There are two kinds of morality:

1. What the organization thinks is right and good behavior
2. What the individual thinks is right and good behavior

These can be at odds with each other. For example, a religious group might hold homosexuality as immoral. They think it is bad behavior and it should be punished. But some individuals might feel this is a valid expression of love and that any expression of love is good. Other individuals might feel it is none of their business, as long as it is not hurting anyone.

The idea of what is moral and what is not is fluid. You might disagree and say, “But we all know that hurting others and ourselves is a bad thing and therefore an immoral thing.” In organizations, such as armies, hurting and killing others is the right and moral thing to do. You are in the army and you have agreed to follow orders, regardless of your moral preferences. Everyone knows the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” but it’s morally OK to do so in war.

If you are part of a fundamentalist religious group that believes in persecuting those who don’t go along with their program, stoning someone in the marketplace is the moral thing to do. It is immoral to show your ankle if you are a woman in some cultures. And these moral standards change with time.

During the Victorian era, polite people dressed their piano legs with cloth to cover their indecent exposure. An individual may have laughed at such prudery at the time, but they were social outcasts if they made too much of an issue of it.
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Morality changes with the times and with different cultures. But some things stay the same. They are the spiritual values that are not subject to the whims of history, fashion, and the quest for power.

Consciousness is all around us, in every life form, including fetuses. Studies have shown that they are responsive to music, emotional states of the mother, and vocal intonations while in the womb. This consciousness continues to grow from within, in healthy fetuses. It is an increasing awareness of inner and outer states of being—such as who you are as a person.

But consciousness is not something like air. It is not external to anything. You cannot breath in particles of consciousness. And it doesn’t wait around until someone discovers it. It is something that stirs within you.

Different beings are at different levels of consciousness. Most exist at the survival level. Others go beyond and explore the vast reaches of expanded awareness, beyond sense perceptions. The are impelled by something within—consciousness’s own propulsion towards growth. Yet they still are not reaching outside the stillness of their own being to grasp at particles of consciousness waiting to be absorbed.

You will know immediately when you meet your twin flame. I have found that if people have to ask whether their partner is their soul mate or twin flame, they usually are not. Because when twin flames meet, it feels like a very familiar being from many past lives. And you just know, deep down inside, that this is you in another body. There is no question about it.

Some signs are: That you complete each others’ sentences. You think the same thoughts at the same time. You feel when the other is in trouble. You know that you don’t have to explain yourself to them. These are just a few indications. The rest are not describable in words. It is a mixture of feelings that involves comfort, goosebumps, and an exchange of love that feels like overwhelming light. Your soul has come home and is at rest with this person, is another feeling.
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Soul mates and twin flames are different levels of spiritual relationships. Soul mates are more common than twin flames. Yet both share the characteristic that you have crossed paths in different lives and you are brought together for the mutual growth and expansions of your souls.

Love and wisdom may not have the power to transform our world. But they give us the ability to cope with whatever life brings to us. For example all the love and wisdom in the world cannot stop a tsunami or an earthquake. But love and wisdom help us to deal with such events in a way that can transform our lives and those around us.

In an event such as a tsunami, in which you lose everything you’ve created and amassed during your life, wisdom helps you see that everything physical is unstable and perishable. It can take you closer to who you are as an eternal soul, whose existence does not depend on outer phenomena, and cannot be destroyed. This attitude brings deep inner peace, from which you can rebuild something even more amazing for your growth and fulfillment.

Coming from a position of love during a tsunami, you feel compassion for those around you and reach out to assist, bring comfort, offer solace. This can transform the lives of those impacted and give the courage to go on. The context of love brings a state of acceptance within yourself of what is, instead of fearful resistance to what is happening.
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And so, love and wisdom have the power to transform our inner world—no matter what is going on in the outer one. I don’t feel it is up to me to transform the world. But I can definitely work on my soul to increase my love and wisdom by doing three things:

1. Understand the devious patterns of my ego mind.
2. Take the time to delve into my soul through contemplation every day.
3. Make sure that I don’t contribute to the pain and suffering in this world.

First, let’s state the three rules.

• The Silver Rule is: Do not treat other people in the manner in which one would not want to be treated by them.
• The Golden Rule is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or, treat others the way you would like to be treated.
• The Platinum Rule is: "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them, not as you would have them do unto you."
  
