The Principle and Moral/Ethical Standards
Development or Better Understanding of Standards
***Keep in mind that in loving enemies of conscience, we may engage unstable people. So apply this knowledge carefully in your relationships after much consideration.***
This article is listed as Argument 3 in the Index of Articles of this series. Links are included to supply details from previous and subsequent articles for a clear picture.
So far we have knowledge of how spiritual blindness works through the three types of appearances and how that forces us into democratic tolerance rather than allowing democratic agapé to flourish under the principle. Next, we need knowledge to contrast the principle with moral standards used in blindness. For we cannot use our different moral standards to coexist in tolerance of each other when one or more of them divide our national conscience (suneidesis)1 through a spiritual civil war of appearances.
The Current Reality - 2025 Midsummer
As to the ongoing starvation in Gaza, without judging either side, our struggle works on two fronts — the political one, where we must express our outrage, and the one in our hearts, where agapé never gives an inch. The two fronts are both struggles between the principle and moral standards working on the personal and national levels.
Two Diametrically Opposed Approaches to the Fight
To those who say they will destroy anyone who comes against their loved ones, we are witnessing it on the national level in Gaza. According to the inner appearances of moral standards and beliefs, it may seem justifiable on a personal level, but how does it look when a nation follows through on it? Israel is determined to destroy Hamas at any cost for coming against its citizens. There appears to be no capacity or will to reason outside this decision.
Those who say that they will do whatever it takes to defend their loved ones against anyone who comes against them are ready for agapé stronger than death to deal with dangerous people. For they know that while defending their loved ones, an individual or nation should never allow inner or outer appearances to deny them the will or capacity to reason, upheld best with agapé stronger than death.
When a nation loses will or reason, it means that the moral standard used by its majority or controlling minority not only causes them to lose reason but everyone with a different moral standard who does not use the principle. For all moral standards, when used to govern the suneidesis, with beliefs working behind them, cause loss of will and reason and, worse so, when the standards are pitted against each other.
For no matter how developed, moral standards cannot be adapted to all the complexities of life. And the more we use our own to argue against others’, the greater we reduce our reasoning to make ourselves believe we are addressing everything honestly. For we can never fully view them from others’ perspectives, given some measure of spiritual blindness on all sides. Although never uttered aloud, the default conclusion turns to the underlying belief used in always making ourselves more important than others. Might over right.
The principle, on the other hand, empowering us to address everything honestly, uses moral standards only as a guide, freeing us to always make others more important without ever being against ourselves. It is the life force in living democracy that increases reason and will.
With this in mind, those of us who are citizens or simply inhabitants of the United States should recognize our responsibility in Gaza. First, we should understand that the spiritual civil war raging right now in us is not between Democrats and Republicans, but over which governs our national suneidesis: moral standards or the principle. We should then understand how the moral standard or lack thereof we use to form our inner appearances — either blinds us or is permeated so that we can give Name all our agapé through each other according to the full principle.
If we permeate all appearances in our national suneidesis with the principle, we will understand the national spiritual war between Israel and Palestine and our responsibility. The inner appearances of their religious beliefs are raging against each other within their world suneidesis. And since we all share the same world suneidesis, our responsibility lies in establishing the principle in it, but first we need to do so in our national suneidesis.
The Republican’s moral standard is against abortion and gay rights while the Democrat and Independent’s standards are for them — with none of the parties using the principle to govern our national suneidesis. Presently, therefore, we lack the reasoning to fully address either of these issues honestly, along with the issue of Gaza. But the principle gives us the eyes of radiant purpose to reason through them all.
Therefore, we should at least agree to learn how to give Name all our agapé through our chosen neighbors — since we are not ready to learn the spiritual things necessary to do so through the least among us in any political party. As the agapé reasoning of our conscientious mind increases by focusing on Name in others, we discover the singularity between us individually in Word, between our political parties, between our nations, and between our worldviews. Spiritual blindness is ultimately the only enemy.
Development or Better Understanding of Moral Standards
Using the principle in the democracy of our suneidesis frees us from “giving force” to so-called evil appearances that can form there, such that deceptively empower two or more sides to clash in a civil, national or world spiritual war. But until freed, the measure of spiritual blindness on each side forms and thus sees the others’ evil appearance as some mythical substance, as though from a source other than Name, as though there were one in opposition to Name.
