The Voice of Conscience – the Medium of the Soul

Conscience is the medium of communication of the soul. The more we heed the voice of conscience, the more we find ourselves. The more we ignore it, the more we lose ourselves.

“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within me. ”
~Mahatma Gandhi, Indian independence pacifist, author, 1869-1948

SOURCE: The Essential Gandhi

Accountability

Children are accountable to their parents.

Students are accountable to their teachers

Couples are accountable to each other.

Employees are accountable to their bosses.

All adults are accountable to the laws of the land.

Most children go through stages of doing something they’re not supposed to do, when parents and teachers aren’t looking.

Hopefully, by the time we’re married and with children, we’ve outgrown that natural human tendency.

But we all know that is rarely the case.  

Mature adults are first and foremost accountable to our conscience.

I lead myself astray every day.
I think I am my own worst enemy.
But that’s okay, lessons learned that way
Mistakes teach me how better to be.

Soulful Maturity is Not Chronology

No one is automatically and suddenly an adult in consciousness and morality at the stroke of midnight on one’s 21st birthday. 

We know that most college students still need guidance and are as — or more — prone to hazards once out on their own. They are now faced with temptations galore and with few apparent consequences, without the parental “guard rails” for staying safe.

It helps at university that students do still have to be accountable to professors, dorm managers and parents paying tuition.

We know that adults of all ages lie, cheat and worse. The news is filled with examples from all walks of life in all countries and all professions of adults who failed to be accountable to doing the right thing.

But the ultimate accountability partner is our own conscience. That nagging voice that nudges us and intrudes on our enjoyment of things we know we “shouldn’t, but…”

People who ignore that voice repeatedly, lose connection with it, making it easier for them to rationalize doing the wrong thing. That can be as mild as not doing the right thing… those nagging things we know we should do, or worse and down a treacherous slope to greater delusion, addictions and aberrant behaviors.

The more we make choices that go against our aspirations, the more excuses we need to make and stories we need to concoct to justify and rationalize our actions. Eventually, if we continue to ignore the voice of conscience, we lose connection with aspirations and settle for less.

Conscience is the medium of communication of the soul. The more we listen, the more it speaks to us. 

Right and Wrong

Research on babies and young children reveals that even babies have an innate sense of fairness, rightness and wrongness. 

We do too and the more we heed that voice of conscience the happier we will be. Conscience is our built in personal accountability partner, there to guide us. 

Ultimately, that is the voice we must answer to for no amount of external comfort or distractions can silence that voice of knowing forever.

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
~George Washington, Rules of Civility And Other Writings & Speeches

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

RELATED: Free Will

Conscience Music Video by Jacob Lee

You may enjoy this captivating music video.

“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.”
~Albert Einstein, physicist, Theory of Relativity, 1879-1955