(read time: 4 minutes)
A family member recently attempted to involve me in a scheme that would allow us both to save some money. Unfortunately, I had to point out that what they were proposing was causing my internal moral compass to point far enough south that I could not support it. Their defense was full of justifications I’m sure you’ve heard, and maybe even thought, yourself. “That company makes plenty of money off of us, and I need it more than they do.” “Everyone else makes this move, why shouldn’t we?”
Why shouldn’t we? Because we understand how the world works.
In a previous blog post entitled, “One Over Ego,” I talked about how egoic self-absorption directly causes suffering. Here’s the short version: more ego, which leads to more self-absorption, which leads to more demands on the world, which leads to more suffering when those demands aren’t met. When we act against our moral and ethical principles, it can only be because we are acting out of self-concern – concern for the self that is obviously in excess of our concern for those on the receiving end of our unethical speech and action. It’s that excessive self-concern that will be the internal causal factor for our future suffering. Thus, put simply, if not bluntly, you cannot do harm in the world and expect happiness to result, and it’s foolish to believe otherwise. Ethical behavior is how we take control of the system and force it to produce the outcomes we desire the most: peace and happiness.
This all relates closely to the Eastern conceptualization of karma, which is quite a bit more complicated than the pop psychology understanding would suggest. For now, all we need to know is that karma is not some magical universal force that gets back at you when you’re bad, it’s your mind that gets back at itself. The problem with karma is that the cause and effect become separated in time and space – the consequences of unethical behavior occur in the distant future in some other distant place – so our minds lose the connection between cause and effect. If karma were instantaneous, we’d all clean our act up immediately.
Each of us has a well-functioning internal moral compass. Some people’s self-absorption and associated suffering are causing them to ignore their compass, but that’s not a problem with the compass. The issue is that, just like the situation with my family member, there are costs associated with being an ethical person, and not just financial ones. Sometimes we feel like we can’t afford to bear those costs, so we justify acting against our compass. The thing is, if the world works the way the wise masters are suggesting it does, we can’t afford not to.
