THE VETO POWER OF CONSCIENCE- CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

CONSCIENCE, YOUR INNER COMPASS- CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.-- Johann Kaspar Lavater 

34 years ago, in 1978, as a young Second Officer, I went for the movie Saturday Night Fever, in Lisbon with my Chief Officer.

After the movie, the Chief Officer commented tersely " What a bull shit movie-- we wasted our time!".

I told him " I expect this movie to be a hit with the western audiences. They wont know why they like this movie, but they will make it a hit".

I was proved right, for this movie became a mega hit.

Two months later , Chief Officer asked me , how I knew this movie would appeal to the western audiences.

I told him, there was a 20 second scene in this movie which was entirely HEART WARMING. But even after 3 decades when this movie is forgotten and no more reviews are written, I still do NOT expect a single review by any critic to put his finger on this "conscience episode ".

How right I am today - after 34 years.

Now, I want you to watch the video below-- and see how it warms your heart. And then you will understand what I meant in the movie Saturday Night Fever.

For the tube lights, who still have NOT got it--I provide the transcript below. By the war Christiano Ronaldo is the world's best paid soccer player.  He currently plays for Real Madrid with a buy out clause of 1000 million EUROS  in his contract. He has 51 million followers on face book.

Here is the transcript--

"I have to thank my old friend Albert Fantrau for my success.

We played together for the same team in the U-18 championship.When Sporting Lisbon's manager came to see us he said that : "Who score's more goals will come in our academy".

"We won that match 3-0.  I scored the first goal then Albert scored the second with a great header. But the third goal was impressive for all of us.  Albert was 1 on 1 against the goalkeeper , he skilled the goalkeeper and i was running in front of him.  

All he has to do was to score but he passed to me and i scored the third goal , so i went to the Sporting Lisbon academy.

After the match i met him and i said to him  Why ? .. he said that "You are better than me" ..

"Many journalists went to Albert's house and asked him if it was a true story. He said yes. He also said that his career as a player after the match ended and now is unemployed.

"But how did you build this house so great, you have a car? You seem like a rich man. You also keep your family .. From where did this come from? '

Albert more proudly replied: "It is by Ronaldo!

Yes , you got it right, the word is CONSCIENCE.

So in the movie Saturday Night Fever, we have starring John Travolta as Tony Manero.

Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance film directed by John Badham and starring John Travolta as Tony Manero,

Saturday Night Fever made disco ubiquitous in 1978. It became a fad .

Tony is an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discotheque as a form of escape from the daily grind.  While in the disco, Tony is the king. Every body adored him there for his spirited dancing skills . 

His care-free youth and weekend dancing help him to temporarily forget the reality of his life-- a dead end job, clashes with his unsupportive and squabbling parents, racial tensions in the local community, and his associations with a gang of macho friends.

Every Saturday after his work a in a Brooklyn paint store, Tony douses himself with Brut cologne, dons a floral bodyshirt, gabardine pants and platform shoes - and ritualistically prepares himself for "Saturday Night Fever."  at Odyssey, the local disco club.

One day there is a dance contest. Tony is expected to win with his partner Stephanie Mangano . Tony and Stephanie dance at the competition and end up winning first prize. 

However, Tony believes that a Puerto Rican couple performed better, and the judges' decision were biased towards him as a form of racism. 

 He hands over his trophy to the Puerto Rican couple, and walks off the discotheque.

This part of the movie runs through very fast and nobody even notices it-- but they all feel good when they walk out of the movie hall , despite so many depressing incidents after this dance contest.

Christianity with all its Inquisitions and materialism , has never really addressed the DHARMA of listening to that inner voice, which comes as a sudden spark of divinity. When you convert people from other religions with missionaries aggressively harvesting by shoving sops down hapless throats, conscience takes a back seat.

Fanaticism has never slept in Christianity , it has never been stopped by conscience nor has it ever pressed conscience into its service.

After you finish reading this post I want you to punch into Google search DIABOLICAL MINISTERING ANGEL- VADAKAYIL.

Nowadays you find the John Galt pledge being aggressively pursued on the Internet, with some Indian Hindu names too in the list.  I guess these are the ungrateful types who throw away their aged parents from their homes.  An man with conscience can never be ungrateful.

