RELIGION AND MORALITY

There is no direct connection between religion and morality, provided that as religion one understands the mystics, the cosmic experience of the Infinite Reality.

Indirectly, morality is benefited by religion, for religion, develops best in an environment of acceptable moral conduct. 

Religion, the “first and greatest of all commandments” refers directly to God; morality, the “second commandment,” similar, but not equal, refers to the relationships with our fellow humans.

The religious man lives inebriated of God, enjoys God, feel one with God, is diluted in an ocean of Love and Beatitude, with all his soul, heart, mind and all his forces, consequently, his ethical values affirmed himself in this religiosity.

The moral attitude of everyday life can be practised independently of any identification with churches, and in this irreligious state, ethics always seems to be difficult and sacrificial: for this reason, many men seek to be ethical for vanity and ostentation, by the ego or by the unconscious need to find a substitute and comfort for their lack of religion; almost always, atheism comes adorned with philanthropy; charity seeks to fill the voids of Love by repressing with perfumed painkillers the symptoms of an evil whose deep roots continue to exist...

After going through the mystical experience, man remains ethical, but his ethics lost the moral brilliance of this compulsory practice; this man is no longer ethical by virtue, by the categorical imperative of conscience, but as the spontaneous overflow of his experience with God. He does not love his fellow man as himself because he sees this as a moral obligation, an ethical precept, but simply because his divine love casts its vibrations on all of Nature and anywhere in the Universe...

This man performs good deeds because he is good, and he cannot fail in doing good, because his good-being is his intimate nature, which he finally discovered. His distinctive ethical character among men is not incompatible with his mystical identity with the Great Whole of Divinity, because he sees all parts in that Whole. Solitary in God, he cannot help being in solidarity with all the creatures of God, for he sees the God of the world in the world of God.

The horizontal human ethics tries to discipline man in society - but the vertical mystical experience makes man inexplicably happy, and his benevolence and human beneficence is nothing but the impetuous overflowing of his deep and anonymous happiness.

In ordinary human ethics, man only gives, and this is painful because it is synonymous with losing and impoverishing.

In divine mystique, man receives, and therefore he can give without limits, because this giving, born of divine receiving is a profit that makes him rich.

In mystical donation, the soul conceives as if it were the spouse of the Infinite.

In ethical distribution, the soul gives birth as a mother amid many finite beings.

In mystical conception, the man receives lots from the vaults of the cosmic treasure.

In ethical distribution, the man gives some of his human ego.

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The moral concept, “concerns customs”, is the set of rules acquired through culture, education, tradition and everyday life, which guides human behaviour within society.

The rules defined by morality regulates the path humans act, and it is associated with the values and conventions established collectively by each culture or by each society, originated from the individual conscience, which distinguishes good from evil, or violence from acts of peace and harmony. In other words, it is the set of rules applied in daily life and used continuously by every citizen. These rules guide each individual, guiding their actions and judgments about what is moral or immoral, right or wrong, good or bad.

Moral principles such as honesty, goodness, respect, virtue, etc., determine the moral sense of each individual. They are universal values such as customs, rules, taboos and conventions established by each society and governing human conduct and healthy and harmonious relationships.

In the practical sense, the purpose of morality is to build the foundations which will guide the conduct of man, determining his character, altruism and virtues, and teaching the best way to act and behave in society.

One cannot understand the church as a religion; the church may eventually lead its follower to be religious. True religion is the mystical experience of the first commandment and the ethical experience of the second.

Sacrificial ethics is the result of suffering that man usually faces in the pursuit of his spiritual evolution, which can only happen if man abdicates from the harassment of his ego, without which there can be no evolution. Man is born free, but wherever he goes, he carries his shackles... imprisoned by the circumstances of his culture, his country, his manners and customs, his churches, his attachments, his concepts and his values. When the strong desire of the Self awakens in man, his comfort zone begins to receive the impacts of the tyrannical ego that resists and struggles to accommodate itself in its former state. Therefore, these handcuffs break only with the death of the ego... and that requires an immense sacrifice!