Conscious or Conscience

The difference between being conscious and having a conscience is what separates the few from the many who are just animals even if they appear to be humans. 

Every animal is conscious, meaning, they are aware of their existence, they are interactive, they can think and do things and function, as every human or animal does in their day to day life. 

The difference between a real human being and a human animal or any other animal, is having a conscience. Very few have conscience. 

For example, any animal will kill and eat any other animal, without thought. There's no conscience when a lion eats an antelope to think things like, he has a family or he is someone’s child. They just kill without thought because that is how nature rules them for survival. 

They're conscious enough to know how to hunt and kill, how to eat, how to survive, but without any thought about the effects beyond themselves. 

Most humans are animals in that same way, where they steal, cheat, lie, and do all sorts of other unconscionable things without any concern about who they hurt and how that affects anybody else. It does not always have to be that drastic. Simple lies or back stabbing, breaking promises, or any of the usual disappointments that happen when we get let down. 

When you are hurt by something someone did, you must always remember that they do not posses conscience, they are only conscious animals ruled by their animal instincts of self-preservation which negates the ability to think and behave in a way that gives the slightest concern to the effects of their actions. If they do realize how they hurt someone, they are very creative at inventing justifications to remove any regret or acceptance that they were wrong.

When something bad happens to you, most often, it did not happen to you because of any involvement or fault of your own, it was just you against a human animal without conscience, just like meeting a lion on the hunt for breakfast. Of course, if you do not possess conscience, then you probably have done something without thought that effected someone else, and like any animal being attacked, they defended themselves.  In those cases, yes, you were involved and that proves you did not possess a conscience at that time. 

The above statement is to clarify the fact that, if you do not develop a conscience, and are awake and aware of your actions, then yes, you may topple the first domino, but if you are aware of what you do, then you will either not be a cause to a chain of events that fall back on you, or you will be able to move out of the way before the tree falls on your head.

Now let us move forward in the work towards evolving from animal to more than ‘just human’. In order to become more than just human, meaning more than just the human animal who lacks conscience, one must put in deliberate effort to develop a conscience. That process begins with the acceptance that you are currently just an animal.

If you do not know where you are, you will never be able to find the right path or door to lead you out of the prison and find freedom.

You must become aware of the repercussions of your actions. It's not just about a thief or a murderer or someone who harms others for their own gain regardless of the crime, it's about yourself. 

This is where we're really going to with this article is that being only conscious means you may just want to be drunk, you don’t care what it does to your body and how being drunk makes you behave. Conscience means that you will be aware of your behaviour, not only how it affects others, but how it affects yourself, your own health, your future. 

Poor people tend to smoke, drink alcohol, and often do drugs, which takes a lot of money and makes them behave in a destructive manner. They say; “I need to have fun because my life is so stressful.” Why is their life stressful? Because they have no money and lots of debt. 

If they didn't waste their time and money, they would have the money to eliminate the stress and change the direction of their life. That’s the difference. Somebody with a conscience would think about making sacrifices instead of just following animal instincts in order to alter the course of their life. 

This is the same thing as cheating on your partner. You want the pleasure without thinking about the repercussions. The animal passion rules the decision. This is when there is consciousness but no conscience. I think that the difference is now clear.  

Using alcohol as an example because it is so common, I am sure everyone has seen or even experienced this in couples where one is drinking and getting drunk, and that is getting the other one very upset. Even if there's no violence or bad actions on the part of the one who's getting drunk, it hurts their partner. Because they will do embarrassing things, they will behave loudly or rudely, and they will embarrass their partner. 

Having a conscience would guide you to think, no, even if I like to drink, I must taper what I'm doing, because of how it affects my partner, and makes them feel. So, we must work towards developing conscience, and not just live conscious of our existence.

This is the work of our institute, to develop a conscience because that needs guidance, as a child will likely follow the examples of their parents and surroundings, which is usually filled with human animals void of conscience and miss the potential to be more than just an animal, all their  life thinking they are more than the reality of what they actually are. 

If you think you have a conscience, or any quality, but you do not, you will not work towards getting it because your mind thinks you already have it.  This is the reason people never change.

You cannot make anyone develop a conscience, only you can do that for yourself. Once you decide to do this, your life will change as you will be able to see trouble coming and avoid it, but more importantly, your past emotional wounds will be healed because you will have found the real cause of the events and will now live in a way that you will be proud of who you are, thus removing all guilt from your life, by replacing it with regret and remorse for your and only your actions, which are the qualities that guide you to be a better person, and by realizing you are in a world of animals, so you cannot expect things to be different.