The Authority of Ethics.

What is considered good and what is

considered right? And what is bad and wrong?
This seems to be quite obvious to us, as
children. The first pangs of guilt and sadness
come and gradually shade our subconscious
with vague notions of the bad and the good,
which we can only feel at the time, without
really thinking about it. We laugh and feel
happy when things are right. And we cry and
feel sad when something is wrong. But then as
we grow up, other notions of the bad and good
are imposed upon us, and these sometimes
are not really in accordance with those which
have shaded our subconscious in a natural
way. We are told that talking to strangers is
bad, that talking to those people our parents
don't like is bad, that giving money and your
stuff to others is bad, that saying prayers is
good, going to the temple or church is good,
that sex is very bad for you, but it's also
normal and good for grown-ups. Then you
meet other children who have been taught
other notions of good and bad, according to
what made up their parents' ethics. Then you
realize that if other parents are saying other
things, which have no loopholes but which
contradict what yours say, then your parents
aren't those who hold the authority to define

what is good and bad. So you stop believing

that what they say is bad is actually bad and
slowly start doing what you feel like doing,
without feeling guilty about not doing what is
right. And then you watch television and
suddenly you see other countries, other
people, other culture where your 'right' is bad
for them and your bad is actually the norm
there. Your whole concept and accumulated
values of right conduct are given a blow so
hard. You can either hold on to what you have
been taught and consider all the others whose
values contradict yours as evil-doing people or
ignorant mortals, or you can accept to see
things from their point of view and realize that
neither yours nor theirs is actually the real
right or wrong, it has just been established as
thus to suit each society's way of functioning,
the economy, the politics, the religion that
prevail.
Then slowly as more and more of what you
have been taught starts to be questioned, you
see that many, many of those things that
people take for granted and that they want
you to accept as the norms or rules, are
merely concepts that no one has really
understands or experiences but that are just
followed for no logical reason. This causes fear
for things that are nothing without the
conditioned shading put by men, it causes

guilt for happiness you find in so called wrong

things, (it may be simply showing love and
generosity to people, doing what you love for a
living even if its not popular, or simply talking
to strangers), it also causes a lot of grief
because you keep on telling yourself that
what you are doing is right because everybody
else is doing it and it is the norm, and it is
what you have been taught is right, however
you can't seem to feel it, and it fills you with a
misery that comes from your subconscious,
from the natural ethics that you simply felt as
a child. It also causes hatred and
misunderstanding between people of
conflicting values, and religions where what
one people considers right is considered wrong
by the other people, and when tolerance does
not always work, it is replaced by all sorts of
pain-inflicting feelings; that is where take birth
racism, xenophobia and discrimination, wars in
the name of religion, or patriotism.
Even in the same society, you find that whole
lives are built upon those values of what is
supposed to be right or wrong, people struggle
to act according to them despite all the 'buts'
they feel from within, happiness is searched
for in the wrong places, guilt and fear is
instilled in the heart of people for superficial
reasons, preventing them from living their
lives fully as they should. People in capitalist
societies spend their lives thinking that

happiness relies in the more money you

accumulate and the more you can consume in
terms of house, car, entertainment. Even
entertainment comes in the form of how much
fun you can buy. People in communist societies
have a whole different set of values, and how
their happiness is defined, I don't know but it's
certainly not like in capitalist countries. In
India, the birth of a girl child was and still is in
some places a source of grief and anger
among the people and family. In Arab
countries, a wife is happy with her husband
sleeping with 6 other women. In Africa, women
and girls are circumcised because they think it
is right. Do you think so? And do you think
they really feel happiness in those things.
People all around the world keep doing what
their society, their parents, their friends, their
political leaders, their religious heads tell them
to do. Not only that, the capitalists, the
television, the advertisements all add to this,
and because you've spent your life relying on
other people's definition of what is right, you
let yourself being duped by these money
making strategists.
Why do all these people tell you 'this' is right ?
Not because it's right; because it has to be like
that in order for them to make of their lives
what they want, to get the privileges that they
want to enjoy, to make the system work in the
way they said is 'the way', to ensure their

insecure future is secure in some way;