So, what is this pledge?

The John fu#kin' Galt Pledge--

"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

“I take this pledge as a personal Declaration of Independence.  As a sovereign individual, I assert the exclusive right to my life, my liberty and my property, as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. As government is properly instituted to protect my rights, I oppose, and declare as unconstitutional, all actions taken by government that violate the very rights it is charged with defending.  I support a return to the principle of individualism upon which this country was founded.  And rejecting any initiation of the use of force as being wholly inappropriate, I support a society based strictly upon voluntary association and free trade among its people”.

ATTABOYS! and ATTAGIRLS!!

Ayn Rand who wrote ATLAS SHRUGGED , who has John Galt as the capitalist hero, was a mistress of Rothschild.

Western culture shaped by Christianity and “our way of life “ culture , education and custom has promoted selfishness rather than fellow-feeling. Christian shallow view of conscience is  'God gave us our conscience so we would know when we break His Law; the guilt we feel when we do something wrong tells us that we need to repent.'

Yes and then you have to run to a priest to confess, who will now sink his hooks on you, after making your feel more guilty — and only he can save you now. When you have a bigot with a curved staff holding a hot line between you and your god, then I suggest you must fear virtue more than vice. Because the, its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

The right of conscience does not allow a Christian or a Muslimto arbitrarily disagree with gospel teaching and claim that one is acting in accordance with conscience. Some Catholics and Muslims appeal to conscience in order to justify dissent. The Catholic Church and the Koran has warned that "rejection of the authority and gospel teaching...can be at the source of errors in judgment in moral conduct".  When Christianity and Islam says that theirs is the only true path which other religions have missed , what it is all about?

In Hinduism it is your conscience, which arose out of awakened consciousness which connects you to the greater metaphysical unity.  

In the literary traditions of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, conscience is the label given to attributes composing knowledge about virtues and vices but also good and evil, that a soul acquires from the completion of acts and consequent accretion of karma over many lifetimes. 

According to Adi Shankara in his Vivekachudamani morally right action (characterised as humbly and compassionately performing the primary duty of good to others without expectation of material or spiritual reward), helps "purify the heart" and provide mental tranquility but it alone does not give us "direct perception of the Reality". 

This knowledge requires discrimination between the eternal and non-eternal and eventually a realization in contemplation that the true self merges in a universe of pure consciousness. Hence, the awareness of vice and virtue is inherent in the soul, allowing it to be tested fairly in the life of this world and tried. 

This is a religion without fundamentals or lack of compulsions. You cannot get ex-communicated for NOT toeing the rigid line. You are allowed to use your conscience, which is fairly fluid. Gratitude is inherent and woven into Hinduism , which makes this religion noble. 

Divorce rate within Hindus is the lowest in the world. The sacred fire serves as a witness to the vows exchanged between the bride and the bridegroom. A true Hindu will not exploit vulnerability. This is why India has never attacked any other country in the past history, but has been invaded again and again and again.  

Hinduism does not allow you to breach a trust. Sanatana as “eternal moral order” encourages Hindus to seek  moral truth wherever it might be found, each individual must realize this truth through his or her own systematic effort.   Sanatana means " that which holds eternal Vedic knowledge"-- encompassing everything from microcosm to macrocosm. 

Dharma means " righteousness".  Dharma leads to eternal bliss, both in this world and the next. It is your sole and soul companion after death.  Human acts without conscience which creates conflict is called Adharma. Dharma leads you on the path of self realisation. Dharma includes adhara or regulation of daily life as per your conscience and written Vedic laws.

An idiot by the name of Charles Darwin thought that any animal endowed with well-marked social instincts would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as its intellectual powers approximated man's.

Enough of religion--now let me get to the nitty gritty.

You conscience is that spark of celestial fire. God resides in your DNA. Never do anything against conscience even if the state , your society or your religion demands it. You sin, if you go against your conscience.

A computer does NOT have a conscience. This is why Modern Economics which is hijacked by empirical formulas or Quadratic Equations , which can be tweaked to suit a selfish Central banker, has wreaked terrible damage to society.

