Spiritual Conscience

n the spiritual experience, we discover something very important. We find that who and what we are cannot be limited to a particular group of events that have historical points of reference. Indeed, we come face-to-face with the fact that who and what we are cannot be confined by the movement of time. In that experience we know without any doubt that we are not separate from the whole, and it is that discovery that can liberate us from believing ourselves to be an isolated, self-contained entity. Not only can we find personal liberation in that experience, but we also may find something else that is far more significant, which is a profound sense of responsibility for the whole. This sense of responsibility for the whole that can be awakened through the spiritual experience is what I call spiritual conscience. When this conscience has been found, we will finally be able to see clearly the obvious relationship that has always existed between self and other, self and world. And it is because of this that we will begin to see for ourselves unequivocally that our own actions as a human being have countless effects that spread out in all directions. When we discover the spiritual conscience, we will find to our amazement that we are able to perceive the terrifying delicacy of what it means to be a human being who is awake. To be awake means that we are no longer hiding from the unavoidable fact of interrelatedness. If we are truly awake, our actions will express the fact that we are taking into consideration the consequences of the choices we are making in a way that demonstrates that the boundaries of the personal have been destroyed forever. Spiritual experience is meaningless unless in that experience a sense of responsibility that transcends the boundaries of the personal has been discovered. In fact, what makes the spiritual experience truly significant is not only that this conscience has been found; what alone gives it value is the degree of courage we have to respond to that which it reveals to us. That which it reveals to us is always overwhelming in its implications. But if we are able to respond wholeheartedly and without reservation, not only will we discover our own Liberation as a result, but to our surprise we will also find that the whole world has been saved.