ultimately to be happy. Not only those people
in power or business do that, every little
mortal does that, going about telling people
what is right or wrong, judging of what others
do as good or bad. They are not always badintentioned. They are just puppets of their
own learnt-by-heart misconceptions about life,
happiness and what really matters.
Now to come to think about it, are these not
the primordial ethics? Life, happiness and what
really matters?
Life; the breath that comes through our
nostrils and go out. how? why? No idea. it's
just so wonderful, beautiful, something that
can't be created by man, scientists nor
meddled with. Have you looked at your pet
sleeping, or someone close to you? They don't
know anything of what is happening around.
They are not doing anything. But the life is
there and it's so peaceful and beautiful. You
have no idea how it works, who is making it
work, but every little thing is being taken care
of. And the light that comes in through the
window, rises and then slowly sets; shooting
colors of all sorts in all directions. Making the
grass and plants look so green and shiny, the
sky so vast, extending endlessly and colorful,
with clouds so huge but still floating

effortlessly above us. The people around, who

walk, who smile, who look. Have you noticed
that when you are alone somewhere and
someone passes, he will be instinctively drawn
to look at you. And you also. No matter how
small the glance, but the reflex is there. Why?
Why are they simply not passed like the
passing scenery, ignored like a pebble on the
road? what is there is other people that
naturally call to our consciousness?
Something. We have that kind of curiosity and
the feeling of discovering something new in
every individual we encounter. I guess it's
because life is so vibrant in people that it calls
to our attention.. Life is also about the sounds
around. From your immediate surroundings,
and from far away, if you pay attention, you
will hear what Life has to tell you at the
moment. It's like a song. A never ending
symphony; for a single moment stop and
listen; the birds chirp, suddenly dogs are
barking, and then voices from far out on the
road, a bike's engine, the wind suddenly
rustles the leaves and trees, some laughs from
the neighbors' house, children, the clock. As
you listen to the music life is playing to you, all
you can do is enjoy and feel. Life is also
whatever you see, from the border of your
eyes to however far your sight can reach at
every moment. You know there is this and that
behind your back, in the next room, below the

table, but for the moment all you can see is

just in front of you, out of your eye sockets and
to a certain angle. This is the experience of the
now and here. If you pay attention to it, this is
what really is existing outside of you. The
other things, behind, under, etc you can
merely imagine them. But what's in front of
you is actually coming through your eyes and
you are directly experiencing it. This is
something which give a feeling much much
more complete than mere imagination, and if
you are able to pay attention, with no burden
of images and thoughts on your mind, you
grab what's in front of your eyes fully, you
experience once again life as it is. What life is
offering to you through your eyes.
Basically, all our senses are a way of
experiencing life around us. Life as an entity of
its own. With your fingers, your sense of touch,
you can get a grasp of what life is. Look at
your palm closely, touch your index with your
thumb and run it lightly up and down a few
millimeters. And just feel what is happening
between the skin of the two fingers and
become conscious of the feeling as it goes up
to your brain. What this action is as you look at
it, and what it is creating up there; that is the
feeling that you get. The mere act of being
aware and 'seeing' what is happening makes
you become aware of life. How it moves, even

in the form of information going through nerve

circuits.
As to the sense of taste, watch Ratatouille the
movie. It illustrates pretty well how life can
explode into colors, and merge, and twirl and
make you feel every little flavor from what you
eat as it goes up to your brain.
So, life. As you come to experience it without
taking it lightly, ignoring it, or just missing it
because you're lost in illusions of what is there
around you, you will feel a great sense of
respect from the heart, love and veneration to
whatever contains life. And you will soon
discover it's there all around, in everything and
inside of us. As you start to respect life and
see it truly as it is around, you naturally start
to act by being mindful about it. You won't
harm, you'll be happy about small things
happening around you, you'll feel true love for
people, plants, animals. You'll acknowledge the
greatness of the sun and the elements. And
you won't do anything that will cause
disruption to people's feelings, to the
environment, to what you feel. You won't
pollute, you won't destroy your body, you
won't take what is not yours because you'll be
so grateful for what you already have, you
won't cause bad feelings in yourself and
around you through absurd and silly acts,
you'll listen to your heart and you will actually

hear it. You will just know what is the right

thing to do at every moment, because the
right thing is the thing that keeps in mind
respect for life and brings joy. The illusions
about accepted, constructed ethics, right and
wrong, will all simply crumble down. And once
again we will know and feel the way we used
to as children, naturally the right will make us
happy and wrong will make us grief.