We simply twist the real force of Name’s agapé light into its jasper-piety form in our perception, deceiving ourselves in our inner appearances. Developing or better understanding our moral standards depends on stopping the process in ourselves and recognizing it, “evil appearance” in jasper-piety form, in national blindness so as to see through it.
Until we do, such false belief about inner and outer appearances results in giving individuals, nations and worldviews evil or negative force in our own suneidesis. No one else can give them force in us. It also applies to falsely attributing “good substance” to inner and outer appearances, a deception working in the same process since the essence of such substance is also agapé, spirit, not the lifeless matter behind appearances.2
Understood religiously or not, Word “cast out the [unclean] spirits with a word”3 means that the word of truth sets us free from false beliefs. Stop believing in the devil having power and we see that, symbolically or not, he is another blind angel,4 a blind conveyance that uses only jasper-piety light.
Further developing or continuing to better understand our moral standards depends on recognizing the false conveyance of evil and good substance in appearances, both used to blind us and prevent us from subjugating our standards to the principle.
With this knowledge of Word, use the word-symbol evil in our spiritual civil war to prevent it from becoming a physical civil war. Start with how pedophiles create “evil appearance” in our national suneidesis and seductive idols create “good appearance”. In opposite ways, the first by generating hate, the second by lust, they are both used to prevent us from giving Name all our agapé through those subject to them in our singularity.
With knowledge of the word-symbol evil, we can successfully practice the principle. Spiritual wars are won by one side restoring their agapé singularity vision first and reasoning from it.
Fully restore your agapé vision and words of Name by learning how to envision Word’s agapé light. Then, in conversation with political opponents, use righteous judgment to relate different moral/ethical standards to the principle. Recognize when someone does not know what they are doing and respect their suneidesis, for they are unable to see that all inappropriate judgment works from national blindness. With mature spiritual minds (phrén), see it coming in them, important members of our one family.
Not Knowing What They Do, the Spiritual Meaning
These words do not mean that people do not understand the physical actions they carry out. They mean they do not know that they carry them out against Name (Allah, God, Buddha, Vishnu, Life, whatever our beliefs). Name’s life is manifest in Word in everyone, so if we harm anyone, we do it against the life in Word. It works in every case and results in civil, national and world wars, spiritual and physical.
Did our relatives who killed Jews in the Holocaust or those who refused to let them enter their country when they tried to flee, know that they did it directly against Name? No. Then they did not know what they were doing. Still accountable, yes, but not for not knowing what they were doing once blind.
Does Israel know that every person hurt or killed in Gaza is done directly against God? No. Does Hamas know that every Jew killed is done directly against Allah? No. So when I say that neither of them knows what they are doing, along with Ukraine and Russia, I am praying for the light of Name in Word to enter their minds so they might see and know what they are doing and choose the principle.
The pain on all sides is too much for those whose suneidesis is awake but who are still learning how the word-symbol evil is at the center of killing throughout the world.
There are times, of course, when we are justified in killing to defend ourselves, as Word said that two swords were enough for twelve disciples, symbolizing a number for defense. But when spiritually blinded by appearances, all sides always believe that they alone have the justification to attack in the name of defending themselves.
Consider the story of Ali in Islam, when he was in battle and about to kill an enemy when he spit on Ali. He could not kill him because he would have had to do it out of hatred. There is no complete justification without unconditional love and forgiveness.5
We are all accountable for blinding ourselves sometime in the past — or forcing Name to blind us. And thus, we are all accountable for the hatred that is murder and the physical act if committed, but not for not knowing what we are doing in the present once blind.
For as knowledge of Word states, Name created evil, the evil known as spiritual blindness. He created it as punishment for our choosing to reject the principle of Word, choosing not to love anyone unconditionally — when Word already does so through us universally. More often than not though, we punish ourselves with appearances, seeing it as necessary blindness.
Seeing the great suffering in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza can drive us into madness if we work only from conditional love, only a part of Word’s agapé singularity. But Name, The Compassionate One, sees that and turns us away from the appearance of madness if we turn to Him. May we again know what we are doing and choose the light of Word’s agapé singularity in righteous judgment, particularly in the face of death writhing in our jasper civil and national wars.