  

For the first grader, I would say:

• Silver Rule: If you don’t like being hurt, don’t hurt other kids. If you don’t like somebody taking away your toys, don’t take theirs. If you don’t like kids calling you names, don’t call them names. Then everyone will be happy.
• Golden Rule: Think about what makes you feel nice and happy. Then, do what makes you feel good for other kids. If you want kids to be nice to you, be nice to them too. It will make you both feel happy and you can’t go wrong.
• Platinum Rule: Think about what would make another kid happy and then do it. It feels so much better than just thinking about yourself, you’ll see! You might like Legos but she might like Barbie dolls. Get her the Barbie for her birthday instead of the Legos.
  
  

For the college freshman, I would say:

• Silver Rule: When you are at a decision point about how to proceed in a social situation, don’t do anything that you wouldn’t like to be done to you. Regardless of the peer pressure, if you know you wouldn’t like it, don’t do it to anyone else.
  
  
• Golden Rule: Reflect on how good you feel within yourself when people treat you fairly and with compassion. Discover what makes you happy. Then turn around and treat others the same way. You will never go wrong if you do this.
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• Platinum Rule: Not everyone wants to be treated the same way—even if it is the way you want to be treated. Show sensitivity by treating people how they want to be treated in a situation and take yourself out of the picture. After all, it is not about your preference, it’s about theirs.

For animals right and correct behavior is a matter of instinct. A bird’s behavior is always appropriate to other birds and to humans. It might be screeching loudly because it is threatened but other birds are not going to complain about its raucous exclamations. They won’t determine that the bird should be softer, less aggressive; judge and condemn him or her.

Humans may complain but they, too, won’t judge the bird for being inappropriate. It’s a bird being a bird. Birds do all kinds of things, such as dirty up one’s newly washed car as they fly by. Yet it is appropriate for the bird to behave in that way.

But when we get to human society, we have all kinds of behavior codes that enable us to get along with our particular society. They may not be based on whims and opinions but they are based on consensus, regardless on how that is reached. Sometimes it is by who is the strongest and carries the biggest stick. Other times it is because it is truly more convenient for all. Someone screaming all night long is not appropriate because it is waking everyone up in the vicinity, destroying everyone’s natural right to a good night’s sleep.

Buying a child bride with livestock is one example of behavior that is encouraged and highly regarded in some societies. In others, it is considered child abuse and totally bad behavior. It all depends on how we were conditioned as children to fit into our society and gain its love and support. We are powerless as children to change any of this and will be punished if we try. These rules were made by people bigger than us.

Even the smallest and most basic behavioral patterns, such as sneezing is determined by our immediate society and how we are brought up by those around us. To fit into certain echelons of society, a person should sneeze softly or inaudibly into a tissue. Others sneeze percussively into the open air, because that is all they saw when they were growing up. From a public health point of view the former is better. But from a behavioral point of view the latter is more acceptable in that person’s social sphere. They would seem ridiculous, daintily sneezing into a tissue, especially if that society does not have access to them.

So, though not necessarily based on whim and subjectivity, correct behavior is based on agreements we make to be part of our society. If we don’t follow these codes, we will be ostracized, punished, shamed, scoffed at, imprisoned, committed to an institution, or even killed. These are pretty good reasons for why many hideous behavior patterns, such as genocide, inquisitions, suppression of women, and war have persisted throughout the history of humans. And they are also good reasons for why people behave within certain norms.

Our parents, teachers, and peers, teach us what constitutes correct behavior. This can also be a good thing. We need to know how to behave in public so as not to infringe on others’ rights to be left alone and in peace. If I am on a crowded subway car and someone gropes me, this is not acceptable behavior. He has not been able to control his impulses. We are taught in this society that it is not ever good to “reach out and touch someone” that you don’t know and and has not invited you to do so.
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As in so many structures in life, our behavioral codes serve human society at large. They have evolved to make sure a culture is on the same page. This can be both good and bad insofar as how much pain and suffering they bring or how much order and peaceful co-existence results.

If you have a salad and only put oil on it, it tastes flat and bland. If you only put vinegar on it, it is too sharp and sour. But if you blend the two, you have the base of a very tasty dressing the complements the greens and other ingredients. So it is with science and spirituality. They are best when blended together.

Science alone, with its physical approach to studying what can be seen and measured with instruments, is cold comfort on a dark and stormy night of the soul. It might tell us a lot about our physical reality but cannot still find the means to know all about our brains, our emotions, and our search for meaning.

