Edward’s Diary Entry 71 – #Virtue 24. Chastity (Saucam) / What do do about vulgarity?

Foul thoughts, smuttiness, impropriety, indecency, immodesty, lack of consideration for others. 

Humans without much #SelfAwareness simply have to be vulgar. There’s not much choice. In a low state of consciousness (identification with current society’s ideas, concepts, ideologies and one’s own fictitious appraisals of one’s self-worth) there are a multitude, a crowd, a throng of conflicting thoughts and impulses, all very confused and common, which, you will notice, is exactly the etymology of “vulgus”, meaning the common people. 

Now “common people” are still “People”. Even if they are the greatest of so-called “sinners”, we are still all human beings and deserve our measure of respect. It is often not even our fault that we are indecent, smutty and lacking consideration and harbouring foul thoughts towards others. Were we educated in the Virtues? Were we given a set of values by example? Did we have good fathers and mothers, a good home? Did we have teachers who inspired us? Was our local habitat conducive to good behaviour and right thinking? Was our society enlightened, or at least somewhat illustrated? Well, there’s the answer then. We weren’t even given a chance. It is “society’s fault”, because we were never exposed to anything potentially sattwic, wise, cultured or virtuous. On the contrary, we grew up with TV violence, Gameboy killing, constricted local values, lack of respect, or even contempt for others, gender issues, racial issues and all the other examples of “me and mine first – the rest can go to h*ll”.

Vulgarity is the nature of the bulk of society. It becomes part of our personalities and this is the part that must be analysed, reviewed and overcome in later years. There’s no other way. It’s a cleaning operation (Saucam) that has to done, like Gandhi’s cleanliness being next to godliness (shown in the photo). We accidentally fall into a social milieu and have to fight against it to grow. Everyone has to do it today. When mankind finally finished ancient hero-worship (prehistory to around 550 BC), in which the common man was considered useful as a slave only, and the Christian and Humanist age began (with Socrates, Lao Tzu and Confucius), we were given a new message: everyone had worth, everyone has a soul, everyone can be saved, etc. and with this, we started becoming responsible for our own minds and souls. Before that, it was nowhere like today, and only kings, heroes and pharaohs were worth saving, not the common people. 

Now, in the New Age, the age of Synergy, we – as commoners – are asked to overcome societal vulgarity. We are asked to unite with the universe, not with the culture we were born into. We have been given responsibility – too much even – and we have no choice but to exercise it, however badly. If we don’t, Nature will take care of us by causing a fall in our current unsustainable civilisation where raping the Earth is no longer possible. That’s why a Virtue like #Chastity is required. Cleansing the mind is imperative, because it is the mind of man that has, along with all the good things, erroneously created a world of suffering, poverty, killing, craziness and absurdity. 

So, by all means learn from and enjoy your culture, but never swear by it. That’s simply vulgar. We overcome vulgarity by applying #Virtue 1, Purity of Heart, and #Virtue 7 Studiousness, #Virtue 11 Truthfulness, #Virtue 19 Sense of Shame in Doing Evil Actions, etc. Our #SelfAwareness is what makes us truly human, not our cultural identities.