Using righteous judgment between us makes it possible to work together to see through each other’s perspective and better understand each other’s moral standards. More to the point, it helps each group understand the “evil and good appearances” we used against ourselves and each other, preventing us from giving Name all our agapé through each other.
And this helps us further develop our own standards or continue to interpret them better to function seamlessly within our democratic suneidesis and democratic system if present in the world.
Together, we can bring the singularity of our political names of light into the forefront of life, of Word, to form a bridge of light for peace. After all, it was Word who established democracy under the light of agapé.
Word Established Democracy with the Principle
When two of Jesus’s followers asked him if they should bring harm upon those who would not follow him, he answered, “No.” This was a profound idea for the people of Israel, for Moses taught that anyone not willing to obey their leaders should be punished. Jesus was obviously not a governing leader, but this passage supports the truth that Name’s plan has always been for us to govern ourselves with the free will He gave us, with Himself our King of Enlightenment in Word.
Jesus was not against the teachings of Moses; he was simply establishing democracy for the rest of the world through the principle — if we would choose the principle over moral standards. The Greek and Roman democracies before Jesus and those after failed or will fail precisely because they did not or will not follow the principle. We are approaching that crossroad. Israel the nation was birthed as a religious nation, a theocracy, disallowing multiple moral standards. But it was still set up in preparation for democracy, with citizens chosen to govern or judge other citizens in the matters of life.
The Matters of Life
Life is agapé.
Thus, time is agapé and money is agapé.
Agapé is saved and spent, but hoarded agapé is no longer agapé.
Agapé is invested in ourselves and others with different standards, but agapé not shared is no longer agapé.
The governance of life upholds this.
Contributing to our spiritual civil war is the belief that the United States should be like Israel, investing all its agapé in one moral standard. This is not in accordance with Word telling his followers to spread the Gospel to all the nations of the world, bringing with it the seeds of democratic choice under the principle of agapé. Of course, non-democratic nations using the principle are closer to Name’s plan than democratic ones without the principle.
Consider this knowledge of Word written about Israel, referring to chosen citizens judging other citizens, indirectly referring to all of us as elohim.6
“[Observe] elohim [us] positioned in the Congregation of El [a singular word form in Hebrew for God]. In the midst of elohim, He [El] judges, [saying], ‘How long will you [elohim] judge unjustly and show the faces of the wicked [word-symbol wicked] partiality.’” Psalm 82:1-2
Democracy thrives on multiple moral standards working together in peace but cannot survive over time without the principle. Thus, Word introduced the principle of loving the least among us and then paved the way for democracy. The Gospel provides a choice that is best offered through the choices democracy makes possible — inviting citizens to learn about the principle to govern themselves under the Word (Christ or Truth) of Enlightenment.
Simply tolerating one another puts distance between us, where less interaction occurs, allowing moral standards to become self-centered for pleasure in disregard for others. In the process, we are unable to permeate the appearances we form of each other, leading to the abuse of choices that threatens democracy’s very existence as an architecture of high regard for all others, the spiritually blind and seeing.
Spiritual Civil War
The American Spiritual Civil War has been going on ever since the American Revolution 250 years ago. Presently, we are experiencing what may be the final spiritual battle of this era over our national suneidesis and its position in our world suneidesis (see The Fulfillment of Times next section). Whichever side adopts the principle first will ultimately win on both levels, leaving all others to continue wrestling Name on their own and not through them.
When all sides adopt it, all spiritual civil and national wars will cease to exist in the world, but when and at what cost? It all depends on how long it takes us to recognize and honor the natural order.
All political parties think that the fight is over different beliefs and moral standards or the lack thereof in the reign of wealth. The Spiritual Story of Democracy explains it as a conflict of visions, one disputing the natural order — equality makes slavery unnatural v. superiority makes slavery natural.
The Natural Order
The mature phrén-mind governs the immature phrén-mind out of agapé, making it superior by necessity since the latter is self-destructive and needs the former’s help. The mature phrén-mind is spiritual and thus seeks to establish equality when the nonspiritual phrén-mind adopts the principle and can take responsibility for itself. With spiritual maturity, we make each other more important without being against ourselves and maintain the infinite survival structure of the natural order.