Majority is NOT right here. A man of conscience does NOT jump into the bandwagon, rather he will stand a fight all alone, against the howling mob.

A government cannot have a conscience. Yes, they can have a policy book. How many Policy statements by the topmost MD or President allows you to exercise your conscience?

How many judges in a court of law exercise their conscience  or even  listen to the voice of conscience-- and these guys say they take care of  humanity and society, right? There can be no accuser as powerful as your own conscience.  Have you ever seen a lawyer with conscience?  

Nowadays successful hot-shot lawyers , who own Rolls Royce cars and yachts use " where does this manual say when to have breakfast?" type CHICANERY to sway the judge and jury, whose conscience is in hibernation, due to poor perception and consciousness.. Today if you engage a lawyer, the only thing which is 100% sure ( like death ) is the expense.

Do you see a doctor with conscience, now-a-days?  They are too busy making money at the expense of the patient. 

At sea as a leader I have given top priority to courage of convictions of my Junior Officers , and in my standing orders which overrides company policy, as Captain’s authority, I exhort them to use it. I assure them that they will NOT be dismissed from service if I am convinced of evoking natural law and natural justice. 

And mind you, sometimes this pisses of my bosses ashore—so who  cares? One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for written law.

There is indeed a higher court than courts of justice or courts of honour, and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.

Have you ever noticed that it is your conscience which tell you, enough is enough.  Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.

Reason , objective evidence , leave alone circumstantial evidence -- often makes mistakes, but conscience never does. 

What is the worth of all our music competitions where brute majority chooses the best singer—often based on narrow considerations like religion and mother tongue of the singer.

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Nobel peace prize winners striking and killing unarmed civilians with drones to preserve their way of life, talk about “this years fashion in conscience” in Presidential debates. And they go around with their work happily , with an audience clapping and cheering them on. What irony! Once your conscience, which is the window to your spirit,  is offended it shows on your face --as it is good bye tranquil mind. Such evil people mistake short memory for a clear conscience.

Conscience is your inner antenna.  Human dignity requires an upright conscience. Deep within his conscience every man discovers a celestial law which he has not laid upon himself,  even society or his upbringing -- which he must obey. It is his most secret core, and his sanctuary, where he is alone with God, to have a silent and short dialogue . 

To youngsters who are about to take up a career , I will tell them this—“Never take up a job in which you cannot apply your own conscience”  This is in case you want to happy , when your work is a continuous festival of joy. Then you can have  a face without lines , like yours truly- at the age of 56. 

A comfortable house and wealth is a great source of happiness. It ranks only after good health which springs out of happiness anchored by good conscience.

Betrayal of trust and ingratitude is  common for men with no conscience.  A guilty conscience needs no accuser. There is pillow as hard as a guilty conscience.Conscience is what makes you behave well behind closed doors or when nobody is looking...

Numerous case studies of brain damage have shown that damage to areas of the brain (such as the anterior prefrontal cortex) results in the reduction or elimination of inhibitions, with a corresponding radical change in behaviour. When the damage occurs to adults, they may still be able to perform moral reasoning. 

Conscience an aspect of extended consciousness beyond survival-related dispositions . Conscience is a gift of crisis--- It tells you the right thing to do when you don't have time to figure it all out.  

Conscience thinks in a flash, in terms of metaphor, feelings, pictures, and the spatial whole and doesn't fit neatly into the cause-and-effect model. Your conscience will not force you to do things that are truly wrong for yourself or other people in contradiction with the laws of the universe. 

We cannot command our conscience to use it at will. It just surfaces spontaneously when certain circumstances are present—it suddenly appears as a feeling.  

Conscience extrapolates larger truths . Use it as a guide always, never ignore it.

We in India know the meaning of conscience -- in 4300 BC, when Lord Sri-Ram was sent away to the forest for 14 years in exile ( cheated in a dice game wager ) his step-brother Bharat , whose mother Kaikeyi did the foul spadework ,  kept Rama's shoes on the throne , till the exile period was over.  Prince Bharat ran to the forest to seek out King Sri Ram and apologize on behalf of his mother.

This is in contrast to the Mughal invaders, where brothers gouged each other eyes and killed their own fathers and sons to usurp the throne.

Grace and peace!

CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL
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