About Ethics & Morality

Q: Michael, a friend is seriously concerned about what she perceives as a lack of ethics in the teachings. If everything is choice and everyone is personally responsible for his own decisions, is there any way of applying this to society as a whole? And what is the difference between moral choices and ethical ones? I hope that I have phrased my question appropriately. I, too, have wondered about the teachings as applied to the larger world than just the individual.

MICHAEL: We appreciate your investigations and we will attend to the premise. There is a kind of pebble-thrown-into-the-pond analogy here. The individual makes a decision, then that decision affects the immediate environment, which in turn reaches beyond that little circle in its ripple effect. Nevertheless, at each point a decision is made, usually by an individual. Let it be said that even congresses, parliaments, diets, dumas, are composed of individuals. It may appear that these bodies of government propagate decisions as a whole, but this is not true. Each member decides, and incurs responsibility for that decision, with its concomitant karma or lack of it.

There is also the decision that has no obvious relation to the morality of the day. And be sure that there is always a morality of the day. Morals, unlike ethics, respond to the flavor of circumstances. What is ‘wrong’ yesterday may be seen as tolerable or even ‘right’ today. Envision the attitude toward divorce. Not so very long ago it was considered ‘immoral’ in your society to dissolve a union except for one or two overriding conditions. In this it is possible to see the fragility of moral precepts. Morality becomes ethics when qualifications are applied.

As for the ethics of individual behavior, this is a matter of how nearly toward his positive poles a fragment is leaning. Actions that are clearly negatively based are easy to identify. It is the other spectrum that has so much gray to contend with. Be aware of the seductiveness of the chief feature: It is for his/her own good that I do this. Or: I only take what is mine. Or: This may seem self-serving, but look at the outcome. Another way of saying: The end justifies the means.

Subtly supporting each of these excuses is the work of chief feature, attempting, and often succeeding, to offer up choices as clean and full of goodness which are in fact swathed in ego and self-indulgence. Chief feature is present to protect the personality, for no other reason. Personality is cemented to the physical plane, to the bondage of time and space. Whatever improves/anchors/binds/comforts false personality becomes the strength of chief feature. The making of choices that curtail the rule of chief feature threaten its strength/hold, diminishing false personality while supporting true personality.

Does this mean that all responsible choices must be difficult or unpleasant? That all ethical choices are burdensome? Not at all. But often they do, to some extent at least, need attention, the wariness of the awake fragment. Traditional creeds have paid tribute to the power of chief feature without altogether understanding its composition. They have called it ‘the devil’, or ‘sin’, or even ‘ego’. All of which confirms that chief feature has a negative composition. But like all qualities which embody the human existence, it also has a positive pole. Without this polarity there would be no energy; without the energy that is generated by the tension between the negative and positive poles, there is no progress in the work of the evolution of the soul. Denying the strength of chief feature disrupts this tension and little progress is made. Therefore acknowledging chief feature supplies the energy necessary for moving away from it.

It is always a possibility that fragments will fall into the habit of acknowledging the existence of chief feature by resorting to a figurative ‘washing of the hands’ when it comes to accepting, or more truthfully, rejecting, personal responsibility. This allows for the apparent dichotomy between ethical and moral behavior. A fragment’s contention that he/she is free of guilt in a particular situation has no meaning. Within the form of the teachings, what one says has no weight. Responsibility is created when an action is undertaken. Words have no place in this equation. Actions not only speak louder than words, but they efface them completely.

Statements such as: I cannot help it, that is my role/mode/attitude/chief feature, and you just have to understand that, are a result of attempting to side-step responsibility. And it does not work. Lifetimes may be spent in learning this lesson. Not one of you will reach the end of your cycle of lives without this lesson becoming virtually the core of your being.

Acknowledging one’s decisions as one’s own returns the balance of truth to the fragment. Only then can the journey toward agape continue. As long as there is rejection of this fundamental element within a fragment there is paralysis/obstruction/stagnation regarding the soul’s work.

It is common to hear fragments speak of What–is-right-for-me in justifying decisions. There is an element of truth in this statement. It is truly impossible for one to make a choice that is not ‘right’ for him. There must be, however, a perception of balance in the soul for this statement to have a positive outcome. Although all is choice, all choices being valid, outcomes are not all equally positive in a fragment’s life when measured by the yardstick of the physical plane. When the dust settles, a choice made in a particular situation may seem anything but positive to the chooser. The positive achievement of a set of lessons learned and the spiritual growth experienced may never be apparent to the fragment as long as it is incarnate in that body. The really positive outcome may only be understood in the between-lives settling up, and even then not wholly. More than one lifetime may be necessary for the absorption of certain lessons.

Here, then, we come to the real difference between moral decisions and ethical decisions. Moral decisions are inherently ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ according to laws/requirements/social usages of time and space. Ethical decisions transcend time and space, becoming a matter of karma if they are serious enough. It may be immoral to lie at one time, in one social environment (space), and moral at another time, in a different social environment. But unless the lie abrogates the choice of another, it has no ethical meaning. Taking a human life becomes a matter of ethics, however, not of morality. This deed may be necessary or inevitable according to human calculations, but it has repercussions beyond time and space and this action must be balanced at some point. It becomes a matter of karma.

Q: Michael, are ethics and karma the same?

Ethics and karma are joined in so far as there is a truth, karma, against which ethical decisions are measured. This can only be understood by those who can determine actions on the basis of their connection to truth. Those who are not yet awake will still look to the regulations and rules of others, e.g., priesthoods, society, governments, scriptures, to define ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ for them. They may believe that they are acting morally when they choose in accordance with these precepts, but in the end they may have to work out the karma incurred because the actions undertaken were unethical.

The further this planet evolves toward agape, the greater will be the understanding that decisions based on morality are less useful as behavioral guides than those based on ethics. Ethics accentuates the positive pole in every instance. Morality accentuates the negative pole in every instance. This becomes the signal to watch for when you are concerned by the apparent similarity between these two words. Ask: Which pole is this action tending towards? The answer will reassure you.

We do not suppose that every fragment will always choose a positive, ethical action. Not at all. All choices are valid. But for those who are concerned about their choices, we offer these guidelines.

Go in peace.