Consider the natural order in perception of Sodom and Gomorrah. If we see these ancient cities as physical cities only, not as spiritual ones also, we picture them filled with people who were evil in substance rather than people who had immature spiritual minds, who could not govern themselves.
Such perception forces us to imagine outer appearances of these cities filled with an unholiness that, if touched, would defile us. Although part of the cleanliness ordinances in the law of Moses, this was intended to bring the people into the light, not keep them in such beliefs of unholiness and uncleanness. For Name’s agapé alone is the basis of holiness for the mature spiritual mind. Clean the inside of the cup and the outside of the cup is also clean.
Applying a vision of the natural order that uses superiority or even equality but without agapé, we never mature to understand the word-symbol evil and picture Name physically destroying evil Sodom and Gomorrah thousands of years ago. Such spiritual blindness today “sees” similar places and people as also needing to be physically destroyed. At best, it mitigates the symptoms of evil and good appearances without removing the disease of tolerance and hatred in governance. At worst, it massacres the innocent.
In our spiritual civil war, Sodom and Gomorrah are now word-symbols that work against the word-symbol democracy. They work through physical appearances but are clearly word-symbols; otherwise, why does knowledge of Word state that Jesus was crucified in a place, for one, “spiritually7 called Sodom” (Revelation 11:8)?
In the face of ancient Jerusalem’s own spiritual civil war, Word taught the principle and did not preach about moral standards, so why would he have done so in Sodom?
Placing his crucifixion in a spiritual place also teaches us that Word focuses on the principle everywhere. The spiritual battle was lost in Sodom and Gomorrah due to rejection of the principle and subsequent immature spiritual minds, beliefs and morals.
And it will be lost today if we do not choose the principle and develop mature spiritual minds to improve beliefs and morals inwardly and outwardly through agapé. Improving outward appearances alone, known as hypocrisy, is what makes spiritual blindness the great pariah, preying on the penurious spirit of the war dead. Fortunately though, it is only jasper light feasting on jasper light in spiritual wars.
Without the eyes of the principle, spiritual wars come down to this: each side looking at what it sees as the others’ immoral/unethical behavior and believing it is all willful. We cannot discern whether they consider it wrong also and want to stop but are enslaved, too proud to cry out or too humiliated by the other side’s dearth of pity.
But even if both sides are willfully immoral or do not see anything they do as immoral or unethical, neither side can see the other wrestling Name through them and on which level. Who would knowingly wrestle Name? Blindness by the three types of appearances prevents such discernment and keeps us from loving and forgiving each other — for resisting this loving omniscience holding us and all the universe in its hands.
In our blindness, we condemn each other while practicing the worst omission of not giving Name all our agapé through each other — as perceived enemies of our cause. We fail to do so by using our own moral/ethical standard as though it were the only one of importance or more important than the people inhabiting the world. In essence, we use it to destroy them instead of help them.
The absence of spiritual civil war is vision of our singularity as agapé names of light in Word and, as such, in the forefront of the mature phrén-minds of spirit perfected into one.8
The Fulfillment of Times
Just as we do not have to believe in Jesus to learn the principle, we do not have to believe in his predictions as prophecies to understand their meaning. Consider the fulfillment of the times of the nations, a prophecy/prediction he made concerning the time needed for all nations of the world to learn the principle. We are the fulfillment.9 Israel may well be the last nation to adopt it since it was founded as a theocracy and part of present-day Israel still hangs on to that.
To learn the value of the principle, all nations undergo spiritual civil war first between their moral standards and then to hopefully adopt the principle and become mature democracies or at least a people governed by the principle in their national suneidesis. May the United States be the first to adopt it, restoring awareness of the singularity of our different political names of light — at the new genesis following the fulfillment.
Judgment in the National and World Suneidesis
While teaching about the fulfillment of the times, Word spoke of the suffering that accompanies it — spiritual suffering in our suneidesis but carried out physically in part unless we do our part and learn how to really see each other in order to forgive. This is how Word explained we will be judged as individuals and as nations of the world. We cannot love the evil we form of people in our minds but can love the agapé light we see inside the darkness holding them captive.
Believers interpret the agapé light as the image God created of Himself before creating us male and female. Nonbelievers interpret this as the agapé light of Life piercing through our organic bodies of darkness. Either way, the oneness of our mind and suneidesis is restored if we use the agapé light in us to love it in everyone else.
