The truth of the matter is that people often do not do better because they do not see that the results are worth the effort. Please note that I didn’t say the reward. Most people do not automatically seek reward for doing ‘good’. However, they need to know that there is a result from doing a good action that equates to the effort or perceived sacrifice involved. This is a paradigm that is useful for a time while the adept is traveling the path but eventually she will choose to manifest positive qualities out of love for the virtues themselves rather than for the effect that those virtues may have.
‘Let us do evil that good may come of it.’ What a illusory proposition. Let us shower the world with good by doing mountains of evil. The real problem with that is that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and you can’t get good from evil. Even if it appears to be so. Yet this is the proposition offered up by the denizens of evil through systems of behavior like ‘situational ethics’, a humanistic approach to ethics and similar constructs in psychology, sociology, etc.. These systems of behavior and belief are made possible by the devaluation of the virtues.
Let’s take Truth for example. As a cultural trend we no longer value truth for itself as we once did. It is considered ‘naïve’ to do so. Nowadays we often use truth only if it accomplishes what we want in a given situation, as a means to an end. If it doesn’t bring us to the desired goal then we discard it in favor of our personal goal. When we are faced with a situation that demands a choice between truth and falsehood we start from a level playing field rather than assuming truth has some intrinsic value that places it ahead of falsehood when we weigh our choice between the two. That is to say we don't automatically lean in favor of the truth. If we feel that, from our limited perspective, the truth will have a more negative impact than a lie we often choose to lie, feeling that lying is the ‘better’ thing to do. The lie becomes the moral ‘right choice’.
How is this even possible, that the lie can be thought of as the moral choice? Because we are concerned only with the end, not the means. Because we no longer give truth an intrinsic value, a value that it carries because it is real, simply because it is ‘Truth’. It only has value if it serves to bring about what we perceive as ‘positive’ results when we use it. This is called ‘situational ethics’. Given that – if deciding between truth and lie is dependent only on the situation - then Truth no longer has any intrinsic value at all and the moral line between truth and lie, the quality that makes the one a virtue and the other a vice, is wiped out. Either is as good as the other depending on what it is perceived to accomplish. Lying becomes as much a virtue as telling the truth. In fact, they cease to exist as separate concepts. If there is no difference then there are no separate definitions and they both exist only as simple statements of no value.
We as a culture have learned to degrade, to disregard or to treat as non-existent, the intrinsic quality of ‘good’ in many of the virtues which society used to hold as worthy of emulation for their own sake. When we do that we become morally rudderless for if no virtue is any better than its’ absence then how are we to judge any level of good from any level of evil. That is to say when we are faced with a choice, if we do not accept that truth has any more inherent value than a lie, if we remove all of the intrinsic ‘goodness’ value from truth, then we are only a step away from removing that same value from our intent. Are we not, when we dismiss that moral evaluation from our chosen action, also then creating an environment wherein we will be more willing to dismiss a moral evaluation from our goal as well? Why is this important? Because no matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise there is a vital, inherent difference between the values that we have labeled as virtues and those we label vices. The difference is vital because it is the primary cause for valuing the one over the other. It is the reason that virtue has value in and of itself.
Those qualities that we call virtues have their value, their very existence, because they are the qualities of the universe, which gets its' structure from the Personality of God. They are, therefore, the qualities that resonate in harmony with the nature of the universe itself. More, they are inherent in the very structure of the universe because they are inherent in the very Personality of God. So, when we manifest these virtues we are manifesting the personality of the universe itself, the Personality of God. This makes the virtues of value to us on an individual level because as we manifest these virtues we become them and as we become them we come into harmony with the nature of God. So, there is a great need for us as adepts to hold ourselves to a standard of virtue both for ourselves and for the planet as a whole.
But I, for one, have often found it hard to continually shift gears from moment to moment, always striving to choose that which is 'like God'. I had a friend who was at the time a chela on the path. I remember what he said when he left his spiritual striving. He said that there were just too many conditions to fulfill - that it was just too hard. Truth, Purity, Love - ready for any test, always with an awareness of spiritual poverty, in harmony, balanced, etc. - especially when I didn’t always know what would be virtuous at a given moment - could be daunting for me. "Be ye perfect even as your father in heaven" can be daunting. But there are ways to approach all of that without spiritual overload.
I found that if I simply picked a single virtue and held to that constantly it bled over into all of the others. As you might guess I picked truth but you could as easily choose mercy or justice, purity, whatever. I found very quickly with truth that it encompassed all of the others. Justice is truth in action. Purity is truth’s environment. And so on. Some virtues require a deeper understanding of truth before their relationship becomes obvious but all of the virtues are simply different aspects of the personality of God so they are all related and striving to manifest one brings you closer to all of the others and to God. It is like the light when shone through a prism. All of these traits of God’s personality simply reflect Him and striving to hold true to any one of them will bring you closer to God.
You will also find that the effort to out-picture a single virtue can lead to great personal strength in the face of temptation to fall back. It can bring clarity to the dynamics of any test we may encounter on the path as well so that the choice can be easier to perceive.
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