral and turquoise on the other hand are different.  Yellow knows by pushing it's values onto others it's an inherent part of the problem space.  Turquoise is more interested in seeing if a certain act of violence is maybe really in fact an act of the divine.  Further to that turquoise even wants to see if it can learn something from these acts and how these acts affect the whole picture.  For example, turquoise knows we would not have modernity if it were not for certain acts of violence. Therefore it tends sit back and wait to see what comes of it.  

 

Well this makes a lot of sense because I know I'm currently stuck somewhere in between orange & green. I still believe there are objective truths in the world and that one of them is as a society we should be striving to minimize human suffering and maximize human flourishing. If yellow /turquoise sees a man being murdered do they just assume he was likely to be the next Hitler, his murder was "meant to be",  and go on their merry way? I've seen mentioned several times over the past few days how transcendent morality would function in the future in a more conscious society, but what about here and now? To me, for the time being, it seems like more of an abstract concept we should keep in the back of our mind and apply to judgments of ourselves, friends and family. Not something that should be applied to society at large. 

 

I want to make it clear that I'm asking these questions and pushing back in a genuine attempt to better understand, not because I think I'm right and others are wrong. Maybe I'm having a hard time with the concept because I've read a few books on morality by authors who are also somewhere in the orange/green range and I can't yet shed what I learned from them. I AM starting to realize more and more on this journey that every phase I go through is just that, a phase, and I'll eventually take those beliefs/knowledge and build on them to enter the next. 

Edited June 1, 2016 by ChimpBrain