Word uses the principle as the standard of doing good to “the least among us”, loving the enemies of our suneidesis. In doing so, we love and love with the source agapé light, Word, the architect and architecture of mature democracy. The reward is interpreted as heaven or a pristine suneidesis.
The Principle over Moral Standards
When using morals/ethics as the standard of our mind and suneidesis, we use them to judge the inner and outer appearances we form of others without seeing beyond them. We reward ourselves for keeping our own standard until it becomes an addiction that blinds us to the source agapé light in us and in those we judge. The house of knowledge cannot be built on a moral standard, and we, individuals and nations, each need this house to weather the storm of time bringing the fulfillment into our lives.
Moral/ethical standards are essential guidelines when the principle is the only absolute standard in our democratic suneidesis.
This is what Word meant when saying that he did not come to do away with the law, the moral standard of Israel, but to fulfill it — so that it could be used as a guideline under the principle.
However, it is only one guideline among many in the democracies of agapé — all displayed in the singularity of our light if we see them spiritually, along with the jasper-piety light signaling their misuse in blindness. For we must be able to permeate them all to be perfected into one and give Name all our agapé through each other individually, politically, nationally and globally, fulfilling the principle in our worldviews.
Suggested articles:
The Spiritual Story of Democracy
The Eyes of Democracy (Introduction and Index of Articles)
Suneidesis, pronounced soo-NAY-day-sis, is a Greek word that joins our natural awareness with our sense of conscience. Click on the link for a detailed explanation. It is central to this teaching. Using this foreign word regularly in discussions helps us get accustomed to experiencing something new and positive working in our awareness itself. When the word conscience is used, it will refer to the aspect of suneidesis that involves right and wrong, but this aspect cannot be separated from our co-conscientious awareness of all things.
If I understand that my awareness of something as simple as a cup includes co-conscientiousness, I do not allow myself to get blinded by the cup alone but know it as part of all creation at the hands of the Creator or the universe, depending on one’s beliefs. Spiritual maturity does this naturally.
For example, the spiritual essence of goodness is often attributed to female beauty, so much so that it takes a form of worship in many cultures. As a result, we are unable to love the glory of Life or God foremost in everyone — the glorious beauty of everyone’s spirit and light, from Life or God not us. By even acting like physical beauty, male or female, is the goodness of Life or God, we use the same process in seeing evil as having substance, allowing our agapé force to be twisted in us, deceiving us.
Real goodness is unconditional love and forgiveness for even the worst people, who unknowingly want to focus on real goodness but cannot free themselves from their body’s reaction to the appearance of surface beauty, including surface wealth, power and ego. But keeping our minds focused on the agapé essence of Name (Life or God depending on our beliefs) frees us. No judgment, only freedom. For Word states that those “who have passed from the death [of spiritual blindness] to the life [of spiritual vision] do not come into judgment.”
Matthew 8:16 reads: “They brought to him many being demonized and he cast out the [unclean] spirits with [a] word.” The idea of possessed in the common translation “being possessed by demons” does not exist in this Greek word. It means ‘being effected by a demon’, which points to the meaning of demon as being some thing or process from within, not possessed from without. Therefore, giving evil supposed substance is symbolized as the process of being demonized. Word cast out the spirit of deception with a word of understanding.
Including “[unclean]” before spirits in this verse is justified since that is how spirits are described when in a negative context. But rather than referring to an entity called demons or Satan, it refers to our spirit being unclean, or more precisely, our mind and suneidesis, as clearly explained in the Oneness of Mind and Suneidesis.
The one verse, Ephesians 2:2, appearing to state that the devil has power mistranslates exousia. Symbolic or not according to our beliefs, the devil is “the ruler of the authority (exousia) of the air”. Not the power of the air, a reference to “the breath of the spirit of life” in knowledge of Word and thus the power over life and death, held by Name in Word alone, the devil has the authority of the air, a reference to using the breath to form deceiving words, primarily false conveyance of Word.
When someone believes they love their enemies and knows what they are doing before harming someone, they at least believe that they are looking at Name in them. And they believe that they will do it from unconditional love and forgiveness and only in an honorable manner.