Spirituality alone, without science, might go too far off into la-la-land. We might be too preoccupied with the non-physical to remember to eat or maintain the body in the most minimal ways. We might think we can defy the laws of gravity by trying to fly off a roof or walk on water.

But if we blend them together, we have something satisfying, comforting, and flavorful. Science can corroborate the statements of the mystics through quantum physics and brain wave measurement. Spirituality can strengthen the awe and wonder of scientists as they explore how beautifully-put-together the entire universe is: Manifested or un-manifested.

This is not the same for soap and water. Unless it is liquid soap, a block of soap’s magical cleaning properties are dormant until they are unlocked by water. A hard block of soap without water has no cleaning power at all.

On the other hand, water is a solvent and can clean objects, by itself and a little elbow-grease. But water’s ability to clean is enhanced by the presence of soap. I would rather have my clothes cleaned with both soap and water for maximum effect.

Science does not unlock the potential of spirituality the way water does with soap. It is not even concerned with spirituality. If you can’t prove it in a lab, it doesn’t exist for science.
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Spirituality could possibly enhance the findings of science, but only peripherally. The calm spirit of the scientist, as he connects with the creative forces of the universe, can help him or her solve problems that seemed insurmountable and open up new pathways to discovery.

A person who is an unbeliever may be more moral than one who does good only because God is watching them and they may be punished for their actions.

If a person behaves honorably and fairly towards others because he is afraid God will strike him with lightning or send him to hell if he doesn’t, he is motivated by selfishness. He is trying to save his own skin and if helping others will do that for him, then he will help others.

If a person behaves kindly and decently towards others because that makes him feel better, regardless of whether God is watching or not, it still is based on selfish motives: It makes him feel better.

But if a person acts with compassion and wisdom towards others because he knows this is the path to a better world for all, regardless of any God of any religion watching, he is more fundamentally moral. His morality is based on the his logical deductions. The greatest good for the greatest number works for him because anything else leads to disaster. He is not trying to save his skin from some sort of future hellish state or promote himself into some future heaven.
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When someone does the right thing regardless of who is looking over his shoulder, that kind of morality has more intrinsic value than morality that is compelled through fear or obedience. Knowing why he does’t abuse a child or a helpless animal has more moral value than refraining from such abuse because it could lead to future punishment.

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We are Universal creative energy housed in a physical structure, our bodies. This physical structure is itself a manifestation of Universal creative energy. Within this body is a mind, which most people confuse with who they are. This mind is an instrument that enables us to perform tasks and survive in the external physical environment.

Yet we are not this mental appendage that allowed the organism to rise to the top of the food chain. This mind continues to fret, fear, worry, be anxious about the future, unhappy about the present, and depressed about the past. At one time, it actually helped us to survive in a dangerous and hostile environment.

Now we don’t need this part of us—just as we no longer need our appendices or tonsils. Yet it persists and blinds us to the inner being that is really who we are. It is outer directed—always scanning for what is wrong or could go wrong. It wants more and is never satisfied. It is always trying to prove it’s right and strengthen itself in its unhappy course.
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The soul is inner directed, finding the fundamental peace that lies at the heart of the infinite Universe. It can let people and things be who and what they are without making everything into a problem. Its roots are joy and well-being and it does not comprehend suffering.

Laboratory science proves physical phenomena through the use of physical phenomena. It shows us that what looks like a clear drop of water contains many wiggly micro-organisms. They are little physical entities that we cannot see with the naked eye. Scientists use a microscope to do this, which is another physical object.

The microscope has its limitations. And when you get into the scanning electron microscopes for examining the nature of the atom, you find that their beams of electrons interact with the atoms being observed, impacting the nature of the atom itself. And it must focus on an object, not the empty space that surrounds each component of the atom.

But the soul is not physical. It cannot be measured or timed or dissected or even observed. It is felt. Therein lies the limitation of Science when it comes to proving what is real but intangible.

Scientists may be able to observe areas of the brain that “light up” when people are in deep meditative states of bliss. They may be able to record the Alpha waves of a spiritual master. But they will never be able to grasp the soul. They do not have the correct instruments for this and never will.
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And yet, quantum physics is bringing us closer to the realization that the forces that govern the entire Universe are unseen and lie outside all the physical senses. In that sense, Science will eventually accept the existence of the Soul but will not be able to prove it.