Nomenus Speaks to the IRS; Questionnaire B p7-9 “Moral Code”
The wisdom of our inner consciousness, our visions, and our dreams directs our behavior in the external world. Through our Sacred Circles we gain insights into ourselves and our connections to the world around us. These insights are clues to living in Balance or harmony. Therefore, we seek to apply the principles and insights of our inner consciousness to our actions and behavior in the external world.
The tenets of our moral code are not commandments, but are affirmations of ways we want to relate to ourselves and the world around us, in accordance with our beliefs.
I. I know myself.
This moral affirmation is at the heart of our beliefs and practices. We believe it is natural for human beings to seek for the meaning of their lives. For some, this meaning is “God” or their “Higher Self.” By whatever name, we believe it is immanent within each of us, and is, therefore, to be found within. Self-knowledge is what permits us to live in Balance with ourselves, our fellow beings, and the world around us; we cannot live in Balance if we do not know ourselves. Furthermore, to fully appreciate the inexhaustible creativity of Nature, we must appreciate ourselves. That appreciation is partly expressed through the search for self-knowledge.
Also, when we are aware of our full identity, we realize our interconnectedness with all being. This awareness of our interconnectedness comes through self-discovery; without that awareness we cannot live in Balance, we do not appreciate the extent of our divinity, we cannot live in subject-SUBJECT consciousness, and we are ignorant of Nature. Our Sacred Circles facilitate self-understanding. Our chanting and trance-states permit our outer awareness to communicate with inner consciousness. When we return to outer levels of consciousness, we share our self-discoveries within the safety of the Circle.
Because we value self-knowledge, we respect the knowledge which is shared by the participants in Sacred Circles. Because we are aware of our interconnectedness, we know the self-knowledge of one is relevant to us all. And because the process of self-discovery often confronts us with aspects of ourselves which we would prefer to ignore or deny, the Circle participants function as spiritual midwives, birthing knowledge of ourselves which otherwise would be too difficult to bear.
But even outside Sacred Circles, at every moment, this affirmation is at work in our lives. Every experience, every person, and every thing can present an occasion of self-discovery. Our work is ourselves, always, and the goal of this work is self-knowledge, which must be achieved in order to live and love in Balance.
II. I live and love in Balance.
This is essentially the Golden Rule, but broadened beyond its mean and outmoded beginning. “Do unto others as you would be done by” is a narrow and too-selfish ethic, like “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But to live and love in Balance means to understand one’s self enough to know one’s interconnectedness with all the world. It means to know that by loving one’s neighbor, one loves one’s self; that by stealing from another, one steals from one’s self; that the right way to live is to be aware of the Balance (or interconnectedness) between self and not-self, life and death, matter and spirit, sacred and secular, singular and plural, conscious and unconscious. Behind the teaching, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” is this principle of the interconnectedness of all life, which we feel is more explicitly stated in “Live and Love in Balance.”
In the ritual of the Sacred Circle, we express this affirmation by sitting or standing in a circle. As points on the circle we all relate to a common center, through which we feel our commonalty. Also, our intertwined hands, sharing the warmths of our life spirits and connecting us in a circuit of universal energy, evokes for us an archetypal image of living and loving in Balance. In our daily lives, this affirmation guides our choices. We are very keen to our relationship with the earth, our Great Mother. We feel Her loss as our own when her resources are abused or her abundance contaminated. We believe in simple living, enriched by our imagination, for luxury depletes the earth, and demoralizes ourselves. Many of us have chosen a vegetarian diet because we feel personally the excesses of animal slaughter for food. In the products we consume or discard, in the crafts we engage in, in the energy we use, and in many other choices, we prefer to affect the earth lightly, to appreciate Her bounty, and to tender her with loving, caring stewardship.
To live and love out of Balance is contrary to the higher consciousness to which we aspire. To maintain our sense of Balance, we must be aware of the connections between our being, our food, our health, our community, and our inner voice. We lose this sense of Balance if we obscure or ignore these connections.
III. I live and love subject-to-SUBJECT.
Our spiritual work is to bring into human experience the next development in consciousness, enabling humankind to enter new dimensions of being. This is subject-SUBJECT consciousness. We must expand our experience from subjects thinking objectively to thinking and acting subject to SUBJECT, equal to equal, sharer to sharer, self to self. To think and relate in these ways, we must allow to other selves the wherewithal to fully develop as full selves, as full subjects.
Living and loving subject to SUBJECT deeply affects our love relationships. A couple coming together subject to SUBJECT are not two complementary halves forming a whole; instead, each supplements the other. Living subject to SUBJECT in our daily lives means eschewing attempts to manipulate others for our own narrow gain. To manipulate another in furtherance of one’s personal profit is to deny that other his or her right to develop according to the inner voice. To deny another this right to develop is contrary to our moral code. To make gains through subject-OBJECT manipulation is really counterproductive.
What is truly beneficial is the becoming- whole of each individual, which benefits all humankind. We apply Subject-SUBJECT as a principle to guide our own moral choices, asking in each situation, What are the interests of each party? Are they in balance with the common good (or out of balance, geared merely for personal gain)? Does this choice or action further the moral right of the individuals affected to become a whole beings (or does my choice preclude the choices and potentials of others)? Am I seeing others as SUBJECTS equal and independent of me, or have I made them into objects of my projections?
Edited by jphartsong on Apr 15, 2011 12:27 pm