However, if Name looks back into their hearts and sees that they are doing it out of hatred or from anything less than unconditional love, Name will let them know that they do not know what they are doing and will offer them forgiveness and a chance to judge righteously. But if they had already rejected the chance, their hearts will remain in the darkness of spiritual warfare until they do.
Elohim is Hebrew for God, but it has a dual meaning, God the divine and gods as in sons of God. The distinction clearly uses elohim as gods in the sense of image, “made in the image of God (Elohim)”. Our image is one of reflection not source, in other words, we are elohim without any power whatsoever of our own. The Greek word for gods, from theos, carries the philosophical notion that we have some power of our own beyond what Elohim gives and takes away when we misuse it. Thus, since English carries this notion, elohim should never be translated gods, but just left untranslated.
Atheists can appreciate this by seeing the grand scheme of Life giving us life and taking it away, along with other qualities depending on how we use them. Life as a system is source, not its lives. Elohim can be used religiously or not. Spirituality takes into account both usages of this knowledge in its own field, independent of scientific knowledge.
Name (God or Life depending on our beliefs) oversees us in a democratic rule over ourselves, as the passage quoted in the main text indicates. For elohim does not refer only to leaders in this passage, since in Psalm 82:6, Name says, “I said, ‘You [are] elohim and sons of the Most High, all of you.’” Some interpret elohim to mean judges, but we are all in the image of Name, obviously. Elected or chosen elohim are just that, elected by all of us elohim or chosen by a few of us. The democracy that Word laid the path for treats all of us equally under the law but is based on agapé for our neighbor not just tolerance.
Democracy is not to be based on religion; it is self-rule based on agapé, respecting each other’s religious and nonreligious choices within laws for our collective well-being. Spirituality is the arm of knowledge discerned by the mind of our heart for the well-being of all life, while science is the arm of knowledge developed by our mind alone for the well-being of our bodies and all else that exists physically in the universe. Therefore, democracy — a word-symbol defined as governance of, by and for the people, the heart of the people — is held together first by knowledge of agapé as revealed in spirituality.
Spiritual things are often thought of symbolically when in reference to physical things. But we should remember that knowledge of Word teaches that what we need to learn is “taught by Spirit [Name] comparing spiritual with spiritual.” Comparing physical with physical is the necessary method of science, while comparing physical with spiritual is necessary for the basics of spirituality, in order to make the transition to spiritual to spiritual and hear the Spirit.
Knowledge of Word reveals that we permeate each other in a oneness that is in the oneness of Name and Word, and that Word is in our oneness and that Name is in Word (John 17:21 & 23). It is described as our being “perfected (or matured) into one”.
In Mark 8:22-26, Word healed a blind man once and he said that he saw people, adding, “I envision [them] as trees walking.” Then, Word healed him a second time, and “he looked through [our physical appearances] and was restored and looked in all [of us] with radiant purpose.” For he could then envision us being perfected into one.
The key to being healed and restored is stated in John 17:22. Word said to Name, “The glory which You have given me, I have given them, so that they may be one just as we [are] one.” Name is agapé (unconditional love), spirit and light. Word gave us the glory of Name’s agapé, spirit and light.
Without the glory of Name’s agapé for us, used to love the least among us also, we cannot bear the thought of being in the glory of each other’s spirit and light in oneness and, thus, always judge each other away to blind ourselves. But with the glory of Name’s agapé for us, we use the glory of each other’s spirit and light to give Name all our agapé through our oneness in Word, which includes the blind among us.
After foretelling that the Jews would be led captive into all nations, which started two-thousand-years ago, Word said that Jerusalem would be under the control of other nations until “the times of the nations is fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24) Control was returned to the Jews in 1948. Word added, “This generation will not pass until all things take place.” (21:32) When we are ready (see footnote #8), the Spirit of Name will teach us what this means, comparing spiritual with spiritual.
George, love your point that real change comes when we move beyond moral standards and embrace agapé. That stuck with me today. Thanks for sharing. 🙏✨
in quiet strength and sound,
Afterforever ✨🎵
I love this George. It brings up for me when I finally learned all the aspects of a full and sincere apology. How helpful it could be if stopping war, and war reparations, could include what might have been done differently; how each side and the blind hatred has affected all others; calling in and naming the steps to